I began to get tired of staying in one place so long.
There was no longer satisfying variety in going down to Carson
to report the proceedings of the legislature once a year, and
horse-races and pumpkin-shows once in three months; (they had got
to raising pumpkins and potatoes in Washoe Valley, and of course
one of the first achievements of the legislature was to institute
a ten-thousand-dollar Agricultural Fair to show off forty
dollars’ worth of those pumpkins in—however, the territorial
legislature was usually spoken of as the “asylum”). I wanted to
see San Francisco. I wanted to go somewhere. I wanted—I did not
know what I wanted. I had the “spring fever” and wanted a change,
principally, no doubt. Besides, a convention had framed a State
Constitution; nine men out of every ten wanted an office; I
believed that these gentlemen would “treat” the moneyless and the
irresponsible among the population into adopting the constitution
and thus well-nigh killing the country (it could not well carry
such a load as a State government, since it had nothing to tax
that could stand a tax, for undeveloped mines could not, and
there were not fifty developed ones in the land, there was but
little realty to tax, and it did seem as if nobody was ever going
to think of the simple salvation of inflicting a money penalty on
murder). I believed that a State government would destroy the
“flush times,” and I wanted to get away. I believed that the
mining stocks I had on hand would soon be worth $100,000, and
thought if they reached that before the Constitution was adopted,
I would sell out and make myself secure from the crash the change
of government was going to bring. I considered $100,000
sufficient to go home with decently, though it was but a small
amount compared to what I had been expecting to return with. I
felt rather down-hearted about it, but I tried to comfort myself
with the reflection that with such a sum I could not fall into
want. About this time a schoolmate of mine whom I had not seen
since boyhood, came tramping in on foot from Reese River, a very
allegory of Poverty. The son of wealthy parents, here he was, in
a strange land, hungry, bootless, mantled in an ancient
horse-blanket, roofed with a brimless hat, and so generally and
so extravagantly dilapidated that he could have “taken the shine
out of the Prodigal Son himself,” as he pleasantly remarked.
He wanted to borrow forty-six dollars—twenty-six to take him
to San Francisco, and twenty for something else; to buy some soap
with, maybe, for he needed it. I found I had but little more than
the amount wanted, in my pocket; so I stepped in and borrowed
forty-six dollars of a banker (on twenty days’ time, without the
formality of a note), and gave it him, rather than walk half a
block to the office, where I had some specie laid up. If anybody
had told me that it would take me two years to pay back that
forty-six dollars to the banker (for I did not expect it of the
Prodigal, and was not disappointed), I would have felt injured.
And so would the banker.
I wanted a change. I wanted variety of some kind. It came. Mr.
Goodman went away for a week and left me the post of chief
editor. It destroyed me. The first day, I wrote my “leader” in
the forenoon. The second day, I had no subject and put it off
till the afternoon. The third day I put it off till evening, and
then copied an elaborate editorial out of the “American
Cyclopedia,” that steadfast friend of the editor, all over this
land. The fourth day I “fooled around” till midnight, and then
fell back on the Cyclopedia again. The fifth day I cudgeled my
brain till midnight, and then kept the press waiting while I
penned some bitter personalities on six different people. The
sixth day I labored in anguish till far into the night and
brought forth—nothing. The paper went to press without an
editorial. The seventh day I resigned. On the eighth, Mr. Goodman
returned and found six duels on his hands—my personalities had
borne fruit.
Nobody, except he has tried it, knows what it is to be an
editor. It is easy to scribble local rubbish, with the facts all
before you; it is easy to clip selections from other papers; it
is easy to string out a correspondence from any locality; but it
is unspeakable hardship to write editorials. Subjects are the
trouble—the dreary lack of them, I mean. Every day, it is drag,
drag, drag—think, and worry and suffer—all the world is a dull
blank, and yet the editorial columns must be filled. Only give
the editor a subject, and his work is done—it is no trouble to
write it up; but fancy how you would feel if you had to pump your
brains dry every day in the week, fifty-two weeks in the year. It
makes one low spirited simply to think of it. The matter that
each editor of a daily paper in America writes in the course of a
year would fill from four to eight bulky volumes like this book!
Fancy what a library an editor’s work would make, after twenty or
thirty years’ service. Yet people often marvel that Dickens,
Scott, Bulwer, Dumas, etc., have been able to produce so many
books. If these authors had wrought as voluminously as newspaper
editors do, the result would be something to marvel at, indeed.
How editors can continue this tremendous labor, this exhausting
consumption of brain fibre (for their work is creative, and not a
mere mechanical laying-up of facts, like reporting), day after
day and year after year, is incomprehensible. Preachers take two
months’ holiday in midsummer, for they find that to produce two
sermons a week is wearing, in the long run. In truth it must be
so, and is so; and therefore, how an editor can take from ten to
twenty texts and build upon them from ten to twenty painstaking
editorials a week and keep it up all the year round, is farther
beyond comprehension than ever. Ever since I survived my week as
editor, I have found at least one pleasure in any newspaper that
comes to my hand; it is in admiring the long columns of
editorial, and wondering to myself how in the mischief he did
it!
Mr. Goodman’s return relieved me of employment, unless I chose
to become a reporter again. I could not do that; I could not
serve in the ranks after being General of the army. So I thought
I would depart and go abroad into the world somewhere. Just at
this juncture, Dan, my associate in the reportorial department,
told me, casually, that two citizens had been trying to persuade
him to go with them to New York and aid in selling a rich silver
mine which they had discovered and secured in a new mining
district in our neighborhood. He said they offered to pay his
expenses and give him one third of the proceeds of the sale. He
had refused to go. It was the very opportunity I wanted. I abused
him for keeping so quiet about it, and not mentioning it sooner.
He said it had not occurred to him that I would like to go, and
so he had recommended them to apply to Marshall, the reporter of
the other paper. I asked Dan if it was a good, honest mine, and
no swindle. He said the men had shown him nine tons of the rock,
which they had got out to take to New York, and he could
cheerfully say that he had seen but little rock in Nevada that
was richer; and moreover, he said that they had secured a tract
of valuable timber and a mill-site, near the mine. My first idea
was to kill Dan. But I changed my mind, notwithstanding I was so
angry, for I thought maybe the chance was not yet lost. Dan said
it was by no means lost; that the men were absent at the mine
again, and would not be in Virginia to leave for the East for
some ten days; that they had requested him to do the talking to
Marshall, and he had promised that he would either secure
Marshall or somebody else for them by the time they got back; he
would now say nothing to anybody till they returned, and then
fulfil his promise by furnishing me to them.
It was splendid. I went to bed all on fire with excitement;
for nobody had yet gone East to sell a Nevada silver mine, and
the field was white for the sickle. I felt that such a mine as
the one described by Dan would bring a princely sum in New York,
and sell without delay or difficulty. I could not sleep, my fancy
so rioted through its castles in the air. It was the “blind lead”
come again.
Next day I got away, on the coach, with the usual eclat
attending departures of old citizens,—for if you have only half
a dozen friends out there they will make noise for a hundred
rather than let you seem to go away neglected and
unregretted—and Dan promised to keep strict watch for the men
that had the mine to sell.
The trip was signalized but by one little incident, and that
occurred just as we were about to start. A very seedy looking
vagabond passenger got out of the stage a moment to wait till the
usual ballast of silver bricks was thrown in. He was standing on
the pavement, when an awkward express employee, carrying a brick
weighing a hundred pounds, stumbled and let it fall on the
bummer’s foot. He instantly dropped on the ground and began to
howl in the most heart-breaking way. A sympathizing crowd
gathered around and were going to pull his boot off; but he
screamed louder than ever and they desisted; then he fell to
gasping, and between the gasps ejaculated “Brandy! for Heaven’s
sake, brandy!” They poured half a pint down him, and it
wonderfully restored and comforted him. Then he begged the people
to assist him to the stage, which was done. The express people
urged him to have a doctor at their expense, but he declined, and
said that if he only had a little brandy to take along with him,
to soothe his paroxyms of pain when they came on, he would be
grateful and content. He was quickly supplied with two bottles,
and we drove off. He was so smiling and happy after that, that I
could not refrain from asking him how he could possibly be so
comfortable with a crushed foot.
“Well,” said he, “I hadn’t had a drink for twelve hours, and
hadn’t a cent to my name. I was most perishing—and so, when that
duffer dropped that hundred-pounder on my foot, I see my chance.
Got a cork leg, you know!” and he pulled up his pantaloons and
proved it.
He was as drunk as a lord all day long, and full of chucklings
over his timely ingenuity.
One drunken man necessarily reminds one of another. I once
heard a gentleman tell about an incident which he witnessed in a
Californian bar-room. He entitled it “Ye Modest Man Taketh a
Drink.” It was nothing but a bit of acting, but it seemed to me a
perfect rendering, and worthy of Toodles himself. The modest man,
tolerably far gone with beer and other matters, enters a saloon
(twenty-five cents is the price for anything and everything, and
specie the only money used) and lays down a half dollar; calls
for whiskey and drinks it; the bar-keeper makes change and lays
the quarter in a wet place on the counter; the modest man fumbles
at it with nerveless fingers, but it slips and the water holds
it; he contemplates it, and tries again; same result; observes
that people are interested in what he is at, blushes; fumbles at
the quarter again—blushes—puts his forefinger carefully, slowly
down, to make sure of his aim—pushes the coin toward the
bar-keeper, and says with a sigh:
“Gimme a cigar!”
Naturally, another gentleman present told about another
drunken man. He said he reeled toward home late at night; made a
mistake and entered the wrong gate; thought he saw a dog on the
stoop; and it was—an iron one.
He stopped and considered; wondered if it was a dangerous dog;
ventured to say “Be (hic) begone!” No effect. Then he approached
warily, and adopted conciliation; pursed up his lips and tried to
whistle, but failed; still approached, saying, “Poor dog!—doggy,
doggy, doggy!—poor doggy-dog!” Got up on the stoop, still
petting with fond names; till master of the advantages; then
exclaimed, “Leave, you thief!”—planted a vindictive kick in his
ribs, and went head-over-heels overboard, of course. A pause; a
sigh or two of pain, and then a remark in a reflective voice:
“Awful solid dog. What could he ben eating? (‘ic!) Rocks,
p’raps. Such animals is dangerous.—’ At’s what I say—they’re
dangerous. If a man—(‘ic!)—if a man wants to feed a dog on
rocks, let him feed him on rocks; ‘at’s all right; but let him
keep him at home—not have him layin’ round promiscuous, where
(‘ic!) where people’s liable to stumble over him when they ain’t
noticin’!”
It was not without regret that I took a last look at the tiny
flag (it was thirty-five feet long and ten feet wide) fluttering
like a lady’s handkerchief from the topmost peak of Mount
Davidson, two thousand feet above Virginia’s roofs, and felt that
doubtless I was bidding a permanent farewell to a city which had
afforded me the most vigorous enjoyment of life I had ever
experienced. And this reminds me of an incident which the dullest
memory Virginia could boast at the time it happened must vividly
recall, at times, till its possessor dies. Late one summer
afternoon we had a rain shower.
That was astonishing enough, in itself, to set the whole town
buzzing, for it only rains (during a week or two weeks) in the
winter in Nevada, and even then not enough at a time to make it
worth while for any merchant to keep umbrellas for sale. But the
rain was not the chief wonder. It only lasted five or ten
minutes; while the people were still talking about it all the
heavens gathered to themselves a dense blackness as of midnight.
All the vast eastern front of Mount Davidson, over-looking the
city, put on such a funereal gloom that only the nearness and
solidity of the mountain made its outlines even faintly
distinguishable from the dead blackness of the heavens they
rested against. This unaccustomed sight turned all eyes toward
the mountain; and as they looked, a little tongue of rich golden
flame was seen waving and quivering in the heart of the midnight,
away up on the extreme summit! In a few minutes the streets were
packed with people, gazing with hardly an uttered word, at the
one brilliant mote in the brooding world of darkness. It flicked
like a candle-flame, and looked no larger; but with such a
background it was wonderfully bright, small as it was. It was the
flag!—though no one suspected it at first, it seemed so like a
supernatural visitor of some kind—a mysterious messenger of good
tidings, some were fain to believe. It was the nation’s emblem
transfigured by the departing rays of a sun that was entirely
palled from view; and on no other object did the glory fall, in
all the broad panorama of mountain ranges and deserts. Not even
upon the staff of the flag—for that, a needle in the distance at
any time, was now untouched by the light and undistinguishable in
the gloom. For a whole hour the weird visitor winked and burned
in its lofty solitude, and still the thousands of uplifted eyes
watched it with fascinated interest. How the people were wrought
up! The superstition grew apace that this was a mystic courier
come with great news from the war—the poetry of the idea
excusing and commending it—and on it spread, from heart to
heart, from lip to lip and from street to street, till there was
a general impulse to have out the military and welcome the bright
waif with a salvo of artillery!
And all that time one sorely tried man, the telegraph operator
sworn to official secrecy, had to lock his lips and chain his
tongue with a silence that was like to rend them; for he, and he
only, of all the speculating multitude, knew the great things
this sinking sun had seen that day in the east—Vicksburg fallen,
and the Union arms victorious at Gettysburg!
But for the journalistic monopoly that forbade the slightest
revealment of eastern news till a day after its publication in
the California papers, the glorified flag on Mount Davidson would
have been saluted and re-saluted, that memorable evening, as long
as there was a charge of powder to thunder with; the city would
have been illuminated, and every man that had any respect for
himself would have got drunk,—as was the custom of the country
on all occasions of public moment. Even at this distant day I
cannot think of this needlessly marred supreme opportunity
without regret. What a time we might have had!
