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THE MONUMENT AT LANGSTON�S WELL (From THE OVERLAND MONTHLY AND OUT WEST MAGAZINE , Vol. 9, Issue 54, pages 614-621) (Publication Date: June 1887 City: San Francisco) I was born in the city of St. Joseph, Missouri, in the good old days when negroes were slaves, when lard oil lamps and tallow dips burned by night in smoky apartments, and when sable genii in red turbans flitted before huge open fires in culinary preparation. St. Joseph was a smaller place then, but vastly more bustling. It was the point of departure for Holiday�s overland stages, and for the pony express. Many a time my boyish blood has tingled in sympathetic excitement as the trim rider spurred his thoroughbred, bounding from the wide barn doors, and raced around the corner of Patee�s Park, and so down Penn Street to the ferry. Many a time have I stood, bare-footed and hickory-shirted, upon the bank of the swiftly flowing, muddy river, and watched horse and man dash from the ferry-boat�s deck, scramble up the steep bank, and disappear - rising and falling in gradually decreasing undulations - among the tall cottonwoods on the Kansas side. One day, I remember, the streets were muddy - for there was no macadam in those days. The pony rider came from the barn with a bound as usual, splashing with soft mud the group of ragged urchins who daily gathered about to witness this exciting exit. What boy among them all would have exchanged places with any one on earth that day - save only with that pony rider? On that day, as usual, the rider turned sharp around the corner of Patee�s Park. Then, in an instant - I do not know how it happened - four iron-shod hoofs were in the air, the horse lay panting upon its side, and the trig rider was literally wallowing in the mire. Of course there was a rush of men and boys from the stable - but they came too late. Quick as thought, the gallant rider spring up, the animal struggled to its feet, the man jumped to the saddle, the long Mexican spurs sank deep, and the gallant pair rushed off on their long trip across the plains. No time for cleaning in those days. Saint Joseph is not the town now that it was in the �50�s. The building of the Pacific Railroad seems to have left the place stranded. It has grown, to be sure. It has gas now and macadamized streets, and a union depot, and the telephone - and a bridge has taken the place of the ferry of other days. Still there is an air of sleepy quiet, vastly unlike the old bustling spirit that pervaded the depot of overland traffic. It is like a stately cottonwood that, undermined by the swift river at its feet, and lying prone upon the restless current, sprouts there a new abnormal growth of foliage, which is at once the fruit and parent of decay. The town seems striving to make a brave show of prosperity in adversity. Its latter growth has sapped the substance from which it grew. And then what wild excitement of war time in a border State? When Price and Siegel marched and counter-marched about the place; and prominent citizens, now of this side and now of that, were seized by night and incontinently jailed or carried off. All that is over now. And then when the Emancipation Proclamation came at last, what airs of vast personal importance were assumed by the �free niggers�. And how proud Southern eyes flashed and haughty Southern lips curled in ill-concealed indignation at this newly acquired self-importance of their late �property�! It is from these later troublous days of disfranchisement and bitter feeling that the figure of Charley Langston comes back to me like some half-forgotten memory of spring days. A freshness of imperishable youth hangs about the image. Even later impressions cannot efface that. Can I call it up? A boy of ten, perhaps a trifle undersized. A shock of hair - white, possibly, originally, but sun-tanned to a dusty mouse-color - crowned by a battered straw hat, brimless, and all but crownless. Beneath the front hair, a pair of pathetic black eyes, with a minimum of nose above a maximum of mouth. A ragged shirt of �hickory� - an almost indestructible cloth, now nearly obsolete - covered the body, and the short trousers were supported from the left shoulder by one home-made suspender. Large feet, brown and bare, and hands almost equally large and brown,. compete the picture. 0Winter and summer, the dress was the same. The Langstons were �people who had seen better days.� Is there a poor family in all this broad land, I wonder, who does not set up that pitiful claim to gentility? It was in the spring of �64, I think, that Charley Langston first attracted my notice. We were new to the business of housekeeping, Nell and I, and of course had not arrived at the dignity of our first cow. We �took milk� of the Langstons. Charley was the milkmaid fair, who came tripping to our door over the hills of South Twelfth Street. I sat upon the back porch, I remember, contemplatively, smoking my after dinner cigar, watching the sinking sun, which glorified the river, and listening to the suburban silence. Nell was about the premises somewhere - invisible and inaudible. I felt suddenly that I was not alone - although no sound had broke in upon my reverie. �Here�s yer milk.� The voice was sweet, shrill, peculiarly pathetic- like the high, treble pipe of an organ. I turned to the stairs at the sound, and Charley Langston stood before me. After that I saw him frequently, this little ragged bucket-bearer. We became, in a manner, cronies. He came to us one evening in summer, bearing upon his shoulder a boulder almost as large as himself - and dragging behind him, fastened to his waist by a string, a full-grown shrub of a sort with which I was familiar. I occupied my customary seat upon the kitchen porch. �In the name of heaven, Charley, what have you got?� The boy unloaded his boulder upon the porch, took several smaller ones from his pockets and laid beside it, handed his pail of milk to my wife and said, gravely, �Rocks.� �Where did you get them?� �Stumped my toe on �em.� �But what are you going to do with them?� �Take �em home an� bust �em. I allus busts �em mostly when I stumps my toes on �em. They won�t no other feller get hurt on these rocks, �tain�t likely.� This was practical philanthropy, if a trifle crude. �What are you doing with that shrub, Charley?� �That ain�t no s�rub,� said the piping voice. �That�s jimson weed.� (Datura stramonium) �Mammy an� A�nt Emmerline uses it fer rheumatiz an� makes tea outen the leaves fer asmy. The niggers tole us �bout it. Mighty smart, too, some o� them niggers is, I reckon.� �You have a great many negroes in your neighborhood, Charley, have you not?� �They�s a right smart chance of �em over yander in Stump Town. They don�t many of �em git down our way, though. Reckon they�s afeard Abe�ll lick �em. A free nigger ain�t no account, nohow, Abe says.� �And who is Abe? �Why, Abe, he�s my big brother. He�s a mighty good feller, Abe is. Kin drink more whiskey �n a Baptis� preacher, and licked a ten acre lot full o� ab�litionists onct.� Very evidently my milk Mercury was one of the unreconstructed. He was in an unusually talkative humor, too, that evening. Generally, our conversation consisted of �Hello, Charley!� answered by a quaintly comical gleam in the pathetic eyes. We became better acquainted with the Langstons after awhile. I missed a certain half worn-out suit of winter clothing as the fall came on , and taxed Nell with their disposition to the rag man. She confessed then. It transcribed that my garments had gone to adorn the warlike person of the redoubtable Abe Langston. Nay, more, this treasonable little Samaritan confessed that, unknown to me, her lawful lord and master, she had all but supported the Langston family during that entire summer. Of course, I made a row about it. What man would not? But I do not think that my wife lost anything in my eyes by her charity. I only stipulated that I should accompany her on her next visit to the Langston household. We went over to the shanty - for it was little else - on the Sunday afternoon following Nell�s confession. A washed-out, faded looking, overworked woman, clad in dingy calico, admitted us to the dirty kitchen. There was but one other room and into this another woman, the seeming counterpart of the one who admitted us, disappeared at our entrance. Behind the broken stove sat my friend Charley upon the wood box , regarding us intently. �This is my husband, Mrs. Langston,� Nell said in her sweet, soft voice. �God �A Mighty bless an� thank you, sir, an� her,� the woman said, �I never kin, never in this world.� There was a strange, drawling pathos in the voice, not unlike Charley�s. I set the basket of food we had brought upon a rickety table - the woman only looking her thanks while she dusted a couple of wooden chairs for us. We seated ourselves, feeling rather awkward. I suppose that all dispensers of charity have similar sensations in the presence of recipients of their goodwill. There was the sound of stumbling in the yard and a large man , in the last stages of intoxication, reeled through the kitchen into the inner room. Never until I saw Abe Langston did I realize how large an idea that Nell had of my physical proportions. His whole make-up was irresistibly comical - terribly pitiful. We heard him subside upon the floor - and only the mother�s broken sobbing broke the stillness. �This here is the curse o� bein� poar,� she said. �May you an� yours never know what it is to see yer fust born comin� home like that there.� Nell, thinking of the smiling boy at sleeping in his white crib, began to cry silently . I proposed an immediate departure. �Don�t go yit, sir,� the woman said. �It�s a sight fer sore eyes to see you two a� sittin� there so cozy like. He�s allus quiet when he�s like that� - thinking , evidently, that we feared the stupified man who had just come in. �Yes, it�s a sight fer sore eyes. Tain�t often we find sich goodness as yourn. It�s a hard world, sir, an� a seein� you two a sittin� there �minds me o� the time when me an� Ben - that�s my ole man, sir - fust started out; afore the drink, and sorrer, and troubles come on us, an� we wuz young and all the world afore us. We had niggers in them days, sir, an� a farm, poar as we air now � - there was just a touch of something like the ghost of pride here - �an� Ben Langston was the likeliest young feller in all Barton County. Then the war come, an� the niggers was took, an� the farm took, and them soldiers taken everything that was left. Ben, he begin a� drinkin� then and somehow I didn�t have no heart fur nothin� no more, an� things went fum bad to wuss - bad to wuss. Then some hosses was a missin� and one night they ketched �im - an� the sheriff come-and they taken �im to Jefferson City and I won�t see �im never no more - never no more!� She was fairly wailing now and Nell was crying in company. Of course I immediately asserted my marital authority and we made a hasty and, for me at least, final exit from the Langston dwelling. �I don�t see what the deuce she wanted to tell us her troubles for,� I growled that evening. �We were not parties at interest.� It was a very amiable growl, being postprandial, so Nell did not scold me very seriously. �Poor thing!�, she said. �It must be frightful to have a son a drunkard and a husband in the penitentiary.� �Hard, I admit, but a splendid trading capital for sympathy.� �You are too bad, John,� said Nell, emphatically. �Why do you wish to make yourself worse than you are? You know that if you meant what you said I would not live with you one instant, sir.� Then there was a small domestic whirlwind, and in the end my good cigar had disappeared, and ai was a helpless prisoner at the mercy of a small woman and an exceedingly diminutive boy. II These reminiscences of my boyhood and the peculiar traits of the Langston family bear all upon the story that I have to tell, in a manner. Even Abe�s drunkenness, the father�s crime and punishment, are a part of the sad sequence. The lizards haunting the tree cactus of the desert, even the vultures wheeling in majestic circles above the burning sands, are a part of the tale. Let me get it over. Nell and I had come to California in �80 - the rigorous Eastern climate being a trifle severe on Nell�s never over-strong constitution. She was not ill, you understand - only a hacking cough coming on regularly every winter had alarmed me. As I thoroughly understood telegraphy, it had been no great difficulty for me to procure the position of station agent at Langston�s Wells, on the Southern Pacific Railroad. It was a desolate place enough - Langston�s Wells. There was only the station house, commodious enough for our small needs, and the tank house, rearing its great iron nozzle alongside the track. Around about it for miles in every direction stretched the level sand plains of the Mojave - broken in the far north by a range of blue mountains. Stunted tree cacti like blasted oaks, with here and there an isolated, ghostly, upright column of the giant cactus, lent only an added shade to the desert�s dreariness. The place had two redeeming features: the daily trains each way, bringing us news from the great world; and immediately behind the tank-house, an unfailing supply of pure cold water, gushing from a rock ledge that reached the surface just there. Before the advent of the railroad, this water had run but a few feet from the rock ledge, sinking then again into the parching sand. Now it was piped to the level of the big tank, and every drop utilized. But the most curious thing about the spring at Langston�s was a large wooden cross erected near it, braced in position by heavy boulders, and visible for miles in that level land and clear atmosphere. It had been standing for years, evidently, for the wood had all but dried up and blown away - but on its arms could still be indistinctly traced the rudely cut letters, �Langston�s Wells.� I had thought for a long time that the cross had been placed there by the roadbuilders. The tank-tender enlightened me. One evening in August it was, when our little community at Langston�s - Nell, and the babies, and the tank-tender, and I - had taken refuge in the station-house from the fury of a desert thunder storm. How grandly it rains on the Mojave! It is as if the fury of heaven had suddenly determined to obliterate forever the whole unsightly mass of sand, and soda, and cactus! And how sweetly gentle is the breath of the wilderness as the storm dies away moaning in the distant mountains. I have said that the tank-keeper enlightened me. He was an oddity, this tank-keeper. Nominally under my orders, he knew his duties so well that no ordering was ever necessary. He was a tall man, grave and silent, but not sullen. He loved the children passionately - amusing them by the hour in fair weather. For the rest, he treated Nell and me with grave, natural courtesy, but was never to be seen outside the tank-house when a train was in. He seemed to shun his kind. In years he looked nearly fifty. Actually he was twenty years younger. A great sorrow had aged him. His speech, when at rare intervals he spoke, had that peculiarly plaintive musical intonation common to natives of the Missouri valley. My enlightenment as to the monument came about in this way: We sat about our little stove in silence, awe-stricken by the howling fury of the story. The tank-keeper was in a corner apart, Willie, our youngest, cuddled down upon his knee and hiding a scared face in the man�s broad breast. It was wonderful how our children loved this bearded giant. The man spoke, and into his eyes there came the look as of one who gazes into an eternity of suffering, past and future. Singularly enough, his plaintive voice seemed to chord and blend with the thundering bass of elemental anger. It was as though the voice of the storm had been humanized. We listened, almost fearing to interrupt this unusual loquacity. �You ast me th� other day who put up that cross out yonder. I�ll tell ye. Mebbe if I do it�ll make me feel a little lighter in yere� - touching the end of his fore-finger lightly to his breast. �It�s nigh on seven year ago, that I done it. Ye see, it was this way. Mebbe I better go back to the beginnin�. I was born in Barton County, Missoury, an� before the war my dad was purty comfortable off. Ben Langston, his name was, an� mine was Charley.� I saw Nell start. Where had I heard that name? �Well, the war come on, an� they taken the niggers away, and the ole man he died er sumpin� - anyways, he left us - an me an� Abe an� mammy went ter live in St. Jo. In �72 it was we come to Californy, an� Abe, he taken up a ranch over in San Bernydino County. It was all sand an� rocks, mostly, an� hard work to claar the brush offen the foot-hills - mighty poar land, too. Right on the aidge o� this yere desert. �Well, Abe he up an� got tired o� workin�, an� so one day he taken our gray colt and spring wagin, an� says he was a goin� to Los Ang�les. He sold the rig there, I reckon, fer he never come back no more. Me an� mammy, we worked the ranch alone fer awhile - an� then mammy she up an� died, an� I didn�t have nobody. She never was very strong, no way, mammy wasn�t. ��Bout a year after mammy died, the Parkers they come out and taken up a claim alongside o� mine. I had a right smart chance o� stock by this time - an� wa�ant so poar�s I had been. I had knowed the Parkers in St. Jo. Sally, she was a likely gal enough - but not very strong - an� so we made er hitch o� it.� ��N �bout a year our boy come. �S bright a little feller as ever you seen, little Benny was! One night -- he was about three years old - he didn�t come in to no supper. I dunno what made me keep a thinkin� o� the desert all through that terrible night. We hunted him everywhere. Sally she up an� went nigh about crazy - but she never saw little Benny no more in this yere earth.� The man paused, choking down a sob. The howling of the storm grew angrier. �Well,� Langston went on, �course we scoured the kentry in the mornin�, but the winds is allus a blowin� on the desert more or less, an� that sand never shows no tracks. Somehow, I didn�t seem to have no heart fer work no more - an then there was Sally�s pale face an� starin� eyes allus a waitin�� fer me at home. She didn�t never cry, only went about a moanin� like a hurt dumb critter. So I up an� taken her to her ma�am, and then I rode out on ter this yere desert, hardly knowin� an� not much keerin, what become of me. Fer three whole days I ridden on,. a-keepin� as near as might be due east. Then I come to this yere spring, and right out here alongside I seen somethin� a layin� a tree cactus. It was my little Ben. He never got none o� the water, poor little chap. Most like he couldn�t reach it after crawlin� up there. �Somehow I up an� taken him back home - an� we buried him an� Sally on the same day. She never knowed - leastwise she had no way o� showin� it, if she did - what become o� Benny. I couldn�t seem to take no heart in nothin� no more, so I sold out to Parker an� up an� come down yere, an� located this yere spring. Then I put up that there cross, a thinkin� likely it might save some poor feller from dyin�on the desert. The Company come along five year ago, bought me out, an� yere I bin ever sence.� He ceased speaking and the thunder of the storm was only distant muttering now. Not a tear had Langston shed during all this strange recital. Only, the distant, dreamy look in his eyes had deepened as he went on monotonously to the end. There were tears in my own eyes as I arose to break the spell which had woven around our little circle. It was not until months after this that I identified Langston with my quaint little milkman of twenty years ago. Nell, who arrogates to herself the brain of the family, declares that she recognized him on the very evening he so unexpectedly told his strange history - confidentially between you and me, she did not so much as hint such a suggestion to me. After that night of the storm, of course, we all took a vastly greater interest in Langston. For my part, I never saw him moving slowly and methodically about his labors that a feeling of pity and of sympathy did not run through my thoughts. How awful must have been the anguish of that father and mother when their baby darling was not to be found on that fearful night! What was the grasping pain at the mother's heart, which denied her tears, leaving only the power to moan like a stricken animal! Who can portray the father's deep sorrow when he found his babe-dead of thirst at the edge of the water! And the boy! He had wandered off in his play, perhaps, prattling to himself. Perhaps a swift lizard or a shining pebble had allured him. Laughing, he ran on. There is nothing so very terrible in this hard white sand and the soft blue sky above him There, ahead, is a shady grove and a cool lake in its bosom. It will be royal fun to paddle his bare feet in the limpid water. Farther and farther the alluring lake leads him. Then it vanishes-leaving around him only ragged-looking tree cactus. On and on. The day darkens rapidly, and hunger overtakes him. Sinking upon the sand the little soul sobs out all the anguish that the mother would give her very life to assuage. Something brushes by him in the darkness. Arising in terror, he staggers aimlessly into the night. Fatigue conquers fear-and he sleeps. The warm sun awakens him. On and on, staggering weakly on his feeble little legs, each moment taking him farther, and farther, and farther from his friends. Water rivers, lakes, seas, oceans of water are always before him, yet always out of reach. He knows nothing, sees nothing, hears nothing of the awful wilderness around him. Perhaps his parched lips can n longer utter their pitiful cry: "I want my mamma!" Only a blind instinct tells him that he must go on and on. How should a baby know that coyotes and ominous buz zards were following him stealthily? Perhaps even for a third day the child wandered on, suffering tortures indescribable. Now he sees before him a stream of clear water gushing from a rock. Afar off he even imagines that he can hear the music of its running. He crawls toward it-oh, so feebly. His little hand put forward feels the grateful coolness. Then the baby head falls forward, and the weak body perishes almost within the grasp of salvation. For a while after recounting to us his sad story, Langston seemed to grow just a shade more cheerful. But even Nell's kindly sympathy could do very little to lighten the gloom that hung about the man's soul. He grew visibly paler as winter came on -seeming less and less inclined to work. Toward Christmas it became absolutely necessary to employ a new tank-keeper. A resignation and a requisition at headquar ters speedily brought us a man. On the first day of January following, Langston kept his bed-nor did he ever' rise from it. There was nothing apparently wrong with the man, Of course we had down a doctor from Los Angeles. He examined the patient, looked wise, and asked me what trouble was preying upon Langston's mind. I told him as much of the pitiful story as was necessary, and concluded by asking: "What is the matter, doctor?" " Well, I'll tell you," he said. "The man is dying of a broken heart." "Can nothing be done?" "Well, no. Not beyond making his last hours easy as possible, that is." Of course we could count upon Nell to do that, and I said so. Then the medical man took his fee and his departure. In a very few days the end came. We buried him close to the spring in the rock - and to Nell's pitying heart, in the main, belongs the credit of the monument at Langston�s . After all, it is only a shaft of pure white marble from one of the company�s quarries in Arizona. S. V. Sheridan, Jr. |
