The Minute Man on the Frontier

by William George Puddefoot

OLDEST HOUSE IN THE UNITED STATES, SANTA FÉ, NEW MEXICO.
Page 220.

XXII.

THE FRONTIER OF THE SOUTH-WEST.

The South-west is different from all other parts of the country. The Anglo-Saxon is everywhere else in the ascendant. Here the Latin races are dominant. It is astonishing to find so many oldest churches all over the country. The superlative is a national trait. We have either the oldest or the youngest, the greatest or the smallest, or the only thing in the world. However, it is almost certain that the oldest church and house are to be found in Santa Fé. The Church of San Miguel was built seventy years before the landing of the Pilgrims, and the house next to the church fifty years. It is the oldest settled, is the farthest behind, has the most church-members per capita, and is the most ignorant and superstitious part of the land. In one part Mormonism holds sway. In the other, Roman Catholicism of two centuries ago is still the prevailing religion.

It is a curious fact; but in this latter respect the North-east and the South-west almost join hands; for Lower Canada sent us Old France, and the South-west remains Old Spain. Here, as a man travels through Western Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, only his Pullman car, and especially his Pullman porter, makes him realize that he is in America. In the eastern part of Texas the buzzards fill the air as they are hovering over the dead cattle. In the western part the dead cattle dry up and are blown away. Meat keeps indefinitely. There are no flies there, few insects, and the flowers are almost odorless, perhaps on account of the lack of insect-life. The very butcher-signs look strange. Instead of the fat, meek ox on a sign, we have a mad bull charging a Spanish matador.

Here comes a Mexican with a fifty-dollar hat on his head, and fifty cents would almost buy the rest of his clothes. He marches by with the strut of a drum-major. The best streets and the finest houses are often not homes. The plains look as if they would not keep a cow alive; and yet here in the South-west we find some of the finest grazing-lands in the world, although it takes twenty-five acres to feed a cow. But what of that? the acres are unlimited. The black-tailed antelope are seen running from your train; while the prairie-dog sits, like all small things, barking impudently, or, with a few electric twists of his little tail he dives below, where a rattlesnake and an owl keep his house in order, i.e., keep the population down so that the progeny would not kill all the grass, and so starve at last; with himself would go the cattle; so the economy of nature keeps up its reputation everywhere. As some have said, when salmon are scarce hens' eggs become dear; for the otter takes to the land and kills the rabbits, and the weasel, finding his stores low, visits the hen-coops—and up goes the price of eggs.

The minute-man in the South-west has a big field. He is often hundreds of miles from his next church. He preaches to the cowboys one day, to the Digger Indians or the blanket variety the next. He is off among the miners, and sometimes in less than four hours he must change from the cold mountain air to the heat which requires two roofs to the house in order to keep it cool enough. He eats steak that has come one thousand miles from the East, although ten thousand cattle are all about him. He passes a million cows, and yet has to use condensed milk for his coffee or go without.

He finds himself in the midst of the grandest scenery on the continent. In his long journey he often finds himself sleeping on the plain outside the teepees of his red brother, rather risking the tarantulas, lizards, and rattlers that may come, than the thousands of smaller nuisances that are sure to come if he goes under cover. He is in the midst of a past age; and as he visits the pueblos, he would not be surprised to see De Soto come forth, so Spanish are his surroundings. The adobe building prevails everywhere, cool in summer, warm in winter, and in this climate well nigh indestructible.

The priesthood are centuries removed from those of the East. Here he will meet with men living in the Middle Ages, beating their backs with cactus until the blood streams, and often dying under self-inflicted blows. We often hear of America having no ruins, no ancient history. This may be so in regard to time; but in regard to conditions we are in the time of Boadicea of the ancient Briton, and in the South-west are ruins of buildings that were inhabited when William was crowned at Westminster. So great are the States of the South-west that the counties are larger than New England States; and you may be stuck in a blizzard in northern Texas, while people in the southern portion are eating oranges out-doors with the oleanders for shade-trees.

I will close this chapter with a description given me in part by the Rev. E. Lyman Hood, who was Superintendent of Missions in the South-west until he was broken down by his arduous toil.