CHAPTER IV--PHILOSOPHY BOUND IN HOMESPUN
"No, there ain't no news--no news a-tall," declared Mrs. Sam Tubbs,comfortably rocking. "Nothing ever happens in Canyon Pass. For a rightbusy town on its main street, there's less happens in the back alleysthan in any camp I ever seen--and I seen a-plenty.
"It's in the back alleys o' life, Nell, that the interesting thingshappen. Folks buy and sell, and argue and scheme, and otherwise play thefool out on the main streets. But in the alleys babies is born, andpeople die, and boys and gals make love and marry. Them's the re'llyinteresting things in life."
"Ugh! Love and marriage! They are the biggest fool things the worldknows anything about."
Mother Tubbs chuckled. It was an unctuous chuckle. It shook her greatbody like a violent explosion in a jelly-bag and made the wide-armedrocking-chair she sat in creak.
"Sho!" she said. "I've heard seventeen-year-old gals say as much 'forenow, who dandled their second young-un on their knee 'fore they wastwenty. The things we're least sure of in this world is love andmarriage. Lightning ain't nothin' to 'em--nothin'!
"Now, there's Mr. Joe Hurley----"
Nell started, turned on the top step of the Tubbs' back porch, andlooked searchingly at the old woman with a frown on her brow.
"Now, there's Mr. Joe Hurley," pursued Mother Tubbs placidly. "Thereain't a thing the matter with that man but that he needs a wife."
"Why doesn't he take one, then?" demanded Nell wickedly. "There areplenty of them around here whose husbands don't seem to care anythingabout them."
"Like me and my Sam, heh?" put forth Mother Tubbs, still amused. "But Ireckon if Mr. Joe Hurley, or any other man, should attempt to run awaywith me, Sam would go gunning for him. What they call the 'first law ofNater'--which is the sense of possession, not self-preservation--wouldprobably get to working in Sam's mind.
"He'd get to thinking of my flapjacks and chicken-with-fixin's and hisbile would rise 'gainst the man--no matter who--who was enjoying themvictuals.
"Oh, yes. Not only is the way to a man's heart through his stomach; butbelieve me, Nell, most men are like those people the Bible speaks of'whose god is their stomach.'"
"Does the Bible say that, Mother Tubbs?" broke in the girl.
"Somethin' near to it."
"Then there is some sense in the Bible, isn't there?"
"Hush-er-you, Nell Blossom!" ejaculated the old woman sternly. "Doesseem awful that you're such a heathen. The Bible's plumb full of goodadvice, and lovely stories, and sweet truths. I used to read it a lotbefore I broke my specs. But I remember lots that I read, thanks be."
"I don't care for stories," said the girl crossly. "And I don't knowthat I believe there is a heaven," she went on quickly. "Once you aredead I reckon that's all there is to it. I won't learn any more songsabout heaven. I used to cry over them--and about folks dying. I rememberthe first song Dad taught me to sing in the saloons. It used to make mecry when I came to the verse:
Last night as I lay on my pillow-- Last night as I lay on my bed-- Last night as I lay on my pillow, I dreamt that my Bonnie was dead. Bring back! Oh, bring back! Bring back my Bonnie to me, to me----
It's all stuff and nonsense!" she broke off with confidence.
"That ain't a hymn," said Mother Tubbs placidly. "Hymns is different,Nell. A good, uplifting hymn like 'Am I a Soldier of the Cross,' or'Beulah Land,' takes you right out of yourself--bears your heart up onwings o' hope and helps you forget you're only a poor, miserable worm----"
"I'm not a worm!" interrupted Nell with vigor. "I'm as good asanybody--as good as anybody in Canyon Pass, anyway, even if some of thesewomen do look down on me."
"Of course you are, Nell. 'Worm' is just a manner o' speaking."
"Dad trained me to sing in these saloons, I know," went on the girlquickly, angrily, "because he was too weakly to use a pick and shovel.We had to eat, and he thought he had to have drink. So I had to earn it.But I've been a good girl."
"I never doubted it, Nell," Mother Tubbs hastened to say. "Nobody coulddoubt it that knowed you as well as I do." She let her gaze wander overthe squalid back yards of the row of shacks of which the Tubbs' domicilewas no better than its neighbors. "They don't know you like I do, Nell.You've lived with me for three years--all the time you was growing into awoman, as ye might say. You hafter do what you do, and I don't 'low whenwe are forced into a job, no matter what it is, that it's countedagainst us as a sin."
Nell flashed the placid old woman another glance. There was somethinghidden behind that look--of late there was something secretive in allNell Blossom said or did. Did Mother Tubbs understand that this was so?Was she, in her rude but kindly way, offering a sympathy that she fearedto put into audible speech for fear of offending the proud girl?
The latter suddenly laughed, but it was not the songbird's note hervoice expressed. There was something harsh--something scornful--in it.
"I reckon I could get away with murder, and you'd say I was all right,Mother Tubbs," she declared.
"Well, mebbe," the old woman admitted, her eyes twinkling.
"Suppose--" said Nell slowly, her face turned away again, "suppose aparty was the cause of another's death--even if he deserved it--but didn'tmean just that--suppose, anyway, what you did caused a man's death, forwhatever reason, although unintended? Would it be a sin, Mother Tubbs?"
She might have been reflecting upon a quite casual supposition for allher tone and manner betrayed. Just how wise Mother Tubbs was--just howfar-seeing--no human soul could know. The old woman had seen much andlearned much during her long journey through a very rough and wickedworld.
"I tell you, Nell," Mother Tubbs observed, "it's all according to what'sin our hearts, I reckon. If what we done caused a party to die, and wehad death in our heart when we done the thing that killed him, I reckonit would be a sin. No getting around that. For we can't take God'sduties into our hands and punish even the wickedest man with death--likewe'd crunch a black beetle under our bootsole. 'Vengeance is Mine; Iwill repay, saith the Lord.'" She repeated the phrase with reverence."No, sin is sin. And because a party deserves to be killed, in ouropinion, don't excuse our killing him."
Nell was quite still for a minute. Then she shrugged her shoulders.
"Humph!" she said briskly. "I don't think much of your religion, MotherTubbs. No, I don't."
Mother Tubbs began to croon:
It's the old-style religion, The old-style religion, The old-style religion, That gets you on your way. 'Twas good enough for Moses, Good enough for Moses-- The old-style religion, That gets you on your way.
"It ain't no new-fangled religion, Nell. But it's comforting----"
"It wouldn't comfort me none," answered the girl. "I reckon it ain'treligion--and a sky pilot--that Canyon Pass needs after all. If we'd justrun about fifty of these tramps out of town--and Boss Tolley and hisgang--we could get along without psalm-singing and such flubdubbery."
"You ain't talking like you used to, Nell," said the old woman,observing her curiously.
"I hadn't thought so much about it. Religion is too soft. Theseroughnecks would ride right over a parson and--and that kind. Now,wouldn't they?"
"Not altogether. I expect they'd try--at first. But if a man had enoughgrace in him, he'd stand up against 'em."
"He'd better have backbone."
"Same thing," chuckled Mother Tubbs. "Same thing. It takes the grace ofGod to stiffen a man's backbone--I tell you true. I hope this parson Mr.Joe Hurley talks about has got plenty of grace."
"Who--what?" gasped the girl. "What parson?"
"Well, now! That is a gob o' news. But I thought you must o' heardit--over to Colorado Brown's, or somewhere--the way you was talkin'. Thisparson is a friend of Mr. Joe Hurley, and he wants to get him out yere."
"From the East?"
"Yeppy. Mr. Joe says he went to school with him. And he's somepreacher."
"What do you think o' that!" ejaculated Nell. "Mr. Hurley didn't sayanything
to me about it the day we rode into the Pass together."
"I reckon not. This has all been hatched up since then."
"But, Mother Tubbs!" cried the girl. "You don't expect any tenderfootparson can come in here and make over Canyon Pass?"
"I reckon not. We folks have got to make ourselves over. But we need aleader--we need a Shower of the Way. We've lost our eyesight--the best ofus--when it comes to seeing God's ways. My soul! I couldn't even raise aprayer in conference meeting no more. But I used to go reg'lar when Iwas a gal--played the melodeon--led the singin'--and often got down on myknees in public and raised a prayer."
"Humph!" scoffed the girl. "If God answered prayer, I bet you prayedover Sam enough to have cured him of getting drunk forty times over!"
"I don't know--I don't know," returned Mother Tubbs thoughtfully. "I beenthinking lately that, mebbe when I was praying to God to save Sam fromhis sins, I was cursing Sam for his meanness! I ain't got as sweet adisposition as I might have, Nell."
"Oh, yes you have, Mother Tubbs!" exclaimed Nell, and suddenly jumped upto kiss the old woman warmly. "You're a dear, sweet old thing!"
"Well, now," rejoined Mother Tubbs complacently, "I ought to purr likeany old tabby-cat for that."
The Heart of Canyon Pass Page 4