In the lore of the Middle West brilliantly stands out the figure of Johnny Appleseed, who traveled westward distributing apple-seeds to the farmers and ranchers, from whence sprang up the great apple orchards that have blessed these regions.
It was service of a similar kind that Roosevelt performed when he went among these primitive people of the wilderness. Schools were scarce in those days and opportunity for culture was almost entirely lacking. But here had come among them a man who had graduated from one of the great Eastern colleges, and who had brought with him a choice library of books that contained characters and philosophy entirely comprehensible by these untutored minds when interpreted by such an enthusiastic and sympathetic expounder as young Roosevelt.
On the long winter evenings Roosevelt’s fireside became the rendezvous for the ranchers and their wives. Roosevelt would select a classic story and begin reading. The tale would be a familiar one to him, and yet the genius of the author would again cast its spell over him, and he would read with interest and expression that were magnetic. Swiftly the night passed, and when in the late hours his hearers went to their rest they lay awake remembering the poetry of “that chap Browning” or the Rosalind or Lear of “Mr. Shakespeare,” conning them over in their minds until they became part of their beings, to be transmitted later to the minds and lips of their children, and thus to become a part of the civilization of their section.
To the women, with their starved existence—so far as education was concerned—Roosevelt proved a benefactor indeed; but no less did he administer to the mental craving of his men comrades.
Monotonous and threadbare grew the conversation at a cow-camp. Seldom did the talk vary from such topics as these, described by him:
“A bunch of steers had been seen traveling over the buttes to the head of Elk Creek. A stray horse, with a blurred brand on the left hip, had just joined the saddle ponies. The red F. V. cow had been bitten by a wolf. The old mule, Sawback, was getting over the effects of the rattlesnake bite. The river was going down, but the fords were still bad, and the quicksand at the Caster Trail crossing had worked along so that wagons had to be taken over opposite the blasted cottonwood. Bronco Jim had tried to ride the big, bald-faced sorrel belonging to the Oregon horse outfit and had been bucked off and his face smashed in. It was agreed that Jim ‘wasn’t the sure-enough bronco-buster he thought himself,’ and he was compared very unfavorably to various heroes of the quirt and spurs who lived in Texas and Colorado.”
These topics having been exhausted, the rumor was discussed that the vigilantes had given notice to quit to two men who had just built a shack at the head of the Little Dry River, and whose horses included a suspiciously large number of different brands, most of them blurred. Then the talk became more personal. Roosevelt would be asked to write or post letters for the cow-punchers. Then his companions, growing friendly, would make him the confident of their love affairs, and make him listen for an hour to the charms of their sweethearts.
Here Roosevelt’s books stood both him and his companions in good stead. No matter what adverse conditions surrounded the young ranch-owner, favorite volumes were at hand, and out they came at the first opportunity.
On one occasion, while hunting on Beaver Creek for a lost horse, he met a cowboy and made friends with him. Caught in a heavy snowstorm, they lost themselves, and after eight or nine horns of drifting, finally came across an empty hut near Sentinel Butte. Making their horses comfortable in a sheltered nook with hay found in an old stack, the two cold and tired men sat down to spend the long winter evening together. Out of Roosevelt’s pocket came a small edition of Hamlet. His cowboy companion was greatly interested in the reading, and Roosevelt tells us that he commented very shrewdly on the parts he liked, especially Polonius’s advice to Laertes. His final comment was extremely gratifying to the man who had introduced to him the treasures of the world’s greatest dramatist, and would doubtless have given great pleasure to the immortal bard himself:
“Old Shakespeare saveyed human natur’ some!”