Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year Part 34

THE STAGECOACH

BY MARK TWAIN

Before the days of the railroad, the lumbering, horse-drawn stagecoach was the general vehicle used for cross-country pa.s.senger travel. Following the Civil War, the brother of Mark Twain (Samuel L.

Clemens) was appointed Territorial Secretary of Nevada. Samuel accompanied his brother as private secretary. The journey was made largely in a stagecoach, the inconveniences of which are whimsically set forth in the following extract from Twain's _Roughing It_.

As the sun went down and the evening chill came on, we made preparation for bed. We stirred up the hard leather letter sacks, and the knotty canvas bags of printed matter (knotty and uneven because of projecting ends and corners of magazines, boxes, and books). We 5 stirred them up and redisposed them in such a way as to make our bed as level as possible. And we did improve it, too, though after all our work it had an upheaved and billowy look about it, like a little piece of a stormy sea. Next we hunted up our boots from odd nooks among 10 the mail bags where they had settled, and put them on.

Then we got down our coats, vests, pantaloons, and heavy woolen shirts, from the arm loops where they had been swinging all day, and clothed ourselves in them--for, there being no ladies either at the stations or in the coach, 15 and the weather being hot, we had looked to our comfort by stripping to our underclothing at nine o'clock in the morning. All things being now ready, we stowed the uneasy Dictionary where it would lie as quiet as possible and placed the water canteen and pistols where we could find 20 them in the dark. Then we smoked a final pipe and swapped a final yarn; after which we put the pipes, tobacco, and bag of coin in snug holes and caves among the mail bags, and then fastened down the coach curtains all around, and made the place as "dark as the inside of a cow," as 5 the conductor phrased it in his picturesque way. It was certainly as dark as any place could be--nothing was even dimly visible in it. And finally we rolled ourselves up like silkworms, each person in his own blanket, and sank peacefully to sleep. 10

Whenever the stage stopped to change horses we would wake up, and try to recollect where we were---and succeed--and in a minute or two the stage would be off again, and we likewise. We began to get into country now, threaded here and there with little streams. These had 15 high, steep banks on each side, and every time we flew down one bank and scrambled up the other, our party inside got mixed somewhat. First we would all be down in a pile at the forward end of the stage, nearly in a sitting posture, and in a second we would shoot to the other end 20 and stand on our heads. And we would sprawl and kick, too, and ward off ends and corners of mail bags that came lumbering over us and about us; and as the dust rose from the tumult, we would all sneeze in chorus, and the majority of us would grumble, and probably say some hasty 25 thing, like, "Take your elbow out of my ribs!--can't you quit crowding?"

Every time we avalanched from one end of the stage to the other, the Unabridged Dictionary would come too; and every time it came it damaged somebody. One trip 30 it "barked" the Secretary's elbow; the next trip it hurt me in the stomach; and the third it tilted Bemis's nose up till he could look down his nostrils--he said. The pistols and coin soon settled to the bottom, but the pipes, pipestems, tobacco, and canteens clattered and floundered after the Dictionary every time it made an a.s.sault on us, and aided and abetted the book by spilling tobacco in 5 our eyes and water down our backs.

Still, all things considered, it was a very comfortable night. It wore gradually away, and when at last a cold, gray light was visible through the puckers and c.h.i.n.ks in the curtains, we yawned and stretched with satisfaction, 10 shed our coc.o.o.ns, and felt that we had slept as much as was necessary. By and by, as the sun rose up and warmed the world, we pulled off our clothes and got ready for breakfast.

We were just pleasantly in time, for five minutes afterward the driver sent the weird music of his bugle winding over 15 the gra.s.sy solitudes, and presently we detected a low hut or two in the distance. Then the rattling of the coach, the clatter of our six horses' hoofs, and the driver's crisp commands, awoke to a louder and stronger emphasis, and we went sweeping down on the station at our smartest speed. 20 It was fascinating--that old Overland stagecoaching.

We jumped out in undress uniform. The driver tossed his gathered reins out on the ground, gaped and stretched complacently, drew off his heavy buckskin gloves with great deliberation and insufferable dignity--taking not 25 the slightest notice of a dozen solicitous inquiries after his health, and humbly facetious and flattering accostings, and obsequious tenders of service, from five or six hairy and half-civilized station keepers and hostlers who were nimbly unhitching our steeds and bringing the fresh team out of the 30 stables--for in the eyes of the stage driver of that day, station keepers and hostlers were a sort of good-enough low creatures, useful in their place and helping to make up a world, but not the kind of beings which a person of distinction could afford to concern himself with; while on the contrary, in the eyes of the station keeper and the hostler, the stage driver was a hero--a great and shining dignitary; 5 the world's favorite son, the envy of the people, the observed of the nations.

When they spoke to him they received his insolent silence meekly and as being the natural and proper conduct of so great a man; when he opened his lips 10 they all hung on his words with admiration (he never honored a particular individual with a remark, but addressed it with a broad generality to the horses, the stables, the surrounding country, and the human underlings); when he discharged a facetious insulting personality at a hostler, 15 that hostler was happy for the day; when he uttered his one jest--old as the hills, coa.r.s.e, profane, witless, and inflicted on the same audience, in that same language, every time his coach drove up there--the varlets roared, and slapped their thighs, and swore it was the best thing they'd 20 ever heard in all their lives. And how they would fly around when he wanted a basin of water, a gourd of the same, or a light for his pipe!--but they would instantly insult a pa.s.senger if he so far forgot himself as to crave a favor at their hands. They could do that sort of insolence as 25 well as the driver they copied it from--for, let it be borne in mind, the Overland driver had but little less contempt for his pa.s.sengers than he had for his hostlers.

The hostlers and station keepers treated the really powerful conductor of the coach merely with the best 30 of what was their idea of civility, but the driver was the only being they bowed down to and worshiped. How admiringly they would gaze up at him in his high seat as he gloved himself with lingering deliberation, while some happy hostler held the bunch of reins aloft and waited patiently for him to take it! And how they would bombard him with glorifying e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns as he cracked his long whip 5 and went careering away.

The station buildings were long, low huts, made of sun-dried, mud-colored bricks, laid up without mortar (_adobes_, the Spaniards call these bricks, and Americans shorten it to _'dobies_). The roofs, which had no slant to them worth 10 speaking of, were thatched and then sodded, or covered with a thick layer of earth, and from this sprang a pretty rank growth of weeds and gra.s.s. It was the first time we had ever seen a man's front yard on top of his house. The buildings consisted of barns, stable room for twelve or 15 fifteen horses, and a hut for an eating room for pa.s.sengers.

This latter had bunks in it for the station keeper and a hostler or two. You could rest your elbow on its eaves, and you had to bend in order to get in at the door. In place of a window there was a square hole about large enough 20 for a man to crawl through, but this had no gla.s.s in it.

There was no flooring, but the ground was packed hard.

There were no shelves, no cupboards, no closets. In a corner stood an open sack of flour, and nestling against its base were a couple of black and venerable tin coffeepots, 25 a tin teapot, a little bag of salt, and a side of bacon.

By the door of the station keeper's den, outside, was a tin washbasin, on the ground. Near it was a pail of water and a piece of yellow bar soap, and from the eaves hung a h.o.a.ry blue-woolen shirt, significantly--but this latter was 30 the station keeper's private towel, and only two persons in all the party might venture to use it--the stage driver and the conductor. The latter would not, from a sense of decency; the former would not, because he did not choose to encourage the advances of a station keeper. We had towels--in the valise; they might as well have been in Sodom and Gomorrah. 5

We (and the conductor) used our handkerchiefs, and the driver his pantaloons and sleeves. By the door, inside, was fastened a small old-fashioned looking-gla.s.s frame, with two little fragments of the original mirror lodged down in one corner of it. This arrangement afforded 10 a pleasant double-barreled portrait of you when you looked into it, with one half of your head set up a couple of inches above the other half. From the gla.s.s frame hung the half a comb by a string--but if I had to describe that patriarch or die, I believe I would order some sample 15 coffins. It had come down from Esau and Samson, and had been acc.u.mulating hair ever since--along with certain impurities. In one corner of the room stood three or four rifles and muskets, together with horns and pouches of ammunition. 20

The station men wore pantaloons of coa.r.s.e country-woven stuff, and into the seat and the inside of the legs were sewed ample additions of buckskin to do duty in place of leggings when the man rode horseback--so the pants were half dull blue and half yellow, and 25 unspeakably picturesque. The pants were stuffed into the tops of high boots, the heels whereof were armed with great Spanish spurs whose little iron clogs and chains jingled with every step. The man wore a huge beard and mustachios, an old slouch hat, a blue-woolen shirt, no 30 suspenders, no vest, no coat; in a leathern sheath in his belt, a great long "navy" revolver (slung on right side, hammer to the front), and projecting from his boot a horn-handled bowie knife. The furniture of the hut was neither gorgeous nor much in the way. The rocking-chairs and sofas were not present and never had been, but they were represented by two three-legged stools, a pine-board bench 5 four feet long, and two empty candle boxes. The table was a greasy board on stilts, and the tablecloth and napkins had not come--and they were not looking for them, either.

A battered tin platter, a knife and fork, and a tin pint cup, were at each man's place, and the driver had a queen's-ware 10 saucer that had seen better days. Of course this duke sat at the head of the table.

There was one isolated piece of table furniture that bore about it a touching air of grandeur in misfortune. This was the caster. It was German silver and crippled and rusty, 15 but it was so preposterously out of place there that it was suggestive of a tattered exiled king among barbarians, and the majesty of its native position compelled respect even in its degradation. There was only one cruet left, and that was a stopperless, fly-specked, broken-necked 20 thing, with two inches of vinegar in it and a dozen preserved flies with their heels up and looking sorry they had invested there.

The station keeper upended a disk of last week's bread, of the shape and size of an old-time cheese, and carved some 25 slabs from it which were as good as Nicholson pavement, and tenderer.

He sliced off a piece of bacon for each man, but only the experienced old hands made out to eat it, for it was condemned army bacon which the United States would not feed 30 to its soldiers in the forts, and the stage company had bought it cheap for the sustenance of their pa.s.sengers and employees. We may have found this condemned army bacon further out on the plains than the section I am locating it in, but we _found_ it--there is no gainsaying that.

Then he poured for us a beverage which he called _slumgullion_ and it is hard to think he was not inspired when 5 he named it. It really pretended to be tea, but there was too much dishrag, and sand, and old bacon rind in it to deceive the intelligent traveler. He had no sugar and no milk--not even a spoon to stir the ingredients with.

We could not eat the bread or the meat, or drink the 10 "slumgullion." And when I looked at that melancholy vinegar cruet, I thought of the anecdote (a very, very old one, even at that day) of the traveler who sat down at a table which had nothing on it but a mackerel and a pot of mustard. He asked the landlord if this was all. The 15 landlord said:

"_All!_ Why, thunder and lightning, I should think there was mackerel enough there for six."

"But I don't like mackerel."

"Oh--then help yourself to the mustard." 20

--_Roughing It._

1. How much of this selection is given over to a description of actual travel inside a stagecoach?

To what is the remainder devoted?

2. Re-read only the description of the night's traveling and decide which parts of it are most humorous. Why are they funny?

3. Describe the driver. Make a sketch of him.

4. How much of the central paragraph, page 257, is serious description? What parts of it are humorous?

Test your answer by reading the paragraph with the humor omitted.

5. Much of Twain's humor depends on an occasional single sentence or a startling word. Prove or disprove this statement.

6. Report fully on Samuel L. Clemens's life. If possible, read his _Huckleberry Finn_ and _Tom Sawyer_.

THE CHAMELEON

BY JAMES MERRICK

Two travelers of conceited cast, As o'er Arabia's wilds they pa.s.sed, And on their way, in friendly chat, Now talked of this and then of that, Discoursed awhile 'mongst other matter 5 Of the chameleon's form and nature.

"A stranger animal," cries one, "Sure never lived beneath the sun; A lizard's body, lean and long; A fish's head; a serpent's tongue; 10 Its foot with triple claw disjoined; And what a length of tail behind!

How slow its pace! And then its hue!-- Who ever saw so fine a blue?"

"Hold, there!" the other quick replies; 15 "'Tis _green_--I saw it with these eyes, As late with open mouth it lay, And warmed it in the sunny ray; Stretched at its ease, the beast I viewed, And saw it eat the air for food." 20

"I've seen it, sir, as well as you, And must again affirm it blue.

At leisure I the beast surveyed, Extended in the cooling shade."

"'Tis green, 'tis green, sir, I a.s.sure ye."

"Green!" cries the other in a fury; "Why, sir, d'ye think I've lost my eyes?"

"'Twere no great loss," the friend replies, "For if they always serve you thus, 5 You'll find them of but little use."

So high at last the contest rose, From words they almost came to blows; When luckily came by a third-- To him the question they referred, 10 And begged he'd tell them, if he knew, Whether the thing was green, or blue.

"Sirs," cries the umpire, "cease your pother!

The creature's neither one nor t'other.

I caught the animal last night, 15 And viewed it o'er by candle light; I marked it well--'twas black as jet; You stare--but, sirs, I've got it yet, And can produce it." "Pray, sir, do; I'll lay my life the thing is blue." 20 "And I'll engage that when you've seen The reptile, you'll p.r.o.nounce him green."