Complete Poetical Works

"CICELY"

     (ALKALI STATION)     Cicely says you're a poet; maybe,—I ain't much on rhyme:     I reckon you'd give me a hundred, and beat me every time.     Poetry!—that's the way some chaps puts up an idee,     But I takes mine "straight without sugar," and that's what's the        matter with me.     Poetry!—just look round you,—alkali, rock, and sage;     Sage-brush, rock, and alkali; ain't it a pretty page!     Sun in the east at mornin', sun in the west at night,     And the shadow of this 'yer station the on'y thing moves in sight.     Poetry!—Well now—Polly!  Polly, run to your mam;     Run right away, my pooty!  By-by!  Ain't she a lamb?     Poetry!—that reminds me o' suthin' right in that suit:     Jest shet that door thar, will yer?—for Cicely's ears is cute.     Ye noticed Polly,—the baby?  A month afore she was born,     Cicely—my old woman—was moody-like and forlorn;     Out of her head and crazy, and talked of flowers and trees;     Family man yourself, sir?  Well, you know what a woman be's.     Narvous she was, and restless,—said that she "couldn't stay."     Stay!—and the nearest woman seventeen miles away.     But I fixed it up with the doctor, and he said he would be on hand,     And I kinder stuck by the shanty, and fenced in that bit o' land.     One night,—the tenth of October,—I woke with a chill and a fright,     For the door it was standing open, and Cicely warn't in sight,     But a note was pinned on the blanket, which it said that she        "couldn't stay,"     But had gone to visit her neighbor,—seventeen miles away!     When and how she stampeded, I didn't wait for to see,     For out in the road, next minit, I started as wild as she;     Running first this way and that way, like a hound that is off the        scent,     For there warn't no track in the darkness to tell me the way she went.     I've had some mighty mean moments afore I kem to this spot,—     Lost on the Plains in '50, drownded almost and shot;     But out on this alkali desert, a-hunting a crazy wife,     Was ra'ly as on-satis-factory as anything in my life.     "Cicely! Cicely! Cicely!" I called, and I held my breath,     And "Cicely!" came from the canyon,—and all was as still as death.     And "Cicely! Cicely! Cicely!" came from the rocks below,     And jest but a whisper of "Cicely!" down from them peaks of snow.     I ain't what you call religious,—but I jest looked up to the sky,     And—this 'yer's to what I'm coming, and maybe ye think I lie:     But up away to the east'ard, yaller and big and far,     I saw of a suddent rising the singlerist kind of star.     Big and yaller and dancing, it seemed to beckon to me:     Yaller and big and dancing, such as you never see:     Big and yaller and dancing,—I never saw such a star,     And I thought of them sharps in the Bible, and I went for it then        and thar.     Over the brush and bowlders I stumbled and pushed ahead,     Keeping the star afore me, I went wherever it led.     It might hev been for an hour, when suddent and peart and nigh,     Out of the yearth afore me thar riz up a baby's cry.     Listen! thar's the same music; but her lungs they are stronger now     Than the day I packed her and her mother,—I'm derned if I jest know        how.     But the doctor kem the next minit, and the joke o' the whole thing is     That Cis never knew what happened from that very night to this!     But Cicely says you're a poet, and maybe you might, some day,     Jest sling her a rhyme 'bout a baby that was born in a curious way,     And see what she says; and, old fellow, when you speak of the star,        don't tell     As how 'twas the doctor's lantern,—for maybe 'twon't sound so well.

PENELOPE

     (SIMPSON'S BAR, 1858)     So you've kem 'yer agen,       And one answer won't do?     Well, of all the derned men       That I've struck, it is you.     O Sal! 'yer's that derned fool from Simpson's, cavortin' round 'yer        in the dew.     Kem in, ef you WILL.       Thar,—quit!  Take a cheer.     Not that; you can't fill       Them theer cushings this year,—     For that cheer was my old man's, Joe Simpson, and they don't make        such men about 'yer.     He was tall, was my Jack,       And as strong as a tree.     Thar's his gun on the rack,—       Jest you heft it, and see.     And YOU come a courtin' his widder!  Lord! where can that critter,        Sal, be!     You'd fill my Jack's place?       And a man of your size,—     With no baird to his face,       Nor a snap to his eyes,     And nary—Sho! thar! I was foolin',—I was, Joe, for sartain,—don't        rise.     Sit down.  Law! why, sho!       I'm as weak as a gal.     Sal!  Don't you go, Joe,       Or I'll faint,—sure, I shall.     Sit down,—ANYWHEER, where you like, Joe,—in that cheer, if you        choose,—Lord! where's Sal?

PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES

     (TABLE MOUNTAIN, 1870)     Which I wish to remark,       And my language is plain,     That for ways that are dark       And for tricks that are vain,     The heathen Chinee is peculiar,      Which the same I would rise to explain.     Ah Sin was his name;       And I shall not deny,     In regard to the same,       What that name might imply;     But his smile it was pensive and childlike,       As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.     It was August the third,       And quite soft was the skies;     Which it might be inferred       That Ah Sin was likewise;     Yet he played it that day upon William       And me in a way I despise.     Which we had a small game,       And Ah Sin took a hand:     It was Euchre.  The same       He did not understand;     But he smiled as he sat by the table,       With the smile that was childlike and bland.     Yet the cards they were stocked       In a way that I grieve,     And my feelings were shocked       At the state of Nye's sleeve,     Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,       And the same with intent to deceive.     But the hands that were played       By that heathen Chinee,     And the points that he made,       Were quite frightful to see,—     Till at last he put down a right bower,       Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.     Then I looked up at Nye,       And he gazed upon me;     And he rose with a sigh,       And said, "Can this be?     We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor,"—       And he went for that heathen Chinee.     In the scene that ensued       I did not take a hand,     But the floor it was strewed       Like the leaves on the strand     With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding,       In the game "he did not understand."     In his sleeves, which were long,       He had twenty-four packs,—     Which was coming it strong,       Yet I state but the facts;     And we found on his nails, which were taper,       What is frequent in tapers,—that's wax.     Which is why I remark,       And my language is plain,     That for ways that are dark       And for tricks that are vain,     The heathen Chinee is peculiar,—       Which the same I am free to maintain.

THE SOCIETY UPON THE STANISLAUS

     I reside at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James;     I am not up to small deceit or any sinful games;     And I'll tell in simple language what I know about the row     That broke up our Society upon the Stanislow.     But first I would remark, that it is not a proper plan     For any scientific gent to whale his fellow-man,     And, if a member don't agree with his peculiar whim,     To lay for that same member for to "put a head" on him.     Now nothing could be finer or more beautiful to see     Than the first six months' proceedings of that same Society,     Till Brown of Calaveras brought a lot of fossil bones     That he found within a tunnel near the tenement of Jones.     Then Brown he read a paper, and he reconstructed there,     From those same bones, an animal that was extremely rare;     And Jones then asked the Chair for a suspension of the rules,     Till he could prove that those same bones was one of his lost mules.     Then Brown he smiled a bitter smile, and said he was at fault,     It seemed he had been trespassing on Jones's family vault;     He was a most sarcastic man, this quiet Mr. Brown,     And on several occasions he had cleaned out the town.     Now I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent     To say another is an ass,—at least, to all intent;     Nor should the individual who happens to be meant     Reply by heaving rocks at him, to any great extent.     Then Abner Dean of Angel's raised a point of order, when     A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen,     And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor,     And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.     For, in less time than I write it, every member did engage     In a warfare with the remnants of a palaeozoic age;     And the way they heaved those fossils in their anger was a sin,     Till the skull of an old mammoth caved the head of Thompson in.     And this is all I have to say of these improper games,     For I live at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James;     And I've told in simple language what I know about the row     That broke up our Society upon the Stanislow.

LUKE

     (IN THE COLORADO PARK, 1873)     Wot's that you're readin'?—a novel?  A novel!—well, darn my skin!     You a man grown and bearded and histin' such stuff ez that in—     Stuff about gals and their sweethearts!  No wonder you're thin ez a        knife.     Look at me—clar two hundred—and never read one in my life!     That's my opinion o' novels.  And ez to their lyin' round here,     They belong to the Jedge's daughter—the Jedge who came up last year     On account of his lungs and the mountains and the balsam o' pine and        fir;     And his daughter—well, she read novels, and that's what's the     matter with her.     Yet she was sweet on the Jedge, and stuck by him day and night,     Alone in the cabin up 'yer—till she grew like a ghost, all white.     She wus only a slip of a thing, ez light and ez up and away     Ez rifle smoke blown through the woods, but she wasn't my kind—no        way!     Speakin' o' gals, d'ye mind that house ez you rise the hill,     A mile and a half from White's, and jist above Mattingly's mill?     You do?  Well now THAR's a gal!  What! you saw her?  Oh, come now,        thar! quit!     She was only bedevlin' you boys, for to me she don't cotton one bit.     Now she's what I call a gal—ez pretty and plump ez a quail;     Teeth ez white ez a hound's, and they'd go through a ten-penny nail;     Eyes that kin snap like a cap.  So she asked to know "whar I was hid?"     She did!  Oh, it's jist like her sass, for she's peart ez a Katydid.     But what was I talking of?—Oh! the Jedge and his daughter—she read     Novels the whole day long, and I reckon she read them abed;     And sometimes she read them out loud to the Jedge on the porch where        he sat,     And 'twas how "Lord Augustus" said this, and how "Lady Blanche" she        said that.     But the sickest of all that I heerd was a yarn thet they read 'bout        a chap,     "Leather-stocking" by name, and a hunter chock full o' the greenest        o' sap;     And they asked me to hear, but I says, "Miss Mabel, not any for me;     When I likes I kin sling my own lies, and thet chap and I shouldn't        agree."     Yet somehow or other that gal allus said that I brought her to mind     Of folks about whom she had read, or suthin belike of thet kind,     And thar warn't no end o' the names that she give me thet summer up        here—     "Robin Hood," "Leather-stocking" "Rob Roy,"—Oh, I tell you, the        critter was queer!     And yet, ef she hadn't been spiled, she was harmless enough in her        way;     She could jabber in French to her dad, and they said that she knew        how to play;     And she worked me that shot-pouch up thar, which the man doesn't        live ez kin use;     And slippers—you see 'em down 'yer—ez would cradle an Injin's        papoose.     Yet along o' them novels, you see, she was wastin' and mopin' away,     And then she got shy with her tongue, and at last she had nothin' to        say;     And whenever I happened around, her face it was hid by a book,     And it warn't till the day she left that she give me ez much ez a        look.     And this was the way it was.  It was night when I kem up here     To say to 'em all "good-by," for I reckoned to go for deer     At "sun up" the day they left.  So I shook 'em all round by the hand,     'Cept Mabel, and she was sick, ez they give me to understand.     But jist ez I passed the house next morning at dawn, some one,     Like a little waver o' mist got up on the hill with the sun;     Miss Mabel it was, alone—all wrapped in a mantle o' lace—     And she stood there straight in the road, with a touch o' the sun in        her face.     And she looked me right in the eye—I'd seen suthin' like it before     When I hunted a wounded doe to the edge o' the Clear Lake Shore,     And I had my knee on its neck, and I jist was raisin' my knife,     When it give me a look like that, and—well, it got off with its life.     "We are going to-day," she said, "and I thought I would say good-by     To you in your own house, Luke—these woods and the bright blue sky!     You've always been kind to us, Luke, and papa has found you still     As good as the air he breathes, and wholesome as Laurel Tree Hill.     "And we'll always think of you, Luke, as the thing we could not take        away,—     The balsam that dwells in the woods, the rainbow that lives in the        spray.     And you'll sometimes think of ME, Luke, as you know you once used to        say,     A rifle smoke blown through the woods, a moment, but never to stay."     And then we shook hands.  She turned, but a-suddent she tottered and        fell,     And I caught her sharp by the waist, and held her a minit.  Well,     It was only a minit, you know, thet ez cold and ez white she lay     Ez a snowflake here on my breast, and then—well, she melted away—     And was gone.... And thar are her books; but I says not any for me;     Good enough may be for some, but them and I mightn't agree.     They spiled a decent gal ez might hev made some chap a wife,     And look at me!—clar two hundred—and never read one in my life!

"THE BABES IN THE WOODS"

     (BIG PINE FLAT, 1871)     "Something characteristic," eh?       Humph!  I reckon you mean by that     Something that happened in our way,       Here at the crossin' of Big Pine Flat.     Times aren't now as they used to be,       When gold was flush and the boys were frisky,     And a man would pull out his battery       For anything—maybe the price of whiskey.     Nothing of that sort, eh?  That's strange!       Why, I thought you might be diverted     Hearing how Jones of Red Rock Range       Drawed his "hint to the unconverted,"     And saying, "Whar will you have it?" shot       Cherokee Bob at the last debating!     What was the question I forgot,       But Jones didn't like Bob's way of stating.     Nothing of that kind, eh?  You mean       Something milder?  Let's see!—O Joe!     Tell to the stranger that little scene       Out of the "Babes in the Woods."  You know,     "Babes" was the name that we gave 'em, sir,       Two lean lads in their teens, and greener     Than even the belt of spruce and fir       Where they built their nest, and each day grew leaner.     No one knew where they came from.  None       Cared to ask if they had a mother.     Runaway schoolboys, maybe.  One       Tall and dark as a spruce; the other     Blue and gold in the eyes and hair,       Soft and low in his speech, but rarely     Talking with us; and we didn't care       To get at their secret at all unfairly.     For they were so quiet, so sad and shy,       Content to trust each other solely,     That somehow we'd always shut one eye,       And never seem to observe them wholly     As they passed to their work.  'Twas a worn-out claim,       And it paid them grub.  They could live without it,     For the boys had a way of leaving game       In their tent, and forgetting all about it.     Yet no one asked for their secret.  Dumb       It lay in their big eyes' heavy hollows.     It was understood that no one should come       To their tent unawares, save the bees and swallows.     So they lived alone.  Until one warm night       I was sitting here at the tent-door,—so, sir!     When out of the sunset's rosy light       Up rose the Sheriff of Mariposa.     I knew at once there was something wrong,       For his hand and his voice shook just a little,     And there isn't much you can fetch along       To make the sinews of Jack Hill brittle.     "Go warn the Babes!" he whispered, hoarse;       "Tell them I'm coming—to get and scurry;     For I've got a story that's bad,—and worse,       I've got a warrant: G-d d—n it, hurry!"     Too late! they had seen him cross the hill;       I ran to their tent and found them lying     Dead in each other's arms, and still       Clasping the drug they had taken flying.     And there lay their secret cold and bare,       Their life, their trial—the old, old story!     For the sweet blue eyes and the golden hair       Was a WOMAN'S shame and a WOMAN'S glory.     "Who were they?"  Ask no more, or ask       The sun that visits their grave so lightly;     Ask of the whispering reeds, or task       The mourning crickets that chirrup nightly.     All of their life but its love forgot,       Everything tender and soft and mystic,     These are our Babes in the Woods,—you've got,       Well—human nature—that's characteristic.

THE LATEST CHINESE OUTRAGE

     It was noon by the sun; we had finished our game,     And was passin' remarks goin' back to our claim;     Jones was countin' his chips, Smith relievin' his mind     Of ideas that a "straight" should beat "three of a kind,"     When Johnson of Elko came gallopin' down,     With a look on his face 'twixt a grin and a frown,     And he calls, "Drop your shovels and face right about,     For them Chinees from Murphy's are cleanin' us out—          With their ching-a-ring-chow          And their chic-colorow          They're bent upon making          No slouch of a row."     Then Jones—my own pardner—looks up with a sigh;     "It's your wash-bill," sez he, and I answers, "You lie!"     But afore he could draw or the others could arm,     Up tumbles the Bates boys, who heard the alarm.     And a yell from the hill-top and roar of a gong,     Mixed up with remarks like "Hi! yi! Chang-a-wong,"     And bombs, shells, and crackers, that crashed through the trees,     Revealed in their war-togs four hundred Chinees!          Four hundred Chinee;          We are eight, don't ye see!          That made a square fifty          To just one o' we.     They were dressed in their best, but I grieve that that same     Was largely made up of our own, to their shame;     And my pardner's best shirt and his trousers were hung     On a spear, and above him were tauntingly swung;     While that beggar, Chey Lee, like a conjurer sat     Pullin' out eggs and chickens from Johnson's best hat;     And Bates's game rooster was part of their "loot,"     And all of Smith's pigs were skyugled to boot;     But the climax was reached and I like to have died     When my demijohn, empty, came down the hillside,—          Down the hillside—          What once held the pride          Of Robertson County          Pitched down the hillside!     Then we axed for a parley.  When out of the din     To the front comes a-rockin' that heathen, Ah Sin!     "You owe flowty dollee—me washee you camp,     You catchee my washee—me catchee no stamp;     One dollar hap dozen, me no catchee yet,     Now that flowty dollee—no hab?—how can get?     Me catchee you piggee—me sellee for cash,     It catchee me licee—you catchee no 'hash;'     Me belly good Sheliff—me lebbee when can,     Me allee same halp pin as Melican man!          But Melican man          He washee him pan          On BOTTOM side hillee          And catchee—how can?"     "Are we men?" says Joe Johnson, "and list to this jaw,     Without process of warrant or color of law?     Are we men or—a-chew!"—here be gasped in his speech,     For a stink-pot had fallen just out of his reach.     "Shall we stand here as idle, and let Asia pour     Her barbaric hordes on this civilized shore?     Has the White Man no country?  Are we left in the lurch?     And likewise what's gone of the Established Church?     One man to four hundred is great odds, I own,     But this 'yer's a White Man—I plays it alone!"     And he sprang up the hillside—to stop him none dare—     Till a yell from the top told a "White Man was there!"          A White Man was there!          We prayed he might spare          Those misguided heathens          The few clothes they wear.     They fled, and he followed, but no matter where;     They fled to escape him,—the "White Man was there,"—     Till we missed first his voice on the pine-wooded slope,     And we knew for the heathen henceforth was no hope;     And the yells they grew fainter, when Petersen said,     "It simply was human to bury his dead."          And then, with slow tread,          We crept up, in dread,          But found nary mortal there,          Living or dead.     But there was his trail, and the way that they came,     And yonder, no doubt, he was bagging his game.     When Jones drops his pickaxe, and Thompson says "Shoo!"     And both of 'em points to a cage of bamboo     Hanging down from a tree, with a label that swung     Conspicuous, with letters in some foreign tongue,     Which, when freely translated, the same did appear     Was the Chinese for saying, "A White Man is here!"          And as we drew near,          In anger and fear,          Bound hand and foot, Johnson          Looked down with a leer!     In his mouth was an opium pipe—which was why     He leered at us so with a drunken-like eye!     They had shaved off his eyebrows, and tacked on a cue,     They had painted his face of a coppery hue,     And rigged him all up in a heathenish suit,     Then softly departed, each man with his "loot."          Yes, every galoot,          And Ah Sin, to boot,          Had left him there hanging          Like ripening fruit.     At a mass meeting held up at Murphy's next day     There were seventeen speakers and each had his say;     There were twelve resolutions that instantly passed,     And each resolution was worse than the last;     There were fourteen petitions, which, granting the same,     Will determine what Governor Murphy's shall name;     And the man from our district that goes up next year     Goes up on one issue—that's patent and clear:          "Can the work of a mean,          Degraded, unclean          Believer in Buddha          Be held as a lien?"

TRUTHFUL JAMES TO THE EDITOR

     (YREKA, 1873)     Which it is not my style       To produce needless pain     By statements that rile       Or that go 'gin the grain,     But here's Captain Jack still a-livin', and Nye has no skelp on his        brain!     On that Caucasian head       There is no crown of hair;     It has gone, it has fled!       And Echo sez "Where?"     And I asks, "Is this Nation a White Man's, and is generally things        on the square?"     She was known in the camp       As "Nye's other squaw,"     And folks of that stamp       Hez no rights in the law,     But is treacherous, sinful, and slimy, as Nye might hev well known        before.     But she said that she knew       Where the Injins was hid,     And the statement was true,       For it seemed that she did,     Since she led William where he was covered by seventeen Modocs, and—        slid!     Then they reached for his hair;       But Nye sez, "By the law     Of nations, forbear!       I surrenders—no more:     And I looks to be treated,—you hear me?—as a pris'ner, a pris'ner        of war!"     But Captain Jack rose       And he sez, "It's too thin!     Such statements as those       It's too late to begin.     There's a MODOC INDICTMENT agin you, O Paleface, and you're goin' in!     "You stole Schonchin's squaw       In the year sixty-two;     It was in sixty-four       That Long Jack you went through,     And you burned Nasty Jim's rancheria, and his wives and his papooses        too.     "This gun in my hand       Was sold me by you     'Gainst the law of the land,       And I grieves it is true!"     And he buried his face in his blanket and wept as he hid it from view.     "But you're tried and condemned,       And skelping's your doom,"     And he paused and he hemmed—       But why this resume?     He was skelped 'gainst the custom of nations, and cut off like a rose        in its bloom.     So I asks without guile,       And I trusts not in vain,     If this is the style       That is going to obtain—     If here's Captain Jack still a-livin', and Nye with no skelp on his        brain?