The Professor's House

by Willa Cather

pack-mules, and when one of us had to stay in town overnight he let us

  sleep in his hay barn to save a hotel bill. He knew our expenses were

  heavy, and did everything for us at bottom price.

  By the first of July our money was nearly gone, but we had our road

  made, and our cabin built on top of the mesa. We brought old Henry up by

  the new horse-trail and began housekeeping. We were now ready for what

  we called excavating. We built wide shelves all around our

  sleeping-room, and there we put the smaller articles we found in the

  Cliff City. We numbered each specimen, and in my day-book I wrote down

  just where and in what condition we had found it, and what we thought it

  had been used for. I'd got a merchant's ledger in Tarpin, and every

  night after supper, while Roddy read the newspapers, I sat down at the

  kitchen table and wrote up an account of the day's work.

  Henry, besides doing the housekeeping, was very eager to help us in the

  "rew-ins," as he called them. He was more patient than we, and would dig

  with his fingers half a day to get a pot out of a rubbish pile without

  breaking it. After all, the old man had a wider knowledge of the world

  than either of us, and it often came in handy. When we were working in a

  pale pink house, with two stories, and a sort of balcony before the

  upper windows, we came on a closet in the wall of the upstairs room; in

  this were a number of curious thing, among them a deerskin bag full of

  little tools. Henry said at once they were surgical instruments; a stone

  lancet, a bunch of fine bone needles, wooden forceps, and a catheter.

  One thing we knew about these people; they hadn't built their town in a

  hurry. Everything proved their patience and deliberation. The cedar

  joists had been felled with stone axes and rubbed smooth with sand. The

  little poles that lay across them and held up the clay floor of the

  chamber above, were smoothly polished. The door lintels were carefully

  fitted (the doors were stone slabs held in place by wooden bars fitted

  into hasps). The clay dressing that covered the stone walls was tinted,

  and some of the chambers were frescoed in geometrical patterns, on

  colour laid on another. In one room was a painted border, little tents,

  like Indian tepees, in brilliant red.

  But the really splendid thing about our city, the thing that made it

  delightful to work there, and must have made it delightful to live

  there, was the setting. The town hung like a bird's nest in the cliff,

  looking off into the box canyon below, and beyond into the wide valley

  we called Cow Canyon, facing an ocean of clear air. A people who had the

  hardihood to build there, and who lived day after day looking down upon

  such grandeur, who came and went by those hazardous trails, must have

  been, as we often told each other, a fine people. But what had become of

  them? What catastrophe had overwhelmed them?

  They hadn't moved away, for they had taken none of their belongings, not

  even their clothes. Oh, yes, we found clothes; yucca moccasins, and what

  seemed like cotton cloth, woven in black and white. Never any wool, but

  sheepskins tanned with the fleece on them. They may have been mountain

  sheep; the mesa was full of them. We talked of shooting one for meat,

  but we never did. When a mountain sheep comes out on a ledge hundreds of

  feet above you, with his trumpet horns, there's something noble about

  him--he looks like a priest. We didn't want to shoot at them and make

  them shy. We liked to see them. We shot a wild cow when we wanted fresh

  meat.

  At last we came upon one of the original inhabitants--not a skeleton,

  but a dried human body, a woman. She was not in the Cliff City; we found

  her in a little group of houses stuck up in a high arch we called the

  Eagle's Nest. She was lying on a yucca mat, partly covered with rags,

  and she had dried into a mummy in that water-drinking air. We thought

  she had been murdered; there was a great wound in her side, the ribs

  stuck out through the dried flesh. Her mouth was open as if she were

  screaming, and her face, through all those years, had kept a look of

  terrible agony. Part of the nose was gone, but she had plenty of teeth,

  not one missing, and a great deal of coarse black hair. Her teeth were

  even and white, and so little worn that we thought she must have been a

  young woman. Henry named her Mother Eve, and we called her that. We put

  her in a blanket and let her down with great care, and kept her in a

  chamber in the Cliff City.

  Yes, we found three other bodies, but afterward. One day, working in the

  Cliff City, we came upon a stone slab at one end of the cavern, that

  seemed to lead straight into the rock. It was set in cement, and when we

  loosened it we found it opened into a small, dark chamber. In this there

  had been a platform, of fine cedar poles laid side by side, but it had

  crumbled. In the wreckage were three bodies, one man and two women,

  wrapped in yucca-fibre, all in the same posture and apparently prepared

  for burial. They were the bodies of old people. We believed when the

  tribe went down to live on their farms in the summer season; that they

  had died in the absence of the villages, and were put into this mortuary

  chamber to await the return of the tribe, when they would have their

  funeral rites. Probably these people burned their dead. Of course an

  archaeologist could have told a great deal about that civilization from

  those bodies. But they never got to an archaeologist--at least, not on

  this side of the world.

  Chapter 5

  The first of August came, and everything was going well with us. We

  hadn't met with any bad luck, and though we had very little money left,

  there was Blake's untouched savings account in the bank at Pardee, and

  we had plenty of credit in Tarpin. The merchants there took an interest

  and were friendly. But the little new moon, that looked so innocent,

  brought us trouble. We lost old Henry, and in a terrible way. From the

  first we'd been a little bothered by rattlesnakes--you generally find

  them about old stone quarries and old masonry. We had got them pretty

  well cleared out of the Cliff City, hadn't seen one there for weeks. But

  one Sunday we took Henry and went on an exploring expedition at the

  north end of the mesa, along Black Canyon. We caught sight of a little

  bunch of ruins we'd never noticed before, and made a foolhardy scramble

  to get up to them. We almost made it, and then there was a stretch of

  rock wall so smooth we couldn't climb it without a ladder. I was the

  tallest of the three, and Henry was the lightest; he thought he could

  get up there if he stood on my shoulders. He was standing on my back,

  his head just above the floor of the cavern, groping for something to

  hoist himself by, when a snake struck him from the ledge--struck him

  square in the forehead. It happened in a flash. He came down and brought

  the snake with him. By the time we picked him up and turned him over,

  his face had begun to swell. In ten minutes it was purple, and he was so

  crazy it took the two of us to hold him and keep him from jumping down
>
  the chasm. He was struck so near the brain that there was nothing to do.

  It lasted nearly two hours. Then we carried him home. Roddy dropped down

  the ladder into Cow Canyon, caught his horse, and rode into Tarpin for

  the coroner. Father Duchene was preaching there at the mission church

  that Sunday, and came back with him.

  We buried Henry on the mesa. Father Duchene stayed on with us a week to

  keep us company. We were so cut up that we were almost ready to quit.

  But he had been planning to come out to see our find for a long while,

  and he got our minds off our trouble. He worked hard every day. He went

  over everything we'd done, and examined everything minutely: the

  pottery, cloth, stone implements, and the remains of food. He measured

  the heads of the mummies and declared they had good skulls. He cut down

  one of the old cedars that grew exactly in the middle of the deep trail

  worn in the stone, and counted the rings under his pocket microscope.

  You couldn't count them with the unassisted eye, for growing out of a

  tiny crevice in the rock as that tree did, the increase of each year was

  so scant that the rings were invisible except with a glass. The tree he

  cut down registered three hundred and thirty-six years' growth, and it

  could have begun to grow in that well-worn path only after human feet

  had ceased to come and go there.

  Why had they ceased? That question puzzled him, too. Smallpox, any

  epidemic, would have left unburied bodies. Father Duchene suggested what

  Dr. Ripley, in Washington, afterward surmised: that the tribe had been

  exterminated, not here in their stronghold, but in their summer camp,

  down among the farms across the river. Father Duchene had been among the

  Indians nearly twenty years then, he had seventeen Indian pueblos in his

  parish, and he spoke several Indian dialects. He was able to explain the

  use of many of the implements we found, especially those used in

  religious ceremonies. The night before he left us, he summed up the

  results of his week's study, something like this:

  "The two square towers on the mesa top, to which you have given little

  attention, were unquestionably granaries. Under the stones and earth

  fallen from the walls, there is a quantity of dried corn on the ear. Not

  a great harvest, for life must have come to an end here in the summer,

  when the new crop was not yet garnered and the last year's grain was

  getting low. The semicircular ridge on the mesa top, which you can see

  distinctly among the pi�ons when the sun is low and brings it into high

  relief, is the buried wall of an amphitheatre, where probably religious

  exercises and games took place. I advise you not to dig into it. It is

  probably the most important thing here, and should be left for scholars

  to excavate.

  "The tower you so much admire in the cliff village may have been a watch

  tower, as you think, but from the curious placing of those narrow slits,

  like windows, I believe it was used for astronomical observations. I am

  inclined to think that you tribe were a superior people. Perhaps they

  were not so when they first came upon this mesa, but in an orderly and

  secure life they developed considerably the arts of peace. There is

  evidence on every hand that they lived for something more than food and

  shelter. They had an appreciation of comfort, and went even further than

  that. Their life, compared to that of our roving Navajos, must have been

  quite complex. There is unquestionably a distinct feeling for design in

  what you call the Cliff City. Buildings are not grouped like that by

  pure accident, though convenience probably had much to do with it.

  Convenience often dictates very sound design.

  "The workmanship on both the wood and stone of the dwellings is good.

  The shapes and decoration of the water jars and food bowls is better

  than in any of the existing pueblos I know, better even than the pottery

  made at Acoma. I have seen a collection of early pottery from the island

  of Crete. Many of the geometrical decorations on these jars are not only

  similar, but, if my memory is trustworthy, identical.

  "I see your tribe as a provident, rather thoughtful people, who made

  their livelihood secure by raising crops and fowl--the great number of

  turkey bones and feathers are evidence that they had domesticated the

  wild turkey. With grain in their storerooms, and mountain sheep and deer

  for their quarry, they rose gradually from the condition of savagery.

  With the proper variation of meat and vegetable diet, they developed

  physically and improved in the primitive arts. They had looms and mills,

  and experimented with dyes. At the same time, they possibly declined in

  the arts of war, in brute strength and ferocity.

  "I see them here, isolated, cut off from other tribes, working out their

  destiny, making their mesa more and more worthy to be a home for man,

  purifying life by religious ceremonies and observances, caring

  respectfully for their dead, protecting the children, doubtless

  entertaining some feelings of affection and sentiment for this

  stronghold where they were at once so safe and so comfortable, where

  they had practically overcome the worst hardships that primitive man had

  to fear. They were, perhaps, too far advanced for their time and

  environment.

  "They were probably wiped out, utterly exterminated, by some roving

  Indian tribe without culture or domestic virtues, some horde that fell

  upon them in their summer camp and destroyed them for their hides and

  clothing and weapons, or from mere love of slaughter. I feel sure that

  these brutal invaders never even learned of the existence of this mesa,

  honeycombed with habitations. If they had come here, they would have

  destroyed. They killed and went their way.

  "What I cannot understand is why you have not found more human remains.

  The three bodies you found in the mortuary chamber were prepared for

  burial by the old people who were left behind. But what of the last

  survivors? It is possible that when autumn wore on, and no one returned

  from the farms, the aged banded together, went in search of their

  people, and perished in the plain.

  "Like you, I feel reverence for this place. Wherever humanity has made

  that hardest of all starts and lifted itself out of mere brutality, is a

  sacred spot. Your people were cut off here without the influence of

  example or emulation, with no incentive but some natural yearning for

  order and security. They built themselves into this mesa and humanized

  it."

  Father Duchene warmly agreed with Blake that I ought to go to Washington

  and make some report to the Government, so that the proper specialists

  would be sent out to study the remains we had found.

  "You must go to the Director of the Smithsonian Institution," he said.

  "He will send us an archaeologist who will interpret all that is obscure

  to us. He will revive this civilization in a scholarly work. It may be

  that you will have thrown light on some important points in the history

  of your country."

  After he left us, Blake and I began to make defin
ite plans for my trip

  to Washington. Blake was to work on the railroad that winter and save as

  much money as possible. The expense of my journey would be paid out of

  what we called the jack-pot account, in the bank at Pardee. All our

  further expenses on the mesa would be paid by the Government. Roddy

  often hinted that we would get a substantial reward of some kind. When

  we broke or lost anything at our work, he used to smile and say: "Never

  mind. I guess our Uncle Sam will make that good to us."

  We had a beautiful autumn that year, soft, sunny, like a dream. Even up

  there in the air we had so little wind that the gold hung on the poplars

  and quaking aspens late in November. We stayed out on the mesa until

  after Christmas. We wanted our archaeologist, when he came, to find

  everything in good order. We cleared up any litter we'd made in digging

  things out, stored all the specimens, even the mummies, in our cabin,

  and padlocked the doors and windows before we left it. I had written up

  my day-book carefully to the very end, had even written out some of

  Father Duchene's deductions. This book I left in concealment on the

  mesa. I climbed up to the Eagle's Nest in which we had found the mummy

  of the murdered woman we called Mother Eve, where I had noticed a

  particularly neat little cupboard in the wall. I put my book in this

  niche and sealed it up with cement. Mother Eve had greatly interested

  Father Duchene, by the way. He laughed and said she was well named. He

  didn't believe her death could throw any light on the destruction of her

  people. "I seem to smell," he said slyly, "a personal tragedy. Perhaps

  when the tribe went down to the summer camp, our lady was sick and would

  not go. Perhaps her husband thought it worth while to return unannounced

  from the farms some night, and found her in improper company. The young

  man may have escaped. In primitive society the husband is allowed to

  punish an unfaithful wife with death."

  When the first snow began to fly, we said goodbye to our mesa and rode

  into Tarpin. It took several days to outfit me for my journey to

  Washington. We bought a trunk (I'd never owned one in my life), and a

  supply off white shirts, an overcoat that was as heavy as lead and just

  about as cold, and two suits of clothes. That conscienceless trader

  worked off on me a clawhammer coat he must have had in stock for twenty

  years. He easily persuaded Roddy that it was the proper thing for dress

  occasions. I think Roddy expected that I would be received by

  ambassadors--perhaps I did.

  Roddy drew me six hundred dollars out of the bank to stake me, and

  bought my ticket and Pullman through to Washington. He went to the

  station with me the morning I left, and a hard handshake was good-bye.

  For a long while after my train pulled out, I could see our mesa bulking

  up blue on the sky-line. I hated to leave it, but I reflected that it

  had taken care of itself without me for a good many hundred years. When

  I saw it again, I told myself, I would have done my duty by it; I would

  bring back with me men who would understand it, who would appreciate it

  and dig out all its secrets.

  Chapter 6

  I got off the train, just behind the Capitol building, one cold bright

  January morning. I stood for a long while watching the white dome

  against a flashing blue sky, with a very religious feeling. After I had

  walked about a little and seen the parks, so green though it was winter,

  and the Treasury building, and the War and Navy, I decided to put off my

  business for a little and give myself a week to enjoy the city. That was

  the most sensible thing I did while I was there. For that week I was

  wonderfully happy.

  My sightseeing over, I got to work. First I went to see the

  Representative from our district, to ask for letters of introduction. He