Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories Read online

  THE RISE, FALL, AND REDEMPTION OF JOHNSON SIDES

  The day was hot, and the wind was high, and the alkali dust from thesagebrush plains sifted into the car, and whitened the stuffyupholstering, and burrowed into the nerves of the passengers.Everybody longed for the coming of night, and the relief of the climbup the cool heights of the Sierras.

  I looked out on the sun-flooded platform at Winnemucca and wondered,with a feeling of irritation against all things earthly, what I shoulddo with myself during all the long, hot, and uncomfortable hours thatwere still to be endured. And then I saw the big, broad-shoulderedfigure and the round, good-natured face of the Nevadan enter the carand come straight toward my section. At once I forgot the heat and thealkali dust, and my heart sang with joy, for I knew the Nevadan of old,and knew him for the prince of story tellers. So there was content inmy soul and foreknowledge of delightful entertainment with tales newand old. For the Nevadan's old stories are just as interesting as hisnew ones, because you never recognize them as anything you ever heardbefore. His store of yarns is limitless and needs only a listener toset it unwinding, like an endless cable, warranted to run as long ashis audience laughs.

  So the Nevadan talked, and I listened and felt at peace with the world.And presently he began to tell me about Johnson Sides.

  "Of course, you 've heard about him, have n't you?" he asked."Everybody who has lived on either slope of the Sierras must have heardabout Johnson. Well, Johnson Sides is a whole lot of a man, even if heis only a Piute Indian. It ain't quite fair, though, to speak of himas only an Indian, for he has developed into an individual and wearsstore clothes.

  "The first time I ever saw Johnson was away back, years ago, when Ifirst went to Virginia City. Going down C Street one day I stopped tolook at some workmen who were excavating for the foundation of a house.They had been blasting, and were working away like good fellows gettingthe pieces of rock off the site. On the south side of the biggeststone they had removed, where the sun shone on him and he was shelteredfrom the wind, a big Piute was lying on the ground and watching theworkmen as if he had been their boss. He was wrapped in an armyblanket, new but dirty, and he wore a fairly good hat and a pair ofboots without holes. His face and hands were dirty, and his hair hungaround his ears and neck and eyes in that fine disorder which thePiutes admire.

  "I wondered why he was watching the workmen, for it is little short ofa miracle for a Piute to take any interest whatever in manual labor.So I spoke to him. Without paying any attention to me or what I hadsaid, or even seeming to be conscious of my presence, he rose,straightened himself up, threw his head back, and said, as if he wereaddressing the world in general: 'White man work, white man eat; Injunno work, Injun eat; white man damn fool.'

  "I laughed and said, 'You 've struck it, right at the bottom. Anybodywith as much wisdom as that deserves to be supported by the community.Here 's a dollar for you.'

  "He took the money as disdainfully as if he had been a prince and I asubject paying back taxes, and without once looking at me stalked offdown the street. An hour afterwards I ran across Johnson, two otherbucks, and a squaw, sitting on the ground in the sun behind a barn,playing poker. Johnson must have raked in everything the whole partyhad, for that night the rest of them were sober and he was whoopingdrunk. In consequence, he got locked up for a while. The police ofVirginia City always paid Johnson the compliment of locking him up whenhe got drunk, for with whiskey inside of him he was more like a maddevil than anything else.

  "After he got out of jail I saw him standing around for several dayslooking as lordly and unconscious as if he had been worth a million.But the pangs of hunger must have set his wits to work. For prettysoon he appeared on the streets with a wrinkled, decrepit, old Piutetied to a string. He had fastened the string to the old fellow's armand he walked behind, holding the other end, but apparently asunconscious of the whole business as if he 'd been the sole inhabitantof Virginia City. He stalked along with his head in the air, and theold fellow trotted out in front until Johnson yanked the string. Thenthey stopped and the old man began to beg money of the passers-by, andJohnson turned his back on his companion and looked off down thestreet, proudly pretending that they weren't together. If any one gavethe old man money Johnson took it at once and it disappeared somewhereinside his blanket. Johnson and his prime minister, we used to callthe combination. But Johnson would n't beg for himself. Oh, no! Hewas too proud. It's a fact, I never knew or heard of Johnson Sideshimself asking for money. But he kept his prime minister trottingaround for several weeks, and he never let go the string or let the oldfellow keep a two-bit piece.

  "But Johnson was reformed at last; and it was the power of the pressthat did it. Talk about the press as a moral agent! Why, bless yoursoul, when one newspaper can reform a whole Piute Indian and make a manof him--well, the question's settled, then and there, and the pulpitand the platform ain't in it after that.

  "We did n't try to reform him--in fact, we 'd rather have kept him ashe was at first. He was more amusing. But the aspirations ofJohnson's soul were too much for us. I used to give him moneysometimes--he was sure to do something if he got drunk that was worthwriting up--and so he got into the habit of coming to our newspaperoffice whenever he felt the need of more cash. He did n't ask foranything, and he always made you feel that he was doing you a greatfavor in accepting any stray chicken-feed you might have about yourclothes. He just sat around like a bronzed and blanketed statue ofCaesar, or Alexander, or Napoleon Bonaparte. Not one of the whole lotof them ever looked more as if he owned the whole earth than Johnsondid after he 'd sat there three hours waiting for somebody to give himtwo bits or a chew of tobacco.

  "I found out after a while that he could give me scraps of news aboutthe Indians over at Pyramid Lake or in the city that were worth makinginto local items, and I always paid him for them. Nobody ever saw aprouder Indian than Johnson was the first day I did that. I marked theparagraphs with a blue pencil and gave him a copy of the paper, and hecarried it around with him until it was worn out. The money I gave himfor them he kept in his pocket for two whole days. But at last therewas a big poker game behind a barn--six bucks down from Pyramid Lakewith five dollars apiece, and it was too much for Johnson. His proudlyearned silver went into the pot with the rest.

  "Johnson brought up items every day after that, and soon began to feelhimself one of the profession and a man of consequence. He alwaysbrought two or three other bucks with him to see his importance and beimpressed by his superiority. While they stood against the wall orsquatted in a corner Johnson would take a chair at a dignified distancefrom me and begin, 'Now, you make 'um paper talk.' And he always endedhis account with the emphatic command, 'Now, you make 'um paper talkstraight.'

  "But his information was not always 'straight.' He had all theinstincts of the modern and progressive journalist, and he did n'thesitate to fake when news was scarce and he wanted money. For afterhe joined the newspaper profession he gave up begging by proxy andallowed his prime minister to beg on his own account and keep his ownearnings.

  "Well, it was n't long after Johnson's entrance into literature untilhe discarded his blanket and appeared in a coat. The other Indiansbegan to regard him with awe-struck admiration. Every afternoon hewaited in the office until the paper came out, and then he marched offwith a copy in which his 'talk' was marked. He showed this to everyIndian he saw, and together they admired it with the paper wrong sideup, sidewise, and every other way. Johnson's special friends among thewhites were similarly favored. He would hand the paper with amagnificent air, point a dirty finger to a marked paragraph, and say,'Make 'um paper talk--me!'

  "The civilizing influence of literary pursuits and universal respectsoon told upon Johnson's personal appearance. He began to wash hisface and hands. His self-respect seemed to grow, like love, by what itfed on; and the more he became respectable, the more his ambitionsspread out and flourished. The next time he had big luck in a pokergame, instead
of spending his money in a spree, he bought a brand-newsuit of store clothes.

  "His new position in society by that time demanded more money tosupport it properly than his literary efforts brought in; and as pokergames were not always on hand, and sometimes turned out the wrong way,Johnson actually decided to work. His free, proud soul had been soeffectually tamed by respectability and harnessed by civilization thathe accepted every odd job of work that came along by which he couldearn money. He looked quite decent and respectable, and, by virtue ofreally trying to do it, he managed to get a fairly good command ofEnglish.

  "The civilizing process had been going on two or three years whenJohnson's mind got an illumination as to the value of knowledge. Hedecided that the young Piutes ought to go to school, though Johnsonhimself never had showed any great desire for knowledge. He has sincelearned to read a little, and can write his own name, but at that timehe was satisfied with 'making the paper talk' through my agency.However, he set his heart on having a school for the young Indians. Isuppose he realized that they could n't all achieve social position andinfluence in the field of journalism, as he had done, but must beprovided with some of the implements of civilization to start with.

  "There was some Government money with which the school could be runafter it was started, but there was no building in which it could beheld. The thing lagged along for a while, and Johnson tried to setseveral schemes going, without success. Finally, one fine morning, theproprietor of a lumber yard thought some of his piles of lumber hadbeen tampered with. He saw some tracks, which he followed, and in theoutskirts of the town, near a bunch of wickiups, he came upon two otherlumber-yard men, also following tracks. A little farther on they foundJohnson, even more important and dignified than usual, superintendingthe construction of a schoolhouse. Half a dozen Indians were at work,and Johnson was bossing them as if he had been building schoolhousesall his life.

  "The men boned him about stealing the lumber, and he frankly said yes,he had stolen it. That is, he had bossed the job, and made the otherbucks do all the packing. He explained that he had to steal it,because he could n't buy it, and they would n't give it to him, and hehad to have that schoolhouse. His frankness amused them, and they toldhim, all right, go ahead, and if he needed any more lumber he mighthave it.

  "He finally got the schoolhouse finished, corralled the Indian brats,and after the school was started visited it three times a week, when hedid n't go every day. If any of the youngsters showed signs of mutiny,all the teacher had to do was to threaten to call in Johnson Sides, andimmediately peace became profound. For by that time he had moreinfluence among the Indians, big and little, than anybody else, whiteor red. They looked up to him with a veneration which he accepted ashis right as calmly as he had formerly taken the quarters andhalf-dollars his prime minister had begged for him.

  "That schoolhouse was the last stealing he ever did, even by proxy, andpretty soon he quit getting drunk. He has never given up pokerentirely but he has quit gambling away everything he gets, and onlyjoins in a social game now and then, when he is flush, as any gentlemanmight.

  "He was a good deal of a man, was Johnson, and everybody respected himand was glad to help him along. He worked and earned money, and saveda little, and proved himself quite capable, and was clean and decentand respectable. People liked to employ him, for he was industriousand sober. That is, he was sober for a long time. There must havebeen five or six years in which Johnson was never even tipsy. He wasmighty proud of himself and his good reputation, and when he did fallit hurt him bad.

  "For fall he did, at last, when a big enough temptation came along.And then he got whizzing, whooping, roaring drunk. It was a wilder,madder, more devilish drunk than any he had ever taken in the old dayswhen he was only a dirty Piute buck, without ambitions or achievements.It seemed as if he were making up for all the time he had lost while hewas respectable, and condensing into one all the drunks he might havetaken and had n't.

  "He kept it up for three weeks. Part of the time he was with theIndians, part in Virginia City, and part in Carson. How he managed toescape arrest is more than I can tell, and how it happened that he didn't massacre the whole population of Nevada is still more of a mystery.He had fights with Indians and with whites, with men who were drunk andmen who were sober, and they drew guns, knives, and fists. But Johnsondidn't get hurt, and nobody else got killed.

  "After it was all over and he had sobered up, Johnson came to me and hewas so repentant and humiliated that, I declare, I never felt so sorryfor anybody in all my life. He thought it was all up with him, that hehad ruined all his good repute and influence, that nobody would everbelieve him, or trust him, or respect him after that, and that it wasquite useless for him to try to be a good Indian again. Of course hedid n't put it in so many words--he expressed more by gestures andlooks and grunts than by words--but that was the meaning of it all.

  "I felt so sorry for him that I made up my mind I 'd give him a lift;and as I began to talk and try to encourage him I had an inspirationthat was just the thing.

  "'Don't you be so discouraged, Johnson,' I said. 'We can make thingsall right again. We 'll get the Legislature to repeal this drunk ofyours and that'll set you right up where you were before. I 'm goingover to Carson to-morrow, and I 'll have the Legislature make a lawthat will wipe out the whole business and fix everything for you as ifyou had n't been drunk at all.'

  "Johnson was delighted, but he did n't feel quite sure about it. So Ihad to make him understand that I knew what I was talking about.

  "'It's all straight,' I said. 'They do that every session forsomebody. Why, So-and-So'--and I mentioned the name of a prominentcitizen--'was on an awful drunk last winter; and just as soon as hesobered up he went right over to Carson and had the Legislature pass abill repealing his spree, and you know that he is just as muchrespected as he was before. I'll attend to your business myselfto-morrow, and then I 'll publish the whole thing in the paper andeverybody will read it and know that you are all right again. But youmust remember one thing, Johnson,' I said. 'You must remember that asyou are an Indian the Legislature can't do this for you more than once.If you were a white man you could have as many drunks repealed as youwanted. But being an Indian this is your last chance, and you mustkeep straight after this.'

  "Well, the upshot of it was that Johnson put his trust in me; and Iflatter myself that I was just the man he needed in the emergency. You've lived in the West, and you know what the Nevada Legislature is, andalways has been. There never was one that you couldn't count on to doanything under the sun that tickled its sense of humor. I thought thatbill about Johnson's drunk would strike 'em in just about the rightplace, and it did. They dropped everything else and sent it throughwith a hurrah.

  "There was a long preamble, telling about Johnson Sides's prominenceand influence and the great importance of his retaining the highposition in the respect of the community which he had won, and aboutthe misfortune into which he had fallen, and how it was the universalwish that he should be reinstated in public esteem. And then there wasa resolution which declared that Johnson Sides's drunk should be andwas thereby repealed, destroyed, wiped out, for ever and ever, and thatall statutes not in accordance with that act were thereby annulled fromthat time forth. They passed it through both houses unanimously, andthe next day I published the bill verbatim and all the proceedings inour paper.

  "Johnson's face fairly shone with joy when I read it to him. It washis patent of respectability, and he stowed it away in his breastpocket as carefully as if it had been his passport to heaven. Hecarried it there until it was worn out, and then he came after another.He's worn out three or four since then, but he always keeps one in hispocket.

  "The scheme worked like a charm; for his redemption has been complete,and he 's been a good Indian, sober, industrious, and respectable--butnot nearly so interesting--ever since."