A Guest at the Ludlow, and Other Stories Read online

  OLD POLKA DOT'S DAUGHTER

  II

  I once decided to visit an acquaintance who had named his country place"The Elms." I went partly to punish him because his invitation was soevidently hollow and insincere.

  He had "The Elms" worked on his clothes, and embossed on his stationeryand blown in his glass, and it pained him to eat his food from tablelinen that didn't have "The Elms" emblazoned on it. He told me to comeand surprise him any time, and shoot in his preserves, and stay untilbusiness compelled me to return to town again. He had no doubt heardthat I never surprise any one, and never go away from home very much,and so thought it would be safe. Therefore I went. I went just to teachhim a valuable lesson. When I go to visit a man for a week, he iscertainly thenceforth going to be a better man, or else punishment is ofno avail and the chastening rod entirely useless in his case.

  "The Elms" was a misnomer. It should have been called "The Shagbark" or"The Doodle Bug's Lair." It was supposed to mean a wide sweep of meadow,a vine covered lodge, a broad velvet lawn, and a carriage way, where thedrowsy locust, in the sensuous shadow of magnanimous elms, gnawed a fileat intervals through the day, while back of all this the mossy andgray-whiskered front and corrugated brow of the venerable architecturalpile stood off and admired itself in the deep and glassy pool at itsbase.

  In the first place none of the yeomanry for eight miles around knew thathe called his old malarial tank "The Elms," so it was hard to find. Butwhen I described the looks of the lord of The Elms they wink at eachother and wagged their heads and said, "Oh, yes, we know him," alsointerjecting well known one syllable words that are not euphoniousenough to print.

  ... "_His old look of apprehensive cordiality did notleave him until he had seen me climb on a load of hay with my trunk andstart for home_" (Page 15)]

  When I got there he was down cellar sprouting potatoes, and his wifewas hanging out upon the clothes line a pair of gathered summer trousersthat evidently were made for a man who had been badly mangled in asaw-mill.

  The Elms was not even picturesque, and the preserves were out of order.I was received with the same cordiality which you detect on the face ofany other kind of detected liar. He wanted to be regarded as aremarkable host and landed proprietor, without being really hospitable.I remained there at The Elms a few days, rubbing rock salt and Cayennepepper into the wounds of my host, and suggesting different names forhis home, such as "The Tom Tit's Eyrie," "The Weeping Willow," "TheCrook Neck Squash" and "The Muskrat's Retreat." Then I came away. Hisold look of apprehensive cordiality did not leave him until he had seenme climb on a load of hay with my trunk and start for home.

  During my brief sojourn I noticed that the surrounding country was fullof people, and I presume there was a larger population of "boarders," aswe were called indiscriminately, than ever before. The number ofavailable points to which the victims of humidity and poor plumbing mayretreat in summer time is constantly on the increase, while, so far as Iknow, all the private and public boarding places are filled to theirutmost capacity. Everywhere, the gaudy boarder in flannels and ecrushoes looms upon the green lawn or the brown dirt road, or scales themountain one day and stays in bed the following week, rubbing James B.Pond's Extract on his swollen joints.

  I scaled Mount Utsa-yantha in company with others. We picked out a nicehot day, and, selecting the most erect wall of the mountain, facingwest, we scaled it in such a way that it will not have to be done againtill new scales grow on it.

  Mount Utsa-yantha is 3,365 feet above sea level, and has a brow whichreminds me of mine. It is broad, massive and bleak. The foot of themountain is more massive, however. From the top of the mountain onegets, with a good glass, a view of six or seven states, I was told.Possibly there were that many in sight, though at that season of theyear states look so much alike that it takes an expert to pick them outreadily. When states are moulting, it is all I can do to tell Vermontfrom Massachusetts. On this mountain one gets a nice view and highlyexhilarating birch beer.

  Albany can be distinctly seen with a glass--a field glass, I mean, not aglass of birch beer. Some claim that the nub of a political boom may beseen protruding from the Capitol with the nude vision. Others say theycan see the Green mountains, and as far south as the eye can reach. Wetook two hours and a half for the ascent of the mountain, and came downin about twenty minutes. We descended ungracefully--the way the Irishmanclaimed that the toad walked, viz.: "git up and sit down."

  Mount Utsa-yantha--I use the accepted orthography as found in theBlackhawk dictionary--has a legend also. Many centuries ago thisbeautiful valley was infested by the red brother and his bronze progeny.Where now the red and blue blazer goes shimmering through the swayingmaples, and the girl with her other dress on and her straw coloredcanvas cinch knocketh the croquet ball galley west, once there dwelt anold chief whom we will call Polka Dot, the pride of his people. Helooked somewhat like William Maxwell Evarts, but was a heavier set man.Places where old Polka Dot sat down and accumulated rest for himself arestill shown to city people whose faith was not overworked while young.

  Old Polka Dot was a firm man, with double teeth all around, and hisprowess got into the personal columns of the papers every little while.He had a daughter named Utsa-yantha, which means "a messenger senthastily for treasure," so I am told, or possibly old Polka Dot meant toimply "one sent off for cash."

  Anyhow Utsa-yantha grew to be quite comely, as Indian women go. I neveryet saw one that couldn't stop an ordinary planet by looking at itsteadily for two minutes. She dressed simply, wearing the same clotheswhile tooling cross-country before breakfast that she wore at the scalpdance the evening before. In summer time she shellacked herself andvisited the poor. Taking a little box of water colors in a shawl strap,so that she could change her clothes whenever she felt like it, shewould go away and be gone for a fortnight at a time, visiting the ultrafashionable people of her tribe.

  Finally a white man penetrated this region. He did it by asking abrakeman on the West Shore road how to get here and then doingdifferently. In that way he had no trouble at all. He saw Utsa-yanthaand loved her almost instantly. She was skinning a muskrat at the time,and he could not but admire her deftness and skill. From that moment hewas not able to drive her image from his heart. He sought her again andagain to tell her of his passion, but she would jump the fence and fleelike a frightened fawn with a split stick on its tail, if such acomparison may be permitted. At last he won her, and married her quietlyin his working clothes. The nearest justice of the peace was then inEngland, and so rather than wait he was married informally toUtsa-yantha, and she went home very much impressed indeed. That fall alittle russet baby came to bless their union. The blessing was all hehad with him when he arrived.

  Then the old chief Polka Dot arose in his wrath, to which he added apair of moose hide moccasins, and he upbraided his daughter for herconduct. He upbraided her with a piazza pole from his wigwam. He wasvery much agitated. So was the pole.

  Then he cursed her for being the mother of a 1/2 breed child, andstalking 1/4 he slew the white man by cutting open his trunk anddisarranging his most valuable possessions. He then wiped the stabknife on his tossing mane, and grabbing his grandson by his swaddlingclothes he hurled the surprised little stranger into Lake Utsa-yantha.By pouring another pailful of water into the lake the child wassuccessfully drowned.

  Then the widowed and childless Utsa-yantha came forth as night settleddown upon the beautiful valley and the day died peacefully on themountain tops. Her eyes were red with weeping and her breath waspunctuated with sobs. Putting on a pair of high rubber boots she wadedout into the middle of the lake, where there is quite a deep place, anddrowned herself.

  When the old man found the body of his daughter he was considerablymortified. He took her to the top of the mountain and buried her there,and ever afterward, it is said, whenever any one spoke of the death ofhis daughter and her family, he would color up and change the subject.

  This should teach us never to kill a son-in
-law without getting hiswife's consent.