The Little Fig-tree Stories

by Mary Hallock Foote

There is a law of the United States which forbids that an alien shall cut timber on the public domain. A Chinaman, being an alien unmistakably and doubly held as such in the West, cannot therefore cut the public timber for his own immediate profit or use; but he can take a contract to furnish it to a white dealer in wood, at a price contingent upon the safe delivery of the wood. But if the river should fail to bring it in time for sale, the cost of cutting and driving, for as far as he succeeds in getting it down, is a dead loss to the Chinese contractor, and the wood belongs to whoever may pick it out of the water when the first rise of the creek in spring carries it out.

The Chinese wood-drivers are singular, wild-looking beings. Often at twilight, when they camped on the shore below the house, the children would hover within sight of the curious group the men made around their fire—an economical bit of fire, sufficient merely to cook the supper of fish and rice.

All is silence before supper, in a camp of hungry, wet white men, but the Chinamen were always chattering. The children were amused to see them “doing” their hair like women,—combing out the long, black, witch-locks in the light of the fire and braiding them into pigtails, or twisting them into “Psyche knots.” They wore several layers of shirts and sleeveless vests, one over another, long waterproof boots drawn up over their knees, and always the most unfitting of hats perched on top of the coiled braids or above the Psyche knots. Altogether, take them wet or dry, on land or in the water, no male or female of the white race could show anything in the way of costume to approach them.

The cloudy weather continued. The nights grew sharper, and the men said it was too cold for rain; if a storm came now it would bring snow. There was snow already upon the mountains and the high pastures, for the deer were seeking feeding-grounds in the lower, warmer gulches, and the stock had been driven down from the summer range to winter in the valleys.

One afternoon an old man, a stranger, was seen coming down the gulch back of the house, followed by a pack-horse bearing a load. The gulch was now all yellow and brown, and the man’s figure was conspicuous for the light, army-blue coat he wore—the overcoat of a private soldier. He “hitched” at the post near the kitchen door, and uncovering his load showed two fat haunches of young venison which he had brought to sell.

No peddler of the olden time, unstrapping his pack in the lonely farmhouse kitchen, could have been more welcome than this stranger with his wild merchandise to the children of the camp. They stood around so as not to miss a word of the conversation while Charley Moy entertained him with the remnants of the camp lunch. The old buckskin-colored horse seemed as much of a character as his master. Both his ears were cropped half off, giving a sullen and pugilistic expression to his bony head. There was no more arch to his neck than to the handle of a hammer. His faded yellow coat was dry, matted and dusty as the hair of a tramp who sleeps in haymows. Without bit or bridle, he followed his master like a dog. In the course of conversation it appeared that the cropped ears were not scars of battle nor marks of punishment, but the record of a journey when he and his master were caught out too late in the season, and the old horse’s ears had both been frozen.

The children were surprised to learn that their new acquaintance was a neighbor, residing in a dugout in Cottonwood Gulch, only three miles away. They knew the place well, had picnicked there one summer day, and had played in the dugout. Had not Daisy, the pet fawn, when they had barred him out of the dugout because he filled up the whole place, jumped upon the roof and nearly stamped it in?—like Samson pulling down the pillars of the temple? But no one had been living there then. The old man said he used the dugout only in winter. It was his town house. In summer he and the old horse took their freedom on the hills, hunting and prospecting for mineral—not so much in the expectation of a fortune as from love of the chances and risks of the life. Was it not lonely in Cottonwood Gulch when the snows came? the children asked. Sometimes it was lonely, but he had good neighbors: the boys at Alexander’s (the horse-ranch) were down from the summer range, and they came over to his place of an evening for a little game of cards, or he went over to their place. He would be very glad, however, of any old newspapers or novels that might be lying around camp; for he was short of reading-matter in the dugout.

There was always a pile of old periodicals and “picture papers” on Charley Moy’s ironing-table; he was proud to contribute his entire stock on hand to the evening company in the dugout. The visitor then modestly hinted that he was pretty tired of wild meat: had Charley such a thing as the rough end of a slab of bacon lying around, or a ham bone to spare? A little mite of lard would come handy, and if he could let him have about five pounds of flour, it would be an accommodation, and save a journey to town. These trifles he desired to pay for with his venison; but that was not permitted, under the circumstances.

Before taking his leave the old hunter persuaded Polly to take a little tour on his horse, up and down the poplar walk, at a slow and courteous pace. Polly had been greatly interested in her new friend at a distance, but this was rather a formidable step toward intimacy. However, she allowed herself to be lifted upon the back of the old crop-eared barbarian, and with his master walking beside her she paced sedately up and down between the leafless poplars.

The old man’s face was pale, notwithstanding the exposure of his life; the blood in his cheek no longer fired up at the touch of the sun. His blue coat and the yellow-gray light of the poplar walk gave him an added pallor. Polly was a pink beside him, perched aloft in her white bonnet and ruffled pinafore.