<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</SPAN></h2>
<h3><span class="smcap">A Cowboy Enoch Arden</span>.</h3>
<p>Just after leaving North Platte, a train of immigrants on their way from
Oregon to Arkansas with mule teams went by us, and we found they had a
letter for us from Eatumup Jake, who had returned to Utah long ere this
to look after his domestic matters. One of the reasons why he abandoned
us was to return and look after the education of the twin boys. However,
the main reason was that so many reports had come to us from travelers
in wagons and sheepherders trailing sheep east, who had come through our
neighborhood in Utah, who said that all our friends had given us up for
dead, and Eatumup Jake's wife, after putting on mourning for a proper
season, had begun to receive the attentions of a widower, who was part
Gentile bishop and part Mormon elder.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>As Jake was in a hurry when he started back home, he bought him a cheap
mustang in place of accepting the transportation which was urged on him
by all the principal officers of the railroad. He wrote us that when he
arrived on his ranch, his wife was out in the hayfield putting up the
third crop of alfalfa. She was driving a bull rake, hauling it into the
stack, while one of the twins was driving the mower and the other twin
was doing the stacking. The half-breed Mormon-Gentile bishop was
standing round with a cotton umbrella over his head, giving orders.
Jake's wife didn't know him at first, he had changed so, but the bishop
tumbled to him at once and started to leave. However, Jake overtook him
and persuaded the bishop to turn aside into a little patch of timber
with him, and Jake getting the loan of the umbrella in the painful
interview that followed, he left most of the steel ribs of the umbrella
sticking in the anatomy of the bishop, and then let the house dog, with
the help of the twin boys armed with their pitchforks, assist the bishop
clear off the ranch. This was so much better than the old style of Enoch
Arden business that Dillbery Ike made up a little rhyme about it after
we got Jake's letter, and here it is:</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</SPAN></span></p>
<p><span style="margin-left: 15em;">In Utah a cattleman got married in the glow of summer time,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Married a buxom Mormon girl, warm heart and manner kind.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">And as the autumnal sun began to tinge things red,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">He rounded up his cattle herd and to his bride he said:</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">"Come hither, dear, and kiss me and sit upon my lap,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">For I am going a lengthy journey with my cows and steers that's fat.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">I'm going on the Overland with a special, long stock train."</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">His bride, she wept and trembled and said, "I'll ne'er see you again.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">O Jake, my darling husband, give up this wrong design,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">If you must go east with cattle, then try some other line,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">For I have heard the stockmen talking and this is what they say,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">That if you drive your stock to market, that then there's no delay.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">But if you get a special train, the railroad has a knack</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Of letting you do your running when your train is on a sidetrack.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Some stockmen they have starved to death, and others grow so old</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">That none knew them on their return, so frequent I've been told."</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">But Jake was young and hearty and his mind was full of zeal</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">To load his beef on a special and eastward take a spiel.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">So he started with his steers and cows in the golden autumn time.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Some neighbors also loaded theirs; the cattle were fat and fine.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">But they run the stock on the Overland, so slow and awful bum</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">That stockmen get old and care-worn, staying with a special run.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Their wives get weary waiting for hubby's coming home</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">And flirt with the nearest preacher who drops in when they're alone.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Jake's wife was no exception, and, as time went by, she said,</span><br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</SPAN></span><span style="margin-left: 15em;">"If Jake was alive I know he'd come back; he surely must be dead."</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">The good woman put on mourning and mourned for quite a time,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">But when thus she'd done her duty, she suddenly ceased to pine,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">And when a Gentile-Mormon preacher dropped in one night to tea</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">She put on her new dress of gingham and was chipper as she could be;</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Had him eating her pies and jellies that she knew how to make,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Had him sit in the easy rocker, without ever a thought of Jake.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">And when the twins got drowsy, she packed them off to bed,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Sat and played checkers with the bishop, just as though poor Jake was dead.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">When she jumped in the preacher's king-row, and had eight men to his five,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">She cared not (she was so excited) whether Jake was dead or alive.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">But at four o'clock next morning, she roused from sleep with a scream;</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">She'd seen Jake pushing behind a stock train in this early morning dream.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">And that evening when the lusty preacher came hanging around again,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">He got but a scanty welcome, for she thought of the special train.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">For a time she was silent and thoughtful, the dream an impression had made,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">She could still see Jake pushing the special, as it slowly climbed the grade.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Now we know how the brave-hearted Jake with the stock train had to stay,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">How he camped by her side night times as on a sidetrack she lay.</span><br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</SPAN></span><span style="margin-left: 15em;">We know how he pushed so manfully whene'er she climbed a hill,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">In fact every one pushed, even the sheepmen, Cottswool and Rambolet Bill;</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">How hunger and famine o'ertook them as slowly they crawled along,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Their hearts almost broke with home-longing when Jackdo sung a home song.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Eyes filled with tears that were unbidden, hearts o'erflowing with pain—</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">No pen can paint their sorrow as they stayed with this special stock train.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">The passing of poor old Chuckwagon, who slowly starved to death,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">On account of the smell of the sheepmen, he couldn't get his breath;</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Their camping ahead of the special after they had buried Chuck,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">The washing away of the sheepmen, who surely were out of luck.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">They lived in snow huts on the mountain that's known as Sherman Hill,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Where the last was seen of the sheepmen, Cottswool and Rambolet Bill;</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Their arrival at the Windy City that's known as the dead Shyann,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Some things about Burt and Warren and mayhap another man.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">And now with their party diminished by old age, privation and death,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">They still kept plodding on eastward, what of the party was left</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Till Jake talking with wandering sheepmen, who had trailed by his cabin home.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Heard of the scandalous preacher, who came when his wife was alone;</span><br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</SPAN></span><span style="margin-left: 15em;">Heard of the nightly playing of checkers when the twins were safely in bed,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">About his wife all the neighbors were talking, her claiming that Jake was dead.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Finally through very home-sickness, he started to take the back track,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">And because he was in such a hurry, he rode all the way horse-back.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Arriving in sight of his meadows, a-waving fresh and green,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">The alfalfa growing the highest that Jake had ever seen;</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Two red-headed boys the hay were pitching; their mother was hauling it in.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">There was only one blot on the landscape that made Jake feel like sin.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">'Twas our Gentile-Mormon bishop in the shade of his old umbreller.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">With his long-tailed coat and eye glasses, he looked like Foxy Quiller.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">When Jake got close to the bishop he booted him out the field,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">The house dog and twins, with their hayforks, finished making the elder spiel.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">Then Jake gathered his family around him, work was laid by for the day,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">They told all their joys and their sorrows, so I've finished my lay.</span><br/></p>
<p class="center"><i>Moral.</i></p>
<p><span style="margin-left: 15em;">The old-fashioned Enoch Arden story was a tale well told;</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">I can't approach or rival it, nor make a claim so bold.</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">But the ending of my cowboy Enoch Arden I really like the best,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 15em;">For he fired the interloper out the modern Arden nest.</span><br/></p>
<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</SPAN></span></p>
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