First Fam'lies of the Sierras

by Joaquin Miller

"Washee-Washee, come!"

Washee-Washee was not at all willing to come; but that made not the slightest difference in the world to Sandy. The little almond-eyed man was not at all heavy. Old flannel shirts, cotton overalls, stockings, cotton collars and cambric handkerchiefs never are heavy, no matter how well they may be wadded in, and padded away, and tucked up, and twisted under an outer garment; and so before he had time to say a word he was on his way to the Widow's with Sandy, while Limber Tim, with his mouth half-open, came corkscrewing up the trail, and grinding and whetting his screechy gum boots together after them.

There is a fine marble statue in the garden at Naples, near the massive marble head of Virgil, which represents some great giant as striding along with some little pigmy thrown over his shoulder, which he is carelessly holding on by the heel. Sandy looked not wholly unlike that statue, as he strode up the trail with Washee-Washee.

He reached the door of the Widow's cabin, knocked with the knuckles of his left hand, while his right hand held on to an ankle that hung down over his left shoulder, and calmly waited an answer.

The door half-way opened.

"Beg pardon, mum."

He bowed stiffly as he said this, and then shifting Washee-Washee round, quietly took his other heel in his other hand, and proceeded to shake him up and down, and dance him and stand him gently on his head, until the clothes began to burst out from under his blue seamless garment, and to peep through his pockets, and to reach down around his throat and dangle about his face, till the little man was nearly smothered.

Then Sandy set him down a moment to rest, and he looked in his face as he sat there, and it had the same peaceful smile, the same calm satisfaction as before. The little man now put his head to one side, shut his pretty brown eyes a little tighter at the corners, and opened his mouth the least bit in the world, and put out his tongue as if he was about to sing a hymn.

Then Sandy took him up again. He smiled again sweeter than before. Sandy tilted him side wise, and shook him again. Then there fell a spoon, then a pepper-box, and then a small brass candlestick; and at last, as he rolled him over and shook the other side, there came out a machine strangely and wonderfully made of whalebone and brass, and hooks and eyes, that Sandy had never seen before, and did not at all understand, but supposed was either a fish trap or some new invention for washing gold.

Then Limber Tim, who had screwed his back up against the palings, and watched all this with his mouth open, came down, and reaching out with his thumb and finger, as if they had been a pair of tongs, took the garments one by one, named them, for he knew them and their owners well, and laid them silently aside. Then he took Washee-Washee from the hands of Sandy and stood him up, or tried to stand him up alone. He looked like a flagstaff with the banner falling loosely around it in an indolent wind. He held him up by the queue awhile, but he wilted and sank down gently at his feet, all the time smiling sweetly as before, all the time looking up with a half-closed eye and half-parted lips, as though he was enjoying himself perfectly, and would like to laugh, only that he had too much respect for the present company.