Down the Yellowstone

by Lewis R. Freeman

THE YELLOWSTONE JUST ABOVE LIVINGSTON

THE YELLOWSTONE JUST AFTER RECEIVING THE BIG HORN

As that fell well within the compass of my own sense of humour, I joined the mirth party too, and the four of us laughed all together. It appeared that a gang of ditch-hands, before taking to cover, had seen a man pulling down stream into the teeth of the advancing storm. The last they saw of him he was trying to climb out on a sand-bar. The waves were all around him and he appeared to be at his last gasp. When the storm had blown by and they looked again, no trace remained of man nor boat. That was substantially the story the ditch-hands told in recruiting a posse to search for the body. If they had ventured out from cover five minutes sooner they would have seen just what had become of both man and boat, instead of having to have it explained to them by a trio of hilarious farmers who seemed to feel the need of something in the way of comic relief to take the edge off the tragedy of being "hailed out."

The big chap's name was Solberg. He was of Norwegian descent, extremely well educated, and had spent a number of years teaching in the schools of Minnesota. I was only too glad to accept his invitation to stay over-night and dry out, especially as the weather appeared to be far from settled. After calling in my search-party, I returned home with him and we spent the remaining hours of daylight boarding up windows, patching the roof and rendering first-aid generally to his wounded house. The plucky fellow was far from being crushed. He admitted that his crops were a total loss, that he was borrowed up to the limit with the bank, and that he didn't even see just how he was going to pay any of his debts. And yet—if he could only get hold of a bunch of sheep to fatten. Sheep were more in his line. Perhaps, in the long run, he would be all the better off for having to get back to them. Calling over his collie, he took the dog's head between his knees and asked him what he thought about it. The intelligent animal eyed his master seriously for a few moments and then wagged his tail approvingly. "'Shag' thinks it will be best to go back to sheep," pronounced Solberg. Then, musingly. "Yes, I reckon sheep's the answer."

After supper Solberg said that he was a good deal worried about his neighbours to the east—that they were harder hit than any one else, and in rather worse shape to stand it. A woman and kiddies didn't make it any easier when a man was hailed out. X—— had seemed pretty despondent when he had dropped in just after the storm. Talked rather wildly. Said he was through for good. Solberg hadn't been quite sure whether X—— had just meant he was through with farming, or something else. He was rather a moody chap at best.... Perhaps no harm would be done if we took a turn over that way....

The "neighbour to the east" turned out to be the big red barn and silo which, during the storm, had stood to me as the symbols of all that remained stable in the universe. A young woman opened the door of the staunch little farmhouse to us—a girl with a baby in her arms and a couple of youngsters fastened on her skirt. Her face was pretty—decidedly so, as I saw presently,—but at the moment I noticed that less than the courage it expressed. There was a well of tears behind her fine eyes, but I knew the shedding of them was going to be postponed indefinitely. Solberg, after directing a questioning look round the kitchen and sitting-room, asked bluntly where her husband was. With a nervous glance in my direction, she replied evasively that he was "outside walking round," adding that she had milked the cows and done the chores herself. With a keen and sympathetic glance of understanding, my friend turned on his heel and vanished into the darkness.

Never having seen any one hailed-out before, I was somewhat at a loss to know just what form my comforting ought to take. Finally, doubtless subconsciously inspired by "The Greatest Mother in the World" picture, I scooped up all the kiddies in sight and started to dandle them. I had always won approving nods for pulling that kind of a stunt, whether it was in a London Zeppelin raid or a drive of Armenian refugees at Trebizond. Even here it was sound—theoretically at least—for it gave the mother a chance to use her hands and apron to wipe dishes. Where it miscarried was on the practical side—the oldest boy would keep putting his hob-nailed boot in the baby's eye. But when I had cached the baby in its crib and gagged the other two with a handful of wet dried apricots, instinct came to my rescue and headed me off on the proper tack—sympathy stuff. That is, I told her my own troubles and led her to forget hers in sympathizing with them.

Sincerely and unfeignedly sorry as I was for these people, I was (momentarily) almost as sorry for myself before I came to the end of that tale of woe. I was a poor farmer from California. (Just how poor, and in how many senses of the word, I didn't confess.) Of all the farmers in the world, none had so many troubles as the California farmer. Take oranges, for example. If the buds escaped the frost probably the tiny green fruit would succumb to the "June Drop." If the latter was weathered, there were the black scale, the brown rot and the red spider lying in ambush, complicated by the probability of water shortage at the end of the summer. If the fruit ran that gauntlet and came to maturity, then there lurked the worst menace of all—the January frosts. And finally, if the ripe fruit survived the frost barrage and reached the packing-house, it was only to be pushed on into the "No Man's Land" of an overstocked market. No man lived with so many Damoclean swords suspended over him as the California orange grower—unless it was the California peach, prune, apricot, grape, nectarine or olive grower; or the walnut or almond grower; or the alfalfa, barley or wheat farmer; or the truck gardener.

I had been all of these, I said, and was just about to go on particularizing on the diseases and dangers threatening each crop, as I had done with the orange, when the rustle of a skirt caused me to raise my bowed head. There she was, a half-wiped pie-tin still in the bight of her apron, standing over me and looking down with tears a lot nearer to brimming than when we entered.

"And so you have had to come up to Montana looking for work?" she asked in a voice vibrant with sympathy. "What a shame it is we're all hailed-out round here, with no work in sight, and nothing to pay for it with if there was."