Charley Wong
Copyrighted. By permission of the Author, Green Room Club, New York.
By H. A. D’Arcy.
The west was pretty wild when Bill Durant and I went out,
’Twer in ’59 or ’60, somewhar that about,
Bill took his pretty wife along (they’d been wed about a year),
A buxom kind of girl she war, that never thought o’ fear.
And I don’t know that she needed to, for the miners one and all,
Would have fought for her like devils if she’d ever made the call;
And afore we’d fairly built a hut to keep her from the damp
A little baby gal was born—the first one in the camp.
And didn’t the boys keep Christmas? Well, I’m shoutin’ now they did;
Why, they all got roarin’ full that night just in honor o’ the kid;
And by the time that baby were a little tot o’ three years old,
She had a big tomato can just filled with virgin gold.
I built a cabin ’bout a quarter mile away from Bill’s,
So we both had kinder cozy homes protected by the hills;
And Charley Wong, the Chinaman, had opened handy by
The laundry o’ the canyon, and he washed for Bill and I.
Now, Chinamen ain’t liked too well, and one day in a row
Charley got pretty badly used, I disremember now
Just what the trouble war about, but Bill war in the fray,
And he helped to beat the Chinaman in a rather brutal way.
Durant weren’t bad at heart, ye know, but like too many others,
He didn’t like Mongolians, nor own ’um men and brothers;
And I often heard him say that if the Chinamen wer near
He’d cut the leper’s pigtail off and stick it through his ear.
One evening Lizzie (Durant’s wife) and little Tot, the child,
Were comin’ homeward down the hills when all at once a wild
And fearful howl were heard behind—two wolves were on their track,
Liz says she stopped and grabbed the child and threw it on her back.
Then shrieking aloud for help, she ran, as swift as any hind
Toward the Chinese laundry hut—the wolves came fast behind;
Nearer and nearer on they came; then reaching Charley’s door,
The mother, with her precious load, fell prone upon the floor.
Bill and I were talkin’ when we heard the fearful cries,
And rushing to the laundry the sight that met our eyes
Was far too horrible to tell, for thar was Charley Wong
Dead, and a blood-stained knife in hand full fifteen inches long.
He’d fought a fearful battle; one brute wer by his side
With its entrails all hanging out, and blood stains on its hide;
But t’ other had got its work in afore Bill and I got there,
And wer gnawing Charley’s throat and face till the bones were laying bare.
Wall, we made quick work o’ Mr. Wolf, we filled ’um full o’ lead,
Then gathered child and mother up and took ’em home to bed,
Next day when Lizzie told her tale, Bill’s eyes were full o’ tears,
He didn’t brag much sentiment, and hadn’t wept for years.
Poor “Washee!” when we packed him up the camp boys stood around
Each one with hat in hand and tearful eyes cast on the ground;
We shipped the corpse to ’Frisco, with a bag o’ the yellow dust
To pay the freight to Pekin—to “Rest In Peace,” I trust.
But ever after that, if any man had got the face
To say Chinese wer yallow dogs, he’d better quit the place;
For thar ain’t a name more holy held in Canyon Idlewild
Than Charley Wong, the Chinaman, that saved Bill’s wife and child.
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A horse fly eats whip crackers.
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