I cannot explain to an unsympathetic reader why it was that we found life in our dusty little metropolis so charming, and why it was that we felt such pity for those who had never experienced the delights of our environment. Nor can I justify to such a reader the impulse which led a woman whose husband had died far away in New England to bring his body back to be laid to rest in the bare little cemetery amid the sage brush.
“It’s not such a homelike country as the other,” I ventured.
“No,” she answered, “it isn’t, but he liked it.”
And so did we all; and the liking was not the less real because it was an acquired taste. There was nothing in it akin to serious public spirit. It was a whimsical liking, like that of Touchstone for Audrey,—“An ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own; a poor humour of mine, sir, to take that that no man else will.”
When several thousand people, set down in the midst of a howling wilderness, tacitly agree to consider it as the garden of the Lord, they can do much. It pleases the ephemeral community to make believe that it is permanent. The camp organizes itself into a city, with all the offices and dignities appertaining thereto. Civilization is extemporized like a game of dumb crambo. It amuses the citizens to see their beloved city going about in institutions several sizes too large for it. Nothing is taken literally. Humor is accepted not as a private possession, but as a public trust, and cultivated in a spirit of generous coöperation.
In the town were men whose education and experience had been in the great world. There were mine superintendents who a little while ago might have been in Germany or Cornwall; there were assayers and engineers fresh from the great technical schools, and “experts” full of geological lore. The mines were as rich in litigation as in silver, and there were lawyers great and small.
But all were dominated by one typical character who was accepted as the oracle of the land,—“The Honest Miner.” To him saloons were dedicated with alluring titles, such as “The Honest Miner’s Delight” and “The Honest Miner’s Rest.” At the end of the gulch was “The Honest Miner’s Last Chance,”—one which he seldom missed. The newspapers and political orators appealed to his untutored judgments as the last word of political wisdom. He occupied the position which elsewhere is held by the “Sturdy Yeoman” or the “Solid Business Man.”
The Honest Miner of the Far West is one of those typical Americans who are builders of commonwealths. His impress is upon the western half of our continent. He is a nomad, the last of a long line of adventurers to whom the delight of the new world is in its newness. Sometimes his work is permanent, but he never is quite sure. His habitual mood is one of sober satire.
I know nothing more pleasant than to sit with an old-timer who has spent years in prospecting for silver and gold, and listen to his reminiscences. Here is a philosopher indeed, one with an historic perspective. He has the experience of the Wandering Jew, without his world-weariness. He has seen the rise and fall of cities and the successive dynasties of mining kings. His life has been a mingling of society and solitude. With his pack upon his back he has wandered into desert places where no man had been since the making of the world,—at least, no man with an eye to the main chance. A few weeks later the lonely cañon has become populated with eager fortune-seekers. The camp becomes a city which to the eyes of the Honest Miner is one of the wonders of the world. A year later he revisits the scene, and it is as Tadmor in the Wilderness. He pauses to refresh his mind with ancient history, and then passes on to join in a new “excitement.” He measures time by these excitements as the Greeks measured it by Olympiads.
He loves to tell of the ups and downs of his own fortune. There is no bitterness in his memory of his failures. They relieve the record from the monotony that belongs to assured success. His successes are not less gratifying because, like all things earthly, they have had a speedy ending. A dozen times he has “struck it rich.” He has thrown away his pick and shovel and gone below to bask in the smiles of fortune. He has indulged in vague dreams of going to Europe, of looking up his family tree, and of cultivating grammar and other fine arts. Fortune continued to smile, but after a while her smile became sardonic, and with a wink she said, “Time’s up!” Then the Honest Miner would take up his pick and shovel and return to his work, neither a sadder nor a wiser man,—in fact, exactly the same kind of man he was before. That Experience is a teacher is a pedantic theory which he rejects with scorn. Experience is not a schoolmaster, Experience is a chum who likes to play practical jokes upon him. Just now he has given him a tumble and got the laugh on him. But just wait awhile! And he chuckles to himself as he thinks how he will outwit Experience.