Friday, December thirteenth.
In the midst of letter writing I stop to note down a dramatic cloud effect. That’s the way the day’s work goes. If I’m out-of-doors busy with the saw or axe I jump at once to my paints when an idea comes. It’s a fine life and more and more I realize that for me at least such isolation—not from my friends but from the unfriendly world—is the only right life for me. My energy is too unrestrained to have offered to it the bait for fight and play that the city holds out, without its being spent in absolutely profitless and trivial enterprises. And here what a haven of peace! Almost the last touch is added to its perfection by the sweet nature of the old man Olson. I have never known such a man. I’m no admirer of the “picturesqueness” of rustic character. Seen close to it’s generally damnably stupid and coarse. I have seen the working class from near at hand and without illusion. But Olson! he has such tact and understanding, such kindness and courtesy as put him outside of all classes, where true men belong.
To-night it looked like the picture I have drawn. These are beautiful days. Yesterday it was as calm in our little cove as one would look for on a summer’s day. The day was blue and mild, a day for work. I made of my “North Wind” the most beautiful picture that ever was. I stood it facing outwards in the doorway and from far off it still showed as vivid, more vivid, and brilliant than nature itself. It’s the first time I’ve taken my pictures into the broad light. There’s where they should be seen.
Last night was calm until four o’clock in the morning. Then the wind again struck in and the trees roared and the roof creaked and groaned. To-day it was calmer. We began by felling a tall spruce more than two feet in diameter. It lies now near the cabin a great screen of evergreen. Its wood should last us many weeks. I painted out-of-doors on two pictures. That’s bitterly cold work—to crouch down in the snow; through bent knees the blood goes slowly, feet are numbed, fingers stiffen. But then the warm cabin is near....
This minute I’ve returned from splitting wood out in the moonlight. On days when painting goes with spirit the chores are left undone.
If only it were possible to put down faithfully all of Olson’s stories! Last night he told of his return to San Francisco from the Yukon thirty years ago, how the little band of weather-beaten, crippled miners appeared on their return to civilization. Olson was on crutches from scurvy, his beard and hair were of a year’s growth; all were in their working clothes, all bearded, brown, free spirited. And their wealth they carried on them in bags, gold, some to $7000 worth. As Olson tells it you yourself live in that day. You hear the German landlady of the “Chicago Hotel” in San Francisco, a motherly woman who put all the grub on the table at once so you could help yourself, say, “You boys have some of you been in Alaska for years and I know about how you’ve lived. Now that you’re back you must have a hankering for some things. Tell me whatever you want and I’ll get it for you.” And up spoke one big fellow, “I remember how my mother used to have cabbage. I want you to get me one big head and cook it and let me have it all to myself!”
That night they went to the music halls in their miners’ clothes all as they were, and drank gallons of beer; and from the boxes and the balconies the girls all clamored to be asked to join them—who were such free spenders. Two days later they were paid in coin for their gold—by the mint—and all went to the tailors and got them fine suits of clothes.... And so it continues. And he told of Custer’s massacre. And, to-night of the sagacity of horses in leading a trapper back to the traps he’d set and maybe lost. When a horse swims with you across a stream guide him with your hand on his neck, but pull not ever so little on the line or he’ll rear backwards in the water and likely drown himself and you.