Maw's Vacation: The Story of a Human Being in the Yellowstone
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"That man wasn't right polite to me," said Maw in commenting upon someof this. "He told me he was busy. I'd like to know what he's got to do,just setting round."
Myself, I sometimes think the punishment of the superintendent is almosttoo severe. He is obliged, for instance, to know everything in theworld that everyone else in the world does not know. He has pictures andexact measurements of all the game animals in the park, all the flowers,knows all the colors of the Grand Canyon and the location of everysprinkling hose in fifty square miles. I have never been able to ask himany questions that he cannot answer--except perhaps my favoritequestion: "Why do they have this curio junk in all the parkstores--moccasins, leather Indian heads, and all that sort of thing?" Hesobbed when I asked him that, but I thought I could hear some mutteredword about there being a popular demand. As for me, I hold with Mawthat, if a person is being bitten on the elbow, better a bottle ofmarmalade, a loaf of bread or a bottle of mosquito dope than a pair ofbeef-hide moccasins with puckered toes. In my belief a few paintings byMr. Thomas Moran at a cost of fifteen thousand or twenty thousanddollars, or sets of the works of some of our more popular authors, withflexible backs, would be far more appropriate in the curio stores.
Maw is of the opinion that most of the merchants, storekeepers andvenders of commodities west of the Mississippi River are robbers. "Notthat I mean real robbers like used to hold up the stagecoaches here inthe park," she explained. "They don't do that no more since the cars hascome--I suppose because they go so fast that it ain't convenient forrobbers no more. But in the old times, they tell me, when they runstagecoaches in here, and didn't have no railroad in on the west side,there used to be a regular business of holding up the stagecoaches rightover where old man Dwelley used to have his eating house for lunch.There's a clubhouse there now, instead of his old eating house, theysay. I heard that when they wanted to buy old man Dwelley out for a cluband asked him how much he wanted, he thought a while, and then did somecounting, and then allowed that about twelve thousand dollars would beabout right. The man that was buying the place, he set down and writ acheck right then for twelve thousand dollars. But old man Dwelley didn'ttake it. 'I dunno what that thing is,' says he. 'When I say twelvethousand dollars I mean twelve thousand dollars in real money.'"
When Bozeman Was Riled
They told him he had for to wait a few days and they went over toLivingston and got twelve thousand dollars in five-dollar bills, andbrung it to Dwelley, and told him to count it. He counted a little ofit, and then said it was all right; he'd take their word for it thatthere was twelve thousand dollars there. So then he put it in a sackwhere he had some beaver hides. They told me he sent it all by expressto a fur buyer in Salt Lake after a while, and told him to put it in abank. He had one thousand five hundred dollars saved out, so they toldme, and he put that in the bank over to Bozeman. It riled them people atBozeman a good deal to think that anybody not from Bozeman should haveone thousand five hundred dollars inaccessible in their town. So one daywhen old man Dwelley was there they fined him one thousand five hundreddollars for killing a elk out of season, or something. That made himmad. Still and all, he had his twelve thousand dollars left, notmentioning what he got for his beaver hides.
"One thing with another," continued Maw after a period of rumination,"you can't say but what this park is a fine place. Of course there'salways a wonder in my mind where they get all the hot water for thegeysers. It looks to me like a industrial waste. If the geysers could beused for laundries, that would be something like. Then, again, they'reall the same color. If they'd throw in some bluing now and then, or somered or green, they'd look prettier--that'd give more variety, like. Yetthey say these geysers has been running for years and no let-up. Ain'tit funny the things you see, away from home?
"If the geysers could be used for laundries, that wouldbe something like."--Maw--p. 48]
"I like to ride along these roads up in the mountains, and look down atthe rivers. You get way up above a river and it looks like a longwashboard, down below, here in the mountains. And I'll have to saythe roads is crooked. I say to Paw: 'We're all church members exceptCynthy, which went to college, and if we go we go.' And even if wedo--why, we've all had a vacation, and I'll tell it to the world that avacation trip once in a lifetime is something no family ought to bewithout, no matter what the preacher says about idleness. I'm strong forvacations from this time on. Fact is, I believe Paw and me has got tohave them, though this is our first. And to think we was afraid to buyice cream once, except on the Fourth of July! Now, Paw goes right up toone of them stands and buys five dollars of gasoline like it wasnothing. Times has changed, like I said. Lookit at our car now. I canremember back--not so far, neither--when if I got a ride in a side-barbuggy I thought I was a mighty lucky girl. And here we are, travelingwith every sort of comfort anybody could ask."
There were many appliances which Maw gradually had installed forfacilitating housekeeping in her day-to-day camps--folding beds, acracker-box pantry, a planed board for table, racks for groceries andthe like, all strung alongside the car, so numerous and extensive thatby the time the Hickory Bend Outing Club's great wall tent had beenadded you barely could see the wheels underneath the moving mass. Fromthe midst of all projected the steering wheel, which Paw grasped as hesat, with only the top of his hat visible to the naked eye. Maw rodebeside him somewhere. I never was able satisfactorily to determine whereCynthy, Hattie and Rowena rode. Danny, the family dog, had his seatoutside on the fender, against the hood. I presume Danny's feet got hotsometimes on the up grades, but Maw said he ought to be used to it bynow.
All Ready for Bud
On top of the load, with the stock projecting well forward, I quiteoften was able to recognize old Suse, the ancient firearm of geyserlikeproclivities. Maw said she always felt more comfortable when there was agun round, because she never could get used to bears, no matter howafraid they was of folks.
"When we come out here we didn't know but what we could get a shot onthe quiet at a buffalo, Paw never having killed one in his life. Plentypeople believes the same till they get here. When we was at the rangerstation we seen one Arkansas car come in with six shooting irons, andthey all made a kick about having their guns locked up. Then there was adeputy sheriff from Arizony, with woolly pants on, and he made a hollerabout them locking up his six-shooter. 'This here may cost me my life,'said he to the ranger. 'I dunno for sure that Bud Cottrell is in thishere park, but he might be; and if I should run across him I servenotice on you right now I'm going to bust this seal.'
"'My!' says the ranger to this Arizony man, 'you look to me like a sortof ferocious person. Have you killed many people?'
"That sort of quieted him down. 'Well, no,' says he, 'I ain't neverkilled nobody, but I've saw it did, and if I ever meet Bud Cottrell Ishore am going to bust this seal.' I ain't ever heard whether he bustedit or not."
"Funniest thing to me about this here park," commented Paw, "is thatthey call me a sagebrusher and the people at the hotels dudes. And thegirls in the hotel dining rooms they call savages, though some of themwears specs, and most of them is school-teachers, with a fewstenographers throwed in. Why they should call them people savages iswhat I can't understand. And what do they mean by dude wrangling,mister?"
I explained to Paw that this was a new industry recently sprung up inthe West, among those residents of adjacent states who take out campingand hunting parties, or even such persons as desire to see mountainscenery and the footprints of large game, formerly embedded in the soiland now protected by log parapets.
"So that's what it is," nodded Maw as I gave this information. "Isuppose it's just part of the funny things that happens back here. Suchthings as a person does see on a vacation! Don't it beat all? Now Icaught Hattie walking off towards the electric light last night with ayoung man that had specs and leather leggins like the officers has, andI declare if she didn't tell me he was a perfessor of geology down atSalt Lake or Omaha. Once I give a quarter for a tip to a man thatbro
ught me some gasoline, and I declare if I didn't find out he teacheslaw in a university somewheres! Then, they tell me that the young manwho peels potatoes in the kitchen back of our camp has only one moreyear to get through Princeton--whoever Princeton is. I wish he wasthrough now, because he sings things.
"We're making quite a stay here in the park--longer than what we allowedwe would do, Paw and me. The girls seem to be having a sort of good timehere, one thing with another. You can't leave a girl alone anywhereshere, unless she's taken in by some perfessor or ranger or guide or cookor chauffeur or something, who comes along and carries her off to showher the bears or Old Faithful or Inspiration Point or something. Seemsto me like we've heard them words before, too--and then there's Lovers'Leap and the Devil's Slide. We've even got them in Ioway, where thehills is rough.
"Set down on the log here," said Maw, "and rest yourself, and I'll buildup the fire. Ain't it fine outdoors? I declare, I let out my corsetsfour inches above and below, I breathe that much deeper here in themountains; and the air makes you feel so fine. What was I saying?--oh,about my knitting. You see at home, when I get my work done, I knit orcrochet or embroider. Mary's baby is a right cute little thing, and Ilike to sew or knit things anyways. But Joseph said to me: 'Now, Maw!Now you forget it; we're going to have a vacation now, with no work atall for no one at all, and all strings off. We're just going to have onemighty good time,' says Joseph to me. At first, having nothing to do, Ifelt right strange, but I'm getting used to it now, though I do think Icould knit comfortable while setting watching the geysers spout.
"I dunno how we happened to come out so far as this--we didn't allow tospend over two hundred dollars, but I allow we've spent over fivehundred or six hundred dollars now. The funny thing is, Paw don't seemto care. He always was aggressive. He just driv right on West till wegot here. He said his Paw traveled across all that country in a ox team,and he allowed he could in a automobile. So we done it, and here we are.I don't care if we don't get home till after harvest."
Many and many a talk I had with Maw, dear old Maw, some sixty thousandof her, this past summer. The best of all vacations is to see someoneelse having a vacation who never has had a vacation before in his or herlife. The delight of Maw in this new phase of her existence has been mymain delight for many a week in the months spent, not so much inwatching geysers as in watching Maw. Sometimes I steal away from thepleadings of the saxophone, leaving even Stella O'Cleave with theslumberous eyes sitting alone at the log rail of Old Faithful Inn. Iwant to see Maw once more, and talk with her once again about thevirtues of a vacation now and again; at least once in a lifetime spentin work for others.
I do not always find the girls at home in the camp. For some reason theyseem of late to be out later and later of evenings. Paw has found acrony here and there about the camps, and swaps reminiscences of thissort or that. Sometimes I find Maw alone, sitting on the log, gazinginto her little camp fire. Once, I recall, one of the girls was at home.
"Roweny!" called out Maw suddenly. "Roweny, where are you? Come and talkto the gentleman."
A voice replied from the other side of the car, where Rowena was sittingon the running board. I discovered her, chin in hand, looking out intothe dark.
"I was afraid some perfessor had got her," explained Maw to me. "Come onout, Roweny, and set by the fire. This gentleman seems sort of nice, andhe's old."
Rowena, seventeen years of age, uncrossed her long young limbs and cameout of the darkness, seating herself on the running board on our side,where the firelight shone on her clean young features, her splendidyoung figure of an American girl. She was comely enough in her spiralputties and her tanned boots as she sat, her small round chin on thehand whose arm was supported by a knee. Rowena appeared downcast. WhileMaw was busy a moment later, I asked her why.
I think it must have been the mountain moon again; for Rowena, seventeenyears of age, once more looked gloomily out into the night.
"If I thought I could ever find a man that would understand me I believeI would marry him!" said she, as has every young girl in her time.
"Tut, tut! Rowena!" I replied. "I believe that I understand you, simpleas I am myself, and you need not marry me at all. I understand youperfectly. You are just a fine young girl, out on almost your firstvacation, with your Maw. It is the moon, Rowena. It is youth, Rowena,and the air of the hills. Believe me, it will all come right when thecook has finished his Princeton; of that I am sure.
"And Rowena," I added, "you will grow up after a while--you will grow upto be a wholesome, useful American woman, precisely like your Maw."
"Precisely?" said Rowena, smiling.
But I saw how soft her eye was, after all, when I mentioned Maw--herMaw, who came out of another day; who has worked so hard she isuncomfortable now without her knitting when Old Faithful plays.
"Come, Rowena," said I, and held out my hand to her. "Let us go."
"Land sakes!" exclaimed Maw, just then emerging into the firelight ofthe sagebrush camp. "I almost got a turn. One of them two bears, Teddyand Eymogene, is always hanging round us begging for doughnuts, and hereit was standing on its hind legs and mooching its nose, and I steppedright into it. I declare, I can't hardly get used to bears. There ain'tnone in Ioway. But if Eymogene gets into my bed again tonight I declareI'll bust her on the snoot, no matter what the park regulations is.People has got to sleep. Not that you girls seem to be troubled aboutsleeping. Where were you going?"
She spoke as Rowena and I stood hand in hand, after so brief anacquaintance as might not elsewhere have served us, except in thesevacation hills.
"I was going," said I, "to take Rowena up past the camp and beyond thehotel and the electric light to the curio store. I was going to getsomething for Rowena to bring to you--a sort of present from a nice oldman, you know."
"As which?" said Maw.
"I was going with Rowena, Maw," said I, "to get you a present."
"As which?"
"And it shall be a leather pillow; and on it shall be the word'Mother.'"
You see, the moon on the sage makes a strange light.
It may even enable you to see into the hearts of other people.
Standard Books on the Yellowstone
HAYNES GUIDE. The Complete Handbook of YellowstonePark; 1921 ed. 8 vo., 160 pp. Officially approved byThe National Park Service, Washington, D. C., andThe Yellowstone Trail Association. Illustrated, maps,diagrams, charts. Descriptive, Historical, Geological,and contains the Motorists' Complete Road Log; ByJ. E. Haynes, B. A. 83c postpaid
THE DISCOVERY OF YELLOWSTONE PARK. Diary of theExpedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Riversin 1870. 8 vo., board, 122 pp. Illustrated; Maps;Drawings; By Nathaniel P. Langford, firstsuperintendent of the Park, who served for five yearswithout pay to save the Park for the American people. $1.62 postpaid
YELLOWSTONE IN JINGLETONE, a De Luxe booklet of catchyjingles containing "Geysergrams," "Recollections of aBarn Dog," "The Buffalo Stampede," "Paintin' theCanyon," etc., in envelope suitable for mailing; ByC. A. Brewer. 55c postpaid
_Published by_ J. E. HAYNES ST. PAUL
+-----------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Typographical errors corrected in text: | | | | Page 30 postoffice changed to post office | | | | Page 33 overhead changed to overheard | | | | Page 49 applainces changed to appliances | | | +-----------------------------------------------+
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