Ma Pettengill Page 10

  X

  AS TO HERMAN WAGNER

  It had been a toilsome day for Ma Pettengill and me. Since sunup wehad ridden more than a score of mountain miles on horses that couldseldom exceed a crawl in pace. At dawn we had left the flatlands alongthe little timbered river, climbed to the lava beds of the first mesa,traversed a sad stretch of these where even the sage grew scant, andcome, by way of a winding defile that was soon a mounting canon, intobig hills unending.

  Here for many hours we had laboured over furtive, tortuous trails,aimless and lost, it might have seemed, but that ever and again we cameupon small bands of cattle moving one way. These showed that we had amission and knew, after all, what we were about. These cattle wereknowingly bent toward the valley and home. They went with much of abusinesslike air, stopping only at intervals to snatch at the sparseshort grass that grows about the roots of the sagebrush. They had come along journey from their grazing places, starting when the range went badand water holes dried, and now seemed glad indeed to give up the wildfree life of a short summer and become tended creatures again, wherestrangely thoughtful humans would lavish cut grass upon them for certainobscure but doubtless benevolent purposes of their own.

  It was our mission this day to have a look-see, mebbe as far as HorseflyMountain, and get a general idee of how many head was already coming downto eat up the so-and-so shortest hay crop that had ever been stacked onthe Arrowhead since the dry winter of '98, when beef fell to two cents apound, with darned few takers at that.

  It was really a day of scenic delight, if one hadn't to reflect sorelyupon the exigencies of the beef-cattle profession, and at least one ofus was free of this thrall.

  What we reached at last were small mountains rather than big hills;vast exclamatory remnants of shattered granite and limestone, thicklytimbered, reckless of line, sharp of peak. One minute canon we viewedfrom above was quite preposterous in its ambitions, having colour anddepth and riot of line in due proportions and quite worthy of the grandscale. It wasn't a Grand Canon, but at least it was a baby grand, and Iloitered on its brink until reminded sharply that I'd better pour leatherinto that there skate if I wanted to make home that night.

  I devoutly did wish to make home that night, for the spot we were on wasbarren of those little conveniences I am accustomed to. Moreover, the airwas keen and a hunger, all day in the building, called for strong meats.So I not too reluctantly passed on from this scenic miniature of parlourdimensions--and from the study of a curious boulder thereby which hadintrigued me not a little.

  Now we were home and relaxed by the Arrowhead fireside, after a movingrepast of baked young sage hens. The already superior dynamics of themeal, moreover, had been appreciably heightened by a bottle of UncleHenry's homemade grape wine, which he warmly recommends for colds orparties, or anything like that. It had proved to be a wine of almosta too-recent _cru_. Ma Pettengill said that if Uncle Henry was aimingto put it on the market in quantity production he had ought to nameit the Stingaree brand, because it was sure some stuff, making formalevolence even to the lengths of matricide, if that's what killingyour mother is called. She said, even at a Polish wedding down acrossthe tracks of a big city, it would have the ambulances and patrolwagons clanging up a good half hour quicker than usual.

  Be that as it may, or is, when I had expected sleep to steal swiftlyto the mending of the day's ravages I merely found myself wakeful andwondering. This stuff of Uncle Henry's is an able ferment. I wonderedabout a lot of things. And at the same time I wondered interminably aboutthat remarkable boulder at the side of the Tom Thumb Grand Canon. I waseven wakeful enough and discursive enough--my hostess had taken but oneglass from the bottle--to wonder delightedly about all rocks and stones,and geology, and that sort of thing. It was almost scientific, the wayI wondered, as I sat there idly toying with my half-filled glass.

  Take this particular boulder, for example. It had once been mere stardust, hadn't it? Some time ago, I mean, or thereabouts. But it had beenstar dust; and then, next thing it knew, it got to be a kind of cosmicstew, such as leisurely foreigners patch out highways with, and lookingno more like a granite boulder than anything.

  Then something happened, like someone letting the furnace fire go out thenight of the big freeze; and this stuff I'm talking about grew cold anddiscouraged, and quit flat, apparently not caring a hoot what shape itwould be found in years and years later, the result being that it wasfound merely in the general shape of rocks or boulders--to use the morescientific term--which is practically no shape at all, as you might say,being quite any shape that happens, or the shape of rocks and bouldersas they may be seen on almost every hand by those of us who have learnedto see in the true sense of the word.

  I have had to be brief in this shorter science course on the earth'shistory before the time of man, because more important matters claim myattention and other speakers are waiting. The point is that this boulderup there by the dwarf canon had survived from unremembered chaos; hadbeen melted, stewed, baked, and chilled until it had no mind of its ownleft; then bumped round by careless glaciers until it didn't care whereit came to rest; and at last, after a few hundred million years of stonyunconcern for its ultimate fate, here it had been drawn by the cunninghand of man sprang into the complex mechanism of our industrial humanscramble.

  That is to say, this boulder I speak of, the size of a city hall, lyingthere in noble neglect since long before wise old water animals werewarning their children that this here fool talk about how you could go upout of the water and walk round on dry land would get folks into trouble,because how could a body breathe up there when there wasn't any water tobreathe in? And the fools that tried it would soon find out; and serve'em right! Well, I mean to say, this boulder that had lain inert andindifferent while the ages wrought man from a thing of one cell--and notmuch of a cell at that--bore across that face of it nearest the windingtrail, a lettered appeal, as from one man to another. The letters werelarge and neatly done in white paint and the brushwork was recent. Andthe letters said, with a good deal of pathos, it seemed to me:

  WAGNER'S SYLVAN GLEN, ONLY THIRTY-TWO MILES. HERMAN WAGNER, SOLE PROP.

  Let this teach us, one and all, this morning, that everything in Naturehas its use if we but search diligently. I mean, even big rocks likethis, which are too big to build homes or even courthouses of. May wenot, at least, paint things on them in plain letters with periods andcommas, and so on, and so give added impetus to whatever is happeningto us?

  But the evening wears on and the whipping mental urge of grape juicemeddled with by Uncle Henry wears off. And so, before it all ends, whatabout Herman Wagner, Sole Prop. of Wagner's Sylvan Glen?

  I know it has been a hard day, but let us try to get the thing in order.Why not begin cautiously with a series of whys? Why any particular sylvanglen in a country where everything is continuously and overwhelminglysylvan and you can't heave a rock without hitting a glen? Really, youcan't walk fifty yards out there without stepping on a glen--or in aglen; it doesn't matter. What I am earnestly trying to get at is, if thisHerman Wagner wanted to be sole prop. of a sylvan glen, why should hehave gone thirty-two miles farther for one? Why didn't he have it rightthere? Why insanely push thirty-two miles on in a country where milesmean something serious? Up-and-down miles, tilted horribly or standingon edge!

  It didn't seem astute. And Herman achieved simply no persuasion whateverwith me by stocking in that "only." He could have put only all over therock and it would still have been thirty-two miles, wouldn't it? Onlyindeed! You might think the man was saying "Only ten minutes' walk fromthe post office"--or something with a real meaning like that. I claimedthen and I claim now that he should have omitted the only and come outblunt with the truth. There are times in this world when the straight andbitter truth is better without any word-lace. This Wagner person was asophist. So I said to him, now, as a man will at times:

  "All right, Herman, old top! But you'll have to think up something betterthan only to put before those thirty-two mile
s. If you had said 'Only twomiles' it might have had its message for me. But thirty more than that!Be reasonable! Why not pick out a good glen that parties can slip off tofor a quiet evening without breaking up a whole week? Frankly, I don'tunderstand you and your glen. But you can bet I'll find out about it!"

  So, right away, I said to Ma Pettengill, who by this time had a lot ofbills and papers and ledgers and stuff out on her desk, and was talkinghotly to all of them--I said to her that there was nearly half a bottleof Uncle Henry's wine left, his rare old grape wine laid down well over amonth ago; so she had better toss off a foamy beaker of it--yes, it stillfoamed--and answer me a few questions.

  It was then she said the things about that there wine being able toinflate the casualty lists, even of Polish weddings, which are alreadythe highest known to the society page of our police-court records. Shesaid, further, that she had took just enough of the stuff at dinner tomake her think she wasn't entirely bankrupt, and she wanted to givethese here accounts a thorough going-over while the sensation lasted.

  Not wishing to hurt Uncle Henry's feelings, even if he didn't catch me atit, I partook again of the fervent stuff, and fell into new wonder at theseeming imbecility of Herman Wagner. I found myself not a little movedby the pathos of him. It was little enough I could get from Ma Pettengillat first. She spoke almost shortly to me when I asked her things she hadto stop adding silly figures to answer.

  What I found out was mostly my own work, putting two and two in theirfit relationship. Even the mention of Herman Wagner's full name broughtnothing about himself. I found it most annoying. I would say: "Come on,now; what about this Herman Wagner that paints wheedling messages acrossthe face of Nature?" And to this fair, plain query I would merely havemore of the woman's endless help troubles. All that come looking for workthese days was stormy petrels, not caring if they worked or not--justasking for it out of habit.

  Didn't she have a singing teacher, a painless dentist, a crayon-portraitartist and a condemned murderer on her payroll this very minute, allbecause the able-bodied punchers had gone over to see that nasty littleBelgium didn't ever again attack Germany in that ruthless way? She hadread that it cost between thirty and thirty-five thousand dollars towound a soldier in battle. Was that so? Well, she'd tell me that shestood ready to wound any of these that was left behind for betweenthirty and thirty-five cents, on easy payments. Wound 'em severely,too! Not mere scratches.

  Presently again I would utter Herman Wagner, only to be told that thesedry cows she was letting go for sixty dollars--you come to cut 'em up forbeef and you'd have to grease the saw first. Or I heard what a scandalit was that lambs actually brought five-fifty, and the Government atWashington, D.C., setting back idly under the outrage!

  Then I heard, with perfect irrelevance to Herman Wagner, that shewouldn't have a puncher on the place that owned his own horse. Becausewhy? Because he'd use him gentle all day and steal grain for him atnight. Also, that she had some kind of rheumatiz in her left shoulder;but she'd rather be a Christian Scientist and fool herself than pay adoctor to do the same. It may all have been true, but it was notimportant; not germane to the issue, as we so often say in writingeditorials.

  It looked so much like a blank for Herman Wagner that I quit asking fora time and let the woman toil at her foolish ruinous tasks.

  After half an hour of it she began to rumble a stanza of By Cool Siloam'sShady Rill; so I chanced it again, remarking on the sign I had observedthat day. So she left her desk for a seat before the fire and said yes,and they was other signs of Herman's hid off in the mountains where noone but cows, that can't read a line, would see 'em. She also divulgedthat Herman, himself, wasn't anything you'd want a bronze statue of toput up in Courthouse Square.

  Well then, come on, now! What about him? No, sir; not by a darned sight!With that there desk full of work, she simply could not stop to talk now.She did.

  Is that the only sign of Herman's you saw? He's got others along themtrails. You'll see an arrow in white paint, pointing to his sylvan glen,and warnings not to go to other glens till you've tried his. One says:You've tried the rest; now try the best! Another says: Try Wagner'sSylvan Glen for Boating, Bathing, and Fishing. Meals at all hours! Andhe's got one that shows he studied American advertising as soon as helanded in this country. It says: Wagner's Sylvan Glen--Not How Good,But How Cheap!

  I don't know. I ain't made up my mind about Herman, even yet. If itwasn't for why he had to leave Nevada and if I knew there could be morethan one kind of German, then I'd almost say Herman was the other kind.But, of course, there can't be but one kind, and he showed the Prussianstrain fast enough in why he come up from Reno. Still and all, he's gothis engaging points as a pure imbecile or something.

  He don't tell me why he left Reno for a long time after he gets here;not till I'd won his confidence by showing I was a German sympathizer. Itwas when Sandy Sawtelle had a plan for a kind of grand war measure. Hisgrand war measure was to get some secret agents into Germany and kill offall the women under fifty. He said if you done this the stock would dieout, because look at the game laws against killing does! He told thisto everybody. He told it to Herman; but Herman knew enough to remainnoncommittal 'bout it. He told it to me, and I saw right off it probablycouldn't be managed right; and, even if it could be, I said to Sandy,it seemed to me somehow like it would be sort of inhuman.

  Herman heard me say this and got the idea I was a pacifist and a secretfriend of his country; so he confided to me the secret of why he leftReno to keep from having his heart cut out by Manuel Romares. But nomatter!

  Anyway, last year in the spring this Herman dropped by, looking forwork. He hadn't been in America long, having stopped with his uncle inCincinnati a while, and then coming West on a life of adventure and totake up a career. He said now he'd come up from Nevada, where he'd beenworking on a sheep ranch, and he acted like he wanted to get intosomething respectable and lead a decent life again.

  Well, it had got so I hired everything that come along; so why notHerman? I grabbed at him. The boys heard he was a German alien and acted,at first, like a bunch of hogs with a bear about; but I'd of hired oldHinderburg himself if he'd offered and put him to doing something worthwhile.

  This Herman was the first man ever worked here in side whiskers. He toldme, after I showed myself a German sympathizer, that in the beginning ofthe war he'd wore one of them moustaches like the Kaiser puts up in tinfasteners every night after he's said his prayers; but this had made himan object of unpleasant remark, including missiles. So he had growed thisflowering border round it to take off the curse.

  They was beautiful shiny side whiskers and entirely innocent-looking.In the right clothes Herman could of gone into any Sabbath school in theland and said he was glad to see so many bright little faces there thismorning, and now what was to-day's golden text, and so on. That's whathe looked like. These things fell like portieres each side of his face,leaving his chin as naked as the day he was born. He didn't have any toomuch under his mouth either; so I guess the whiskers was really a mercyto his face.

  He admitted he didn't know too much about the cow business, but saidhe was willing to learn; so I put him on the payroll. We found he waswilling to try anything that looked easy; for instance, like setting oncolts 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 SandySawtelle break a colt. That's the best time to handle colts that hasnever been set on. They start to act up and pour someone out of thesaddle; then they slip and slide, helpless, and get the idea a reglerdemon of a rider is up there, and give in. So the boys give Herman afussy 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 hadcome to town. Two days later, though, when the ground was dry, Hermangot on the same wild animal again, and it wasn't there when he come downfrom his first trip aloft. It traded ends with him neatly and was o
ff ina corner saying. "Well, looks like that German ain't such a dandy riderafter all! I couldn't pull that old one with him yesterday, but Icertainly 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 inEnglish to call a horse at certain times.

  He walked for several days with trench feet, and his morale was lowindeed. He was just that simple. He'd try things that sane puncherswouldn't go looking for, if sober; in fact, he was so simple you mightcall 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 butchore boy. And naturally we needed a chore boy, like we needed everythingelse. He could get up wood, and feed the pigs we was fattening, and milkthe three dairy cows, and make butter, and help in the kitchen. But asfor being a cow hand, he wasn't even the first joint on your littlefinger. He was willing, but his Maker had stopped right at that pointwith him. And he had a right happy time being chore boy.

  Of course the boys kidded him a lot after they found out he couldpositively not be enraged by the foulest aspersions on the character ofthe 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 goodtime thinking up things for him.

  He'd brought a German shotgun with silver trimmings with him, which hecalled 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 thebird books to be really the same as the sidehill mooney. It has one legshorter than the other and can be captured by hand if driven to levelground, where it falls over on its side in a foolish manner when it triesto run. Herman looked forward to having one of these that he could stuffand send to his uncle in Cincinnati, who wrote that he had never seensuch 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. Ithas but one foot webbed; so it swims in a circle and can be easy shot bythe sportsman, who first baits it with snuff that it will go miles toget. Another wild beast they had him hunting was the filo, which is likethe 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 tolunch. 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, thoughthey could still hear its low note of pleading. Also, they had Hermanlooking for a mated couple of the spinach bug for which the SmithsonianInstitution had offered a reward of five hundred dollars, cash.

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

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

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

  It is not a face that has ever got Eloise pestered with odious attentionsfrom the men. Instead of making 'em smirk and act rough, but playful, itmade 'em think that life, after all, is more serious than most of ussuspect 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 tillthey 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 notbeen 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 makeup to her. Herman was a whirlwind wooer; I'll say that for him. He toldher right off that she was beautiful as the morning star and tried tokiss 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 coalshovel, after which Herman told her through a crack of the door that shewas a Lorelei.

  Eloise, at first, misunderstood this term entirely, and wasn't much lessinsulted when she found it meant one of these German hussies that hanground creeks for no good purpose. Not that her attitude discouragedHerman any; he played under her window that night, and also sang a richcustard sort of tenor in his native tongue, till I had to threaten himwith the bastile to get any sleep myself.

  Next day he fetched her regal gifts, consisting of two polishedabalone 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'tbeen a quick bender and light on his feet she wouldn't of missed him withhis gifts. As it was, he ducked in time and went out to the spring houseto write a poem on her beauty, which he later read to her in Germanthrough a kitchen window that was raised. The window was screened; so heread it all. Later he gets Sandy Sawtelle to tell her this poem is allabout how coy she is. Every once in a while you could get an idea partwayover on Herman. He was almost certain Eloise was coy.

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

  But Eloise left the next morning, without waiting for anything suitableto be pulled off by her family. It was because, when she went to bedthat night, she found a letter from Herman pinned to her pillow. It hada red heart on it, pierced by a dagger that was dropping red drops verysentimentally; and it said would she not hasten to take her vast beautyout in the moonlight, to walk with Herman under the quiet trees whilethe nightingale warbled and the snee, or sidehill mooney, called to itslovemate? And here, as they walked, they could plan their beautifulfuture together.

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

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

  Near as I could gather, he was all ready to pull the trigger, lookingdown into this here frowning muzzle before a mirror; and then somethingabout his whiskers in the mirror must of caught his eye. Anyway, anotherwork 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 goingup to the deep pool to drown himself.

  I said was he really bent on it? He said it was requisite, because awayfrom this beautiful lad
y, who had torn his heart out and danced on it, hecould not continue to live, even for one day. So I come down on Herman. Itold him that, hard up as I was for help, I positively would not have aman on the place who was always knocking off work to kill himself. It etinto his time, and also it took the attention of others who longed to seehim do it.

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

  Herman says I don't know the depths of the human heart. I says I knowwhat I pay him a month, and that's all I'm needing to know in thisemergency. I thought, of course, he'd calm down and forget his nonsense;but not so. He moped and mooned, and muttered German poetry to himselffor another day, without ever laying a violent hand on himself; but thenhe come and said it was no good. He says, however, he will no longercommit suicide at this place, where none have sympathy with him and manyjeer. Instead, he will take his fowling piece to some far place in thegreat 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 Hermanthe money that was coming to him, wished him every success in hisundertaking, and let him go.

  The boys scouted round quite a bit the next few days, listening forthe 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 mostcareful boy in every suicide he committed. If I'd been a life-insurancecompany it wouldn't have counted against him so much as the coffee habitor 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 intothe hills till he found the fairest spot on earth; that quickly madehim forget his great sorrow. His fairest spot was a half section ofbad land a hopeful nester had took up back in the hills. It had a littletwo-by-four lake on it and a grove of spruce round the lake; and Hermanhad fell in love with it like with Eloise.

  He'd stay with the nester, who was half dead with lonesomeness, so thateven a German looked good to him, and wrote to his uncle in Cincinnatifor 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, andbasket parties welcome. Yes, sir! It goes to show you can't judge aGerman like you would a human.

  I laughed at first; but no one ever got to Herman that way. He was firmand delighted. That Sylvan Glen was just the finest resort anywhereround! Why, if it was within five miles of Cincinnati or Munich it wouldbe worth a million dollars! And so on. It done no good to tell him it wasnot within five miles of these towns and never would be. And it done lessgood to ask him where his customers was coming from, there not being asoul nearer him than twenty miles, and then only scattered ranchers thathas got their own idea of a good time after the day's work is over, whichpositively 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 geta good pig's knuckle, or blood sausage and a glass Rhine wine--or maybebeer--after a hard day's work. I got a fine boat on the lake--they canrow and push all round over the water; and I'm getting a house put upwith vines on it, like a fairy palace, and little tables outside! Yousee! The people will come when they hear!"

  That was Herman. He never stopped to ask where they was coming from. He'dmake the place look like a Dutch beer garden and they'd just have to comefrom somewhere, because what German ever saw a beer garden that didn'thave people coming to it? I reckoned up that Herman would have enoughcustom to make the place pay, the quick rate our country is growing, inabout 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 littlebar that says, in big letters: Keep Smiling! I bet if you dropped in thisminute you'd find him in a black jacket and white apron, with a bill offare wrote in purple ink. He thinks people will soon drop in from twentymiles 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 thatwas looking for stock and got lost. Buck Devine says the place lookedas swell as something you'd see round Chicago.

  Herman has a scow on the pond, and a dozen little green tables outsideunder the spruce trees, with all the trees white-washed neatly round thebottoms, and white-washed stones along the driveway, and a rustic gatewith Welcome to Wagner's Sylvan Glen! over it. And he's got some greentubs 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 saidEloise 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 improvethe place. He's sent the uncle a photo of it and it must look good backin Cincinnati, where you can't see the surrounding country.

  Maybe Herman merely wants to lead a quiet life with the German poets, andhas thought up something to make the uncle come through. On the otherhand, mebbe he's a spy. Of course he's got a brain. He's either kiddingthe uncle, or else Wagner's Sylvan Glen now covers a concrete gunfoundation.

  In either case he's due for harsh words some day--either from the unclewhen 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 evenanything to shoot at.

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

  I allowed her to sort papers for a moment. As she scanned them underdrawn 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 hismanner of leaving Reno. Only after another verse of the hymn could I betold. 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 wasvague about what started the trouble, except that they didn't understandeach other's talk very well and one of 'em thought the other was makingfun of him. Anyway, it resulted in a brutal fist affray, greatly toHerman's surprise. He had supposed that no man, Mexican or otherwise,would dare to attack a German single-handed, because he would of heardall about Germans being invincible, that nation having licked twonations--Serbia and Belgium--at once.

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

  First thing he done was to make a peace offer, at which the troubleshould be discussed on a fair basis to both sides. Manuel not being oneto nurse a grudge after he'd licked a man in jig time, and being of asunny nature anyway, I judge, met him halfway. Then, at this peaceconference, Herman acted much unlike a German, if he was honest. Hesaid he had been all to blame in this disturbance and his consciencehurt 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? Hermanshows up his month's pay and says how would it suit Manuel if they go into Reno that night and spend every cent of this money in all the lovelyways which could be thought up by a Mexican sheep herder that had justcome in from a six weeks' cross-coun
try tour with two thousand of thehorrible animals.

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

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

  Herman sipped only a little beer; but Manuel thought of many newbeverages that had heretofore been beyond his humble purse, and everynew one he took made him think of another new one. It was a grand momentfor Manuel--having anything he could think of set before him in thisbeautiful cafe or saloon, crowded with other men who were also havinggrand moments.

  After a while Herman says to Manuel to come outside, because he wants totell him something good he has thought of. So he leads him outside by anarm and can hardly tell what he has to say because it's so funny he hasto laugh when he thinks of it. They go up an alley where they won't beoverheard, and Herman at last manages to keep his laughter down longenough 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 thatat last Manuel thinks it's just got to be funny and pretty soon he'slaughing at it as hard as Herman is.

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

  They have one more drink, Manuel taking peach brandy with honey, whichHerman says costs thirty cents; then he looks over the men standing thereand 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'tbeen educated in some school for German secret agents. Didn't it showguile of their kind? I'll never be amazed if he does turn out to be aspy that's simply went wrong on detail.

  Of course he was safe out of town long before Manuel limped from thehospital 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 enginewas that pumped the windmill.

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