Chapter 22

He admitted he didn't know too much about the cow business, but said he was willing to learn; so I put him on the payroll. We found he was willing to try anything that looked easy; for instance, like setting on colts for the first time. The first morning he went to work it was rainy, with the ground pretty wet, and he was out to the corral watching Sandy Sawtelle break a colt. That's the best time to handle colts that has never been set on. They start to act up and pour someone out of the saddle; then they slip and slide, helpless, and get the idea a regler demon of a rider is up there, and give in. So the boys give Herman a fussy two-year-old, and Herman got away with it not so bad.

Of course he was set off a few times, but not hard; and the colt, slicking over this wet ground, must of thought another star rider had come to town. Two days later, though, when the ground was dry, Herman got on the same wild animal again, and it wasn't there when he come down from his first trip aloft. It traded ends with him neatly and was off in a corner saying. "Well, looks like that German ain't such a dandy rider after all! I couldn't pull that old one with him yesterday, but I certainly done it good to-day."

I wasn't near enough to hear what Herman said when he picked himself up; but I'm a good lip reader since I been going to these moving pictures, and I'm way mistaken if he hadn't learned two or three good things in English to call a horse at certain times.

He walked for several days with trench feet, and his morale was low indeed. He was just that simple. He'd try things that sane punchers wouldn't go looking for, if sober; in fact, he was so simple you might call him simple-minded and not get took up for malicious slander.

So it come to where we seen he wasn't good for anything on this ranch but chore boy. And naturally we needed a chore boy, like we needed everything else. He could get up wood, and feed the pigs we was fattening, and milk the three dairy cows, and make butter, and help in the kitchen. But as for being a cow hand, he wasn't even the first joint on your little finger. He was willing, but his Maker had stopped right at that point with him. And he had a right happy time being chore boy.

Of course the boys kidded him a lot after they found out he could positively not be enraged by the foulest aspersions on the character of the Kaiser and his oldest son. They seen he was just an innocent dreamer, mooning round the place at his humble tasks. They spent a lot of good time thinking up things for him.

He'd brought a German shotgun with silver trimmings with him, which he called a fowling piece, and he wanted to hunt in his few leisure moments; so the boys told him all the kinds of game that run wild on the place.

There was the cross-feathered snee, I remember, which was said by the bird books to be really the same as the sidehill mooney. It has one leg shorter than the other and can be captured by hand if driven to level ground, where it falls over on its side in a foolish manner when it tries to run. Herman looked forward to having one of these that he could stuff and send to his uncle in Cincinnati, who wrote that he had never seen such a bird.

Also, he spent a lot of time down on the crick flat looking for a mu, which is the same as a sneeze-duck, except for the parallel stripes. It has but one foot webbed; so it swims in a circle and can be easy shot by the sportsman, who first baits it with snuff that it will go miles to get. Another wild beast they had him hunting was the filo, which is like the ruffle snake, except that it has a thing like a table leg in its ear. It gets up on a hill and peeks over at you, but will never come in to lunch. The boys said they nearly had one over on Grizzly Peak one time, but it swallowed its tail and become invisible to the human eye, though they could still hear its low note of pleading. Also, they had Herman looking for a mated couple of the spinach bug for which the Smithsonian Institution had offered a reward of five hundred dollars, cash.

Herman fell for it all--all this old stuff that I had kicked the slats out of my trundle-bed laughing at. And in between exciting adventures with his fowling piece he'd write himself some pieces of poetry in a notebook, all about the cows and the clouds and other natural objects. He would also recite poetry written by other Germans, if let. And at night he'd play on a native instrument shaped like a potato, by blowing into one cavity and stopping up other cavities to make the notes. It would be slow music and make you think of the quiet old churchyard where your troubles would be o'er; and why not get there as soon as possible? Sad music!

So Herman was looked on as a harmless imbecile by one and all till Eloise Plummer come over to help in the kitchen while the haying crew was here last summer. And Eloise looked on him as something else. She looked on Herman as one of them that make it unsafe for girls to leave home. She had good reason to.

Eloise is in the prime of young womanhood; but this is just exactly as fur as any fair-minded judge would go to say of her as a spectacle. Her warmest adherents couldn't hardly get any warmer than that if put under oath. She has a heart of gold undoubtedly, but a large and powerful face that would belong rightly to the head director of a steel corporation that's worked his way up from the bottom.

It is not a face that has ever got Eloise pestered with odious attentions from the men. Instead of making 'em smirk and act rough, but playful, it made 'em think that life, after all, is more serious than most of us suspect in our idle moments. It certainly is a face to make men think. And inspiring this black mood in men had kind of reacted on Eloise till they couldn't quite see what they was ever intended for. It was natural.

I don't say the girl could of cooked all winter in a lumber camp and not been insulted a time or two; but it wasn't fur from that with her.

So you can imagine how bitter she was when this Herman nut tried to make up to her. Herman was a whirlwind wooer; I'll say that for him. He told her right off that she was beautiful as the morning star and tried to kiss her hand. None of these foolish preliminaries for Herman, like "Lovely weather we're having!" or "What's your favourite flower?"

Eloise was quick-natured, too. She put him out of the kitchen with a coal shovel, after which Herman told her through a crack of the door that she was a Lorelei.

Eloise, at first, misunderstood this term entirely, and wasn't much less insulted when she found it meant one of these German hussies that hang round creeks for no good purpose. Not that her attitude discouraged Herman any; he played under her window that night, and also sang a rich custard sort of tenor in his native tongue, till I had to threaten him with the bastile to get any sleep myself.

Next day he fetched her regal gifts, consisting of two polished abalone shells, a picture of the Crown Prince in a brass frame, and a polished-wood paper knife with Greetings from Reno! on it.

Eloise was now like an enraged goddess or something; and if Herman hadn't been a quick bender and light on his feet she wouldn't of missed him with his gifts. As it was, he ducked in time and went out to the spring house to write a poem on her beauty, which he later read to her in German through a kitchen window that was raised. The window was screened; so he read it all. Later he gets Sandy Sawtelle to tell her this poem is all about how coy she is. Every once in a while you could get an idea partway over on Herman. He was almost certain Eloise was coy.

By the end of that second day, after Herman threw kisses to her for ten minutes from on top of the woodshed, where he was safe, she telephoned her brother to come over here quick, if he had the soul of a man in his frame, and kill Herman like he would a mad dog.

But Eloise left the next morning, without waiting for anything suitable to be pulled off by her family. It was because, when she went to bed that night, she found a letter from Herman pinned to her pillow. It had a red heart on it, pierced by a dagger that was dropping red drops very sentimentally; and it said would she not hasten to take her vast beauty out in the moonlight, to walk with Herman under the quiet trees while the nightingale warbled and the snee, or sidehill mooney, called to its lovemate? And here, as they walked, they could plan their beautiful future together.

This was beyond Eloise even with a full battery of kitchen utensils at hand. She left before breakfast; and Herman had to come in and wash dishes.

The next excitement was Herman committing suicide, out in the woodshed, with a rope he'd took off a new packsaddle. Something interrupted him after he got the noose adjusted and was ready to step off the chopping block he stood on. I believe it was one more farewell note to the woman that sent him to his grave. Only he got interested in it and put in a lot more of his own poetry and run out of paper, and had to get more from the house; and he must of forgot what he went to the woodshed for because an hour after that he committed an entirely new suicide with his fowling piece.

Near as I could gather, he was all ready to pull the trigger, looking down into this here frowning muzzle before a mirror; and then something about his whiskers in the mirror must of caught his eye. Anyway, another work of self-destruction was off. So he come in and helped with lunch. Then he told me he'd like to take some time off, because he was going up to the deep pool to drown himself.

I said was he really bent on it? He said it was requisite, because away from this beautiful lady, who had torn his heart out and danced on it, he could not continue to live, even for one day. So I come down on Herman. I told him that, hard up as I was for help, I positively would not have a man on the place who was always knocking off work to kill himself. It et into his time, and also it took the attention of others who longed to see him do it.

I said I might stand for a suicide or two--say, once a month, on a quiet Sunday--but I couldn't stand this here German thoroughness that kept it up continual. At least, if he hoped to keep on drawing pay from me, he'd have to make way with himself in his own leisure moments and not on my time.

Herman says I don't know the depths of the human heart. I says I know what I pay him a month, and that's all I'm needing to know in this emergency. I thought, of course, he'd calm down and forget his nonsense; but not so. He moped and mooned, and muttered German poetry to himself for another day, without ever laying a violent hand on himself; but then he come and said it was no good. He says, however, he will no longer commit suicide at this place, where none have sympathy with him and many jeer. Instead, he will take his fowling piece to some far place in the great still mountains and there, at last, do the right thing by himself.

I felt quite snubbed, but my patience was wore out; so I give Herman the money that was coming to him, wished him every success in his undertaking, and let him go.

The boys scouted round quite a bit the next few days, listening for the shot and hoping to come on what was left; but they soon forgot it. Me? I knew one side of Herman by that time. I knew he would be the most careful boy in every suicide he committed. If I'd been a life-insurance company it wouldn't have counted against him so much as the coffee habit or going without rubbers.

And--sure enough--about two months later the dead one come to life. Herman rollicked in one night with news that he had wandered far into the hills till he found the fairest spot on earth; that quickly made him forget his great sorrow. His fairest spot was a half section of bad land a hopeful nester had took up back in the hills. It had a little two-by-four lake on it and a grove of spruce round the lake; and Herman had fell in love with it like with Eloise.

He'd stay with the nester, who was half dead with lonesomeness, so that even a German looked good to him, and wrote to his uncle in Cincinnati for money to buy the place. And now I'd better hurry over and see it, because it was Wagner's Sylvan Glen, with rowing, bathing, fishing, and basket parties welcome. Yes, sir! It goes to show you can't judge a German like you would a human.

I laughed at first; but no one ever got to Herman that way. He was firm and delighted. That Sylvan Glen was just the finest resort anywhere round! Why, if it was within five miles of Cincinnati or Munich it would be worth a million dollars! And so on. It done no good to tell him it was not within five miles of these towns and never would be. And it done less good to ask him where his customers was coming from, there not being a soul nearer him than twenty miles, and then only scattered ranchers that has got their own idea of a good time after the day's work is over, which positively is not riding off to anybody's glen, no matter how sylvan.

"The good people will come soon enough. You'll see!" says Herman. "They soon find out the only place for miles round where they can get a good pig's knuckle, or blood sausage and a glass Rhine wine--or maybe beer--after a hard day's work. I got a fine boat on the lake--they can row and push all round over the water; and I'm getting a house put up with vines on it, like a fairy palace, and little tables outside! You see! The people will come when they hear!"

That was Herman. He never stopped to ask where they was coming from. He'd make the place look like a Dutch beer garden and they'd just have to come from somewhere, because what German ever saw a beer garden that didn't have people coming to it? I reckoned up that Herman would have enough custom to make the place pay, the quick rate our country is growing, in about two hundred and forty-five or fifty years.

So that's Wagner's Sylvan Glen you seen advertised. It's there all right; and Herman is there, waiting for trade, with a card back of his little bar that says, in big letters: Keep Smiling! I bet if you dropped in this minute you'd find him in a black jacket and white apron, with a bill of fare wrote in purple ink. He thinks people will soon drop in from twenty miles off to get a cheese sandwich or a dill pickle, or something.

Two of the boys was over this last June when he had his grand opening. They was the only person there except a man from Surprise Valley that was looking for stock and got lost. Buck Devine says the place looked as swell as something you'd see round Chicago.

Herman has a scow on the pond, and a dozen little green tables outside under the spruce trees, with all the trees white-washed neatly round the bottoms, and white-washed stones along the driveway, and a rustic gate with Welcome to Wagner's Sylvan Glen! over it. And he's got some green tubs with young spruces planted in 'em, standing under the big spruces, and everything as neat as a pin.

Everyone thinks he's plumb crazy now, even if they didn't when he said Eloise Plummer was as beautiful as the morning star. But you can't tell. He's getting money every month from his uncle in Cincinnati to improve the place. He's sent the uncle a photo of it and it must look good back in Cincinnati, where you can't see the surrounding country.

Maybe Herman merely wants to lead a quiet life with the German poets, and has thought up something to make the uncle come through. On the other hand, mebbe he's a spy. Of course he's got a brain. He's either kidding the uncle, or else Wagner's Sylvan Glen now covers a concrete gun foundation.

In either case he's due for harsh words some day--either from the uncle when he finds there ain't any roadhouse patrons for twenty miles round, or from the German War Office when they find out there ain't even anything to shoot at.

The lady paused; then remarked that, even at a church sociable, Uncle Henry's idee of wine would probably make trouble to a police extent. Here it had made her talkative long after bedtime, and she hadn't yet found out just how few dollars stood between her and the poorhouse.

I allowed her to sort papers for a moment. As she scanned them under drawn brows beside a lamp that was dimming, she again rumbled into song. She now sang: "What fierce diseases wait around to hurry mortals home!" It is, musically, the crudest sort of thing. And it clashed with my mood; for I now wished to know how Herman had revealed Prussian guile by his manner of leaving Reno. Only after another verse of the hymn could I be told. It seems worth setting down here:

Well, Herman is working on a sheep ranch out of Reno, as I'm telling you, and has trouble with a fellow outcast named Manuel Romares. Herman was vague about what started the trouble, except that they didn't understand each other's talk very well and one of 'em thought the other was making fun of him. Anyway, it resulted in a brutal fist affray, greatly to Herman's surprise. He had supposed that no man, Mexican or otherwise, would dare to attack a German single-handed, because he would of heard all about Germans being invincible, that nation having licked two nations--Serbia and Belgium--at once.

So, not suspecting any such cowardly attack, Herman was took unprepared by Manuel Romares, who did a lot of things to him in the way of ruthless devastation. Furthermore, Herman was clear-minded enough to see that Manuel could do these things to him any time he wanted to. In that coarse kind of fighting with the fists he was Herman's superior. So Herman drawed off and planned a strategic coop.

First thing he done was to make a peace offer, at which the trouble should be discussed on a fair basis to both sides. Manuel not being one to nurse a grudge after he'd licked a man in jig time, and being of a sunny nature anyway, I judge, met him halfway. Then, at this peace conference, Herman acted much unlike a German, if he was honest. He said he had been all to blame in this disturbance and his conscience hurt him; so he couldn't rest till he had paid Manuel an indemnity.

Manuel is tickled and says what does Herman think of paying him? Herman shows up his month's pay and says how would it suit Manuel if they go in to Reno that night and spend every cent of this money in all the lovely ways which could be thought up by a Mexican sheep herder that had just come in from a six weeks' cross-country tour with two thousand of the horrible animals.

Manuel wanted to kiss Herman. Herman says he did cry large tears of gladness. And they started for town.

So they got to Reno, and did not proceed to the Public Library, or the Metallurgical Institute, or the Historical Museum. They proceeded to the Railroad Exchange Saloon, where they loitered and loitered and loitered before the bar, at Herman's expense, telling how much they thought of each other and eating of salt fish from time to time, which is intended by the proprietor to make even sheep herders more thirsty than normal.

Herman sipped only a little beer; but Manuel thought of many new beverages that had heretofore been beyond his humble purse, and every new one he took made him think of another new one. It was a grand moment for Manuel--having anything he could think of set before him in this beautiful café or saloon, crowded with other men who were also having grand moments.

After a while Herman says to Manuel to come outside, because he wants to tell him something good he has thought of. So he leads him outside by an arm and can hardly tell what he has to say because it's so funny he has to laugh when he thinks of it. They go up an alley where they won't be overheard, and Herman at last manages to keep his laughter down long enough to tell it. It's a comical antic he wants Manuel to commit.

Manuel don't get the idea, at first, but Herman laughs so hard that at last Manuel thinks it's just got to be funny and pretty soon he's laughing at it as hard as Herman is.

So they go back to the saloon to do this funny thing, which is to be a joke on the big crowd of men in there. Herman says he won't be able to do it good himself, because he's got a bad cold and can't yell loud; but Manuel's voice is getting better with every new drink. Manuel is just busting with mirth, thinking of this good joke he's going to play on the Americans.

They have one more drink, Manuel taking peach brandy with honey, which Herman says costs thirty cents; then he looks over the men standing there and he yells good and loud:

"To hell with the President! Hurrah for the Kaiser!"

You know, when Herman told me that, I wondered right off if he hadn't been educated in some school for German secret agents. Didn't it show guile of their kind? I'll never be amazed if he does turn out to be a spy that's simply went wrong on detail.

Of course he was safe out of town long before Manuel limped from the hospital looking for him with a knife. And yet Herman seemed so silly! First thing when he got on the place he wanted to know where the engine was that pumped the windmill.

Furthermore, if you ask me, that there wine won't be made safe for democracy until Uncle Henry has been years and years laid away to rest.

XI

CURLS

Ma Pettengill, long morose, for months made hostile of mood by the shortage of help, now bubbled with a strange vivacity. At her desk in the Arrowhead living room she cheerfully sorted a jumble of befigured sheets and proclaimed to one and all that the Arrowhead ranch was once more a going concern. She'd thought it was gone, and here it was merely going. She would no longer be compelled to stare ruin in the face till it actually got embarrassed and had to look the other way. And it was the swift doings of this here new foreman. He'd not only got us going again but had put us on a military basis. And at that he was nothing but a poor old wreck of a veteran from the trenches, aged all of twenty-one, shot to pieces, gassed, shell-shocked, trench feeted and fevered, and darned bad with nervous dyspepsia into the bargain.

Thus described, the bargain seemed to me to be a poor one, for I had not yet viewed this decrepit newcomer or been refreshed with tales of his prowess. But Ma Pettengill knows men, and positively will not bubble except under circumstances that justify it, so I considered the matter worth a question or two.

Very well then! What about this mere shattered bit of flotsam from the world welter? How could so misused a remnant cope with the manifold cares of the long-harried Arrowhead ranch?

Why, he just plain coped, that was all. He might be mere shattered flotsam, but you bet he was still some little coper, take her word for that! Matter of fact, though, he didn't aim to hold the job for long. Only until this here smarty of a medical officer, that turned him down from going back to the trenches, was retired to private life again. This here new foreman had to be on the ground when this puppet got out of his uniform and so could be handled proper by the right party without incurring twenty years in Leavenworth. At this brief meeting the unfortunate man would be told politely that he had guessed wrong on the foreman's physical condition, after which the same would be proved to him then and there, leaving him to wish that he hadn't been so arrogant telling parties they was unfit for further service and had better go home and forget all about the war. Yes, sir; he'd be left himself with something to forget that most likely he'd still be remembering vividly when folks had got to wondering what them funny little buttons with "Liberty Loan" on 'em could ever of been used for.