The Twins of Suffering Creek

by Ridgwell Cullum

Thus it was he gave much consideration to the selection of the site of his house. He wanted a southern aspect, it must be high up, it must not be crowded amongst the other houses. The twins needed air. Then the nearer he was to the creek, where the gold was to be found, the better. And again his prospecting must tap a part of it where the diggers had not yet “claimed.” There were a dozen and one things to be considered, and he thought of them all until his gentle mind became confused and his sense of proportion completely submerged.

The result was, he settled desperately upon the one site that common sense should have made him avoid. Nor was it until the foundations of the house had been laid, and the walls were already half their full height, that he realized, from the desolation of refuse and garbage strewn everywhere about him, that his home was overlooking the camp “dumps.”

However, it was too late to make any change, and, with characteristic persistence, he completed his work and went into residence with his wife and the twins.

The pressure of work lessened, he had a moment in which to look around. And with the thought of his twins on his mind, and all his wife had once been accustomed to, he quickly realized the necessity of green vegetables in his ménage. So he promptly flew to the task of arranging a cabbage patch. The result was a foregone conclusion. He dug and planted his patch. Nor was it until the work was completed that it filtered through to his comprehension that he had selected the only patch in the neighborhood with a heavy underlay of gravel and lime stone.

But his crowning effort was his search for gold. There are well-established geological laws governing the prospector’s craft which no experienced gold-seeker ever departs from. These were all carefully explained to him by willing tongues. Then, after poring over all he had learned, and thought and searched for two days and two nights, he finally discovered a spot where no other prospector had staked the ground.

It was a curious, gloomy sort of patch, nearly half-a-mile up the creek from the camp, and further in towards the mountains. Just at this spot the banks of the creek were high, there was an unusual blackness about the soil, and it gave out a faint but unrecognizable odor, that, in the bright mountain air, was quite pleasant. For several hundred yards the ground of this flat was rankly spongy, with an oozy surface. Then, beyond, lay a black greasy-looking marsh, and further on again the hills rose abruptly with the facets of auriferous-looking soil, such as the prospector loves to contemplate.

Scipio pondered. And though the conditions outraged all he had been told of the craft he was embarking upon, he plunged his pick into this flat, and set to work with characteristic good-will.

The men of the camp when they discovered his venture shook their heads and laughed. Then their laugh died out and their hard eyes grew serious. But no one interfered. They were all seeking gold.

This was Scipio’s position on Suffering Creek, but it does not tell half of what lay somewhere in the back of his quaintly-poised mind. No one who knew him failed to realize his worship for his wife. His was a love such as rarely falls to the lot of woman. And his devotion to his girl and boy twins was something quite beyond words. These things were the mainspring of his life, and drove him to such superlative degrees of self-sacrifice that could surely only have been endured by a man of his peculiar mind.

No matter what the toil of his claim, he always seemed to find leisure and delight in saving his wife from the domestic cares of their home. And though weary to the breaking-point with his toil, and consumed by a hunger that was well-nigh painful, when food was short he never seemed to realize his needs until Jessie and the children had eaten heartily. And afterwards no power on earth could rob him of an hour’s romp with the little tyrants who ruled and worshiped him.