Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 November 1884 — IN "O-BE-JOYFUL.” [ARTICLE]

IN "O-BE-JOYFUL.”

Shorty was my favorite stage-driver. Other name he must have had, but I had never heard it. He was an. anomaly among stage-drivers, for he did n °l swear, he did not drink, he did not boast, he did not lie; and with all his •rough exterior he had a fine inward grace and a manly dignity that lifted him far above most men of his class. I knew that a day of pleasure awaited me one June morning, when I had been so fortunate as to secure for myself a seat by Shorty’s side for a ride over Red Mountain Pass. In all my years of experience with •stage-drivers, I had never met one who could so quickly detect, and so fully appreciate, the rare beauty and splendor of a mountain road as this homely, uncouth, ignorant Shorty. He noted every light and shade, every bit of glowing color, the flowers of the rocky road, the golden shallows of the narrow streams, the low-hung clouds that flooded the hills. The sunshine came slanting down among the purple Bhadows or crowned the snow-white crests, the quivering leaves of the aspen, the gloom of the pines, the foamy waves of crystal streams breaking around and over the gray rocks, the glowing splendor of the aster beds; the tranquil beauty of mountain lakes—this man Shorty saw and rejoiced in it all. His soul was lighted up by the majesty, the beauty and the grandeur of it all. “Why, sir,” he said to me, “I’ve lived right iu these here mountains sence ’63, an’ they’re not old to me yit. No, sir, they ain’t, an’ I don’t reckon they ever will ba They’re new ev’ry mornin’ an’ ev’ry night. I see somethin’ in ’em each day that I never noticed afore; an’ I ain’t yit seen airy two stmsets jest alike. There’ll be a new kind of shadder or new kind of light in the sky ev’ry time. There’s a kind of a somethin' ’bout mountings that a man never outgrows, an’ some meu can’t git ’long ’thout after they’re used to it. I’m one o’ them men. . “I’ve heerd that them tnat’s been born and raised by the seashore kin never outgrow the sound o’ the waves. If they go away they can’t stay. They jest can’t live ’thout the murmur an’ music o’ them sea waves, an’ the feelin’ the sea breezes gives a man. “Now, I’d jest naterally die if I had to go an’ stay clear out o’ sight o’ the hills. I ain’t none o’ yer poeticky kind o’ fellers, but I heerd o’ a man oncet a callin’ certain mountings the ‘hills of his love,’ an’, sir, that’s jest what these hills are to me—the hills of my love. “I’ve tried goin’ away to what some folks call a ‘civilized country,’ but I didn’t stay long; and when I die I want to die right here an’ have the hillside fer my tomb, as that writ ’bout Moses.” « Shorty was a garrulous man, but never talked when you wished he should not. He would stop short in the midst of the most animated discourse to enjoy in siience and special beauty in gulch or valley, or far up the heights. I was sure that the man must have had adventures, but he said little about them. He never spoke of any act of bravery or skill on his part. One gloomy day, when a mist hid the ranges and gulches from our view,-I asked Shorty to tell me some of his experiences. “I am sure you must have had many'strange ones.” I said. “Oh, I don’t know,” Shorty modestly replied, “none to speak of, I reckon. I toever killed a bear ner fit a red-skin, ner nothin’ o’ that kind. I never even had highwaymen or foot-pads try to hold me an’ my passengers up.” “But your story need not be about any of these things to please me,” I protested. o “Well, then, sir, I will tell you a bit of a yarn. You see the mouth o’ that gulch square ahead of us and not more’n a hundred yards off. You kin jest make it out through the mist. The sight of it reminds me o’ somethin’. That’s Poor Man’s Gulch. There used to be a purty big camp ’bout two miles up the gulch. It was called O-Be-Joy-ful, but it got to be a kind of an o-be-sorrowful place to some o’ the boys ’fore they got out o’ it

"At one time I reckon they 'was as many as 2,000 people in and 'round O-Be-JoyfuL It had a regular boom for two or three months, and folks thought it was going to put Leadville clean in the shade, an’ there ain’t a thing there this day but a ’ot o’ old tumbled-down cabins an’ shanties an’ prospect-holes, shafts an’ tunnels in which many a poor devil has buried the hope an’ strength of his life. \ “I driv stage from the South Park up to O-Be-Joyful all through the gay times; an’ many an’ many’s the load o’ happy, hopeful young an’ old fellers I’ve hauled up there, an’ them a-sing-in’ their gay songs an’ crackin’ their jokes with ev’ry mortal man of ’em thinkin’ they was goin’ straight to fame aa* fortchin.

“But I tell you, sir, it wa’n’t Isix .months ’fore I see many a one o’ them poor fellers with' nothin’ but the old duds on their backs, a-goin’ a-foot out 0’ O-Be-Joyful without no songs on their lips an’ only sorrer in their'hearts. “That's the way of it in minin’ camps. Some how or other folks don’t alius hear, an’ don’t want to hear o’ the hundreds that lose their all where one man Btrikes it rich. It’s nothin on the Lord’s earth but a game o’ chance, minin’ ain’t. , “Well, one day I had a woman passenger. She was the first one I took up, and I hated to take her; for the place hadn’t a decent house in it, and she didn’t look like a woman that roughed it mty?h. She was a little cherry-faced an’ cheery-voiced woman, all dressed in plain black, an’ ’bout 45, near s I could jedge. But;*spiie o’ that cheery voice an’ smilin’ face, I could see plain enough in the woman’s eye that she’d had her cross to bear, an’ that its burden weighed on ’er yit. She’d a kind of a quiver ’bout her lips, even when she laughed, an’ oncet in a while I Letched on to a little sigh or two that she’d give. “She sat by me all the way to the camp, an’ asked a good many questions ’bout this an’that an’ t’other, but hadn’t a word to say ’bout herself or her plans. I managed to find out that she was goin’ up there a total Btranger to ev’ry man iu the camp; as for bein’ a stranger to the wimmen—why, there wa’nt a livin’ woman there yit. “Well, the boys they give her a room in the best shanty they was up, an’ I come away an’ left her there. “I got my wrist real badly sprained goin’ back next day, an’ it was -three weeks ’fore I driv up to O-Be-Joyful agin. Then I found this Jittle woman mistress o’ the biggest boardin’ house an’ hotel in camp, an’ the most popler woman th<Jfe. Myra Claffitt’s house was the house. She was Myra Claffitt to everybody, but some o’ the boys was callin’ her ‘Aunt Myra.’ “She did run a stavin’ house. They wasn’t any two ways ’bout that. They wasn’t anything slow ’bout Myra Claffitt or her table. Ev’rybody was welcome whether they could pay or not. But the boys see to it that ev’rybocly paid. It wouldn’t o’ been healthy for any one to try to sneak out of it “I reckon that Myra Claffitt was as good a woman as ever the Lord made. The boys in O-Be-Joyful got so they swore by her fairly, She had a kind of a way about her that not one woman in a million has. A man couldn’t do a thing she’d ask him not to do—anyhow I know I couldn’t. I’d feel ’shamed o’ myself all my life if I did. Many’s the row that woman broke up. I’ve seen men stripped fer a fight an’ all ready to buckle into each other with murder in their hearts; n’ when Myra Claffitt ’d march through the crowd that’d give way ’fore her, that fight’d be indef’nitly postponed. That’s what it would! “But she never had the first word to say ’bout herself. No one knowed if she was a widder or not, or if she had children, or who or what she was. She was a kind of a woman that, somehow or other, you couldn’t ask questions of, an’ couldn’t have suspicions ’bout. You took her just like you’d take a clean, fresh, shinin’ new dollar right from the mint. “But now it allers seemed to me that that woman was lookin' for somebody. The day she rid up with me on the stage there wasn’t a man or boy on the road that she didn’t see—and see good too. An’ I never took a stage load o’ passengers to her house in my life that she wa’n’t out an’ starin’ sharp at ev'ry man of ’em. Then she’d go round on the hills ’mong the men at work there, an’ I tell you she saw all of ’em. Sometimes when all my passengers’d be out o’ the stage I've seen that little quiver come so pitiful-like to her lips, an’ there’d be tears in her eyes; but I never let on to her or any one ’bout it. “After travel got so light that they was hardly ever any passengers Myra Claffitt got restless like an’ talked o’ goin’ away. But the boys they jest wouldn’t hear to it. So it happened that she was the last as well as the first woman in O-Be-Joyful. “The camp it began to wink out purty fast (the mines never was no good) when I drive up there on Saturday, an’ in jumpin’ down from my seat on the stage my foot kind o’ turned in like, an’ first thing I knowed there I was on the ground with a broken leg. “Well, sir; that Myra Claffitt gave me the best bed in the house an’ took care of me like as if I’d been a baby. I’d laid there over a month an’ in*that time the bottom had nigh ’bout dropped out o’ O-Be-Joyful, an’ most o’ the men was feelin’ mighty blue an’ des’prit-like, as men will feel when they’ve been cheated or deceived or turribly disappointed. ’Bout this time some claimjumpers began to show up ’round the only claims that showed any signs o’ ’mountin’ anythin’. Now yon know, sir, as well as me, jest how claim-jumpin’ affects a lot o’ miners that’s worked hard for what they’ve found. You know a decent miner hates a claimjumper loke he hates pizen. They’re dogged like game an’ shown no more mercy when found. When it got out that there was claim-jumper ’round O-Be-Joyful it set the men on fire. They was feelin’ kind o’ reckless anyhow, so they met an’ formed a regular vig'lance committee an’ made vows an’ took oaths that they meant to stand by. But I tell you they kept mum ’bout it ’fore Myra Claffitt. * “One o’ the boys come to me one day and whispered to me that they were on the track o’ one o’ the wust o’ the claimjumpers an’ they thought they’d run ’im down that night

“ ‘An’ if we do,’ says he, ‘there’ll be a hangin’-bee ’fore daylight, sure as you’re born. There’ll be no earthly escape for the villain. But don’t you fer your life mention it to her,’ says he, jerkin’ his thumb over His shoulder to’ard the kitchen where Myra Claffitt was singing at her work. “After supper ev’ry man left the house, an’that left me alone with Myra. She got some sewin’ an’ come an’ set down by me in an uncommon lively humor, even for her that was always smilin’, She Set there laughin’ an’ chattin’ in her cheery way an’ once in a while she sung parts o’ songs like ‘Jesus, Lover o’ my Soul," an’ ‘Bock o’ Ages, Cleft for Me.’ Finally she got more sober like an’ sung part o’ most an

awful purty song ’boutJb«iu’ nearer my home than ever I’ve Deen before.’ There was one part that said: ‘Nearer m.v Fat he's house. Where bare} ns are la d down,’j. 1 ■ an’ all of a sudden she let her isewin’ fall in her lap, an’ clasped her hands over her head, afl’ said in the strangest way—kind o’ slow an* solemn an’ stid-dy-like ‘Where—burdens— are—laid —down.’ Then, sir, she kind o’ shut her eyes, dropped her chin on her breast, an’ says agin more solemn than before— ‘Where—burden—are—laid—down.’ ‘Oh, thank God,’ she said, then, jumpin’ to her feet, ‘thank God again an’ again that there is a place an’ a time when the weary burdens of this life can be laid down an 1 ’ achin’ hearts whose every throb is one of woe, can be forever stilled an’ at rest. O, Thou who didst lay down tho heavy burden of thy life on Mount Calvary; Thou whose aching heart throbbed out its life on the cross, help me to bear my burden K of sorrow until I can forever lay it down.’ “I mind every word of it, sir; I ain't the kind to forgit a thing of words like them. “A\fell, then she set down agin, very quiet, an’ kind o’ scared lookin’ like. But by an’ by she begun talkin’ ’bout the boys, an’ how sorry she felt for ’em in their disapp’intment, an’ how bravely they bore ’em. She talked ’bout them boys as if they’d been saints, ev ery one of’em, ’stid o’ the pack o’ rough fellers they was. I felt so guilty like listenin’ to her. Thinks I to myself, ‘I wonder what you’d think an’ say, Myra Claffitt, if you knew where them men have gone now an’ what for? I wonder if you’d set there talkin’ so tenderly an’ so well ’bout them if you knew that at this minit they was out on trails an’ hill-sides skulkin’ along in the storm (for it was stormin’ fearfully) trackin’ to his death a poor dovil that's steppin’ stealthily from tree to tree an’ from rock to rock in the darkness, fearin’, an’ trembin,’ an’ prayin’, likely, if be never prayed afore. It seemed to me I could see the poor wretch glidin’, an’ creepin’ along an’ them men with murder in their hearts after him, “But Myra talked on an’ on uniil I couldn’t stand it any longer, an’ made believe I’d gone to sleep jest to have her shut ’bout them fellers that didn’t deserve half the good things she said ’bout 'em. “She thought I’d really gone to sleep an’ so she stepped slowly over to the fire-place an’ stood there with one elbow restin’ on a brick of the chimney an’ her cheek in her hand. She looked uncommon pale an’ old an’ careworn, as she stood there with the light of the fire shinin’ up in her face. “An’ while she stood there I saw the cabin door open very slowly an’ carefully, an’ a man’s face thrust in; an’ I tell you, sir, that T, who have seen the death agony on many a face; I, who have seen men turn pale and ghastly, even, with fear, I never, sir, seen such a face as that was that come peekin’ in behind that door. It was like that of the dead, and his eyes seemed to be on fire. He laid a tremblin’ hand on the knob, stepped in, and softly shut the door. “Myra turned slowly ’round, and in a second that man was at her feet. “‘Oh, madam! madam!’ he fairly screamed, grabbin’ lier band, ‘save me! save me 1 Hide me, quick! lam hunted like a beast! Men with murderous hearts are in pursuit. They cannot feel mercy or pity! You, a woman, can. They will hang me to the nearest tree if they find me. For God’s sake, help me, save my life, guilty and sinful as I am!’ “I never took my oyes off that woman’s face for a second, after that man begun to speak. There come over her such a look as I can’t tell you of. An’ all the time that man was whinin’ and pleadin’ she kep’ steppin’ back a little at a time, but her eyes never left his face. “I reckon he thought she was goin’ to give him up to his enemies, for his voice sunk dowd to a moan that was pitiful to hear. He put out his hands so implorin’ly at the last, and fell, face downward, groveliii’ at her feet.. “There was a dead silence for a full mi nut, an’ in that time Myra kep’ passin’ her hands over her eyes like a person cornin’ out of a heavy sleep. Her lips kep’ movin’, but there was no sound. At last she spoke four words, an’ the man was on his feet quick as lightnin’. Them words were; John Claffit, my husband!'” — Chicago Current.