In addition to the newsy, chatty things, he asked for any recipes his father saw fit to forward, as one of his new duties was assisting Ellen Nielsen in the preparation of her boarder’s meals.
Gopher carefully re-read the letter. He was almost satisfied with what he had written. But there were two things missing. He added a post-script mentioning Grenda and to say hello should they cross paths again.
Because he did not wish Ellen to see what he had written, he chose the generic General Delivery address for greater Denver. He signed the letter, Love and miss you, Gilbert.
First thing Monday morning, Mister Oliveri waved goodbye with the promise to pass the word around that the Nielsen house had good food.
Gopher then announced he needed to check in with the fellow at the assay office to find out if there was any word on the whereabouts of the Fairlie engine. But the truth be known, Gopher was more interested in posting his letter to his parents. The problem lie in the fact that he had nary a penny to his name.
Finally, he realized he had no choice but to ask Ellen for enough money for postage. “I really hate to ask, but old Stroud cleaned me out and I haven’t enough for postage to send this letter back home telling my folks where I am.”
“I’ve got an idea, let’s go down to the postal office; just the two of us. I’ll make sure your letter gets posted. On the way back, we can stop and pick up a few groceries and you can check in with Mister Abernathy at the assayer’s office.”
“Do you know him? I mean he’s a very nice man and he knew you took in boarders but I had no idea.”
“I don’t take in just anybody and Mister Abernathy knows that. Why, he gets some pretty disgusting customers in there and he knows I won’t take in men like that.”
“What about women? Do you accept them, as well?”
“That would depend on who she might be and what she does to make ends meet. I won’t have any scarlet ladies in my home.”
Gopher didn’t know for sure what a scarlet lady was, but he suspected it wasn’t a good thing, at least not in the eyes of Ellen Nielsen.
She saw his face and asked if he knew what a scarlet lady was.
“Not for sure. What exactly are they?”
“Other names they are known by are, ladies of the night, loose women, street walkers and even the disgusting handle of prostitute or whore. No I won’t have them in my home.”
“Street walkers? Do you mean they do nothing but walk the streets? Why is that not a good thing? I do it all the time.”
“Listen Gopher, maybe you don’t understand. Let me ask, have you ever been approached by a woman late at night asking you for a little companionship?”
“Why yes, now that you mention it. Late one night I tried to get out of the weather by sitting for a while in a hotel lobby. There were a lot of couples coming and going and the clerk asked me to pay for a room or get out. When I went outside there were two young women waiting for an invitation to go inside. I guess those are the kind you mean? They weren’t wearing much, so I figured they were cold.”
“Oh, those two wanted much more than an invitation to get out of the cold. They would have taken all your money and something else, as well.”
“Like what?”
“Let’s leave that discussion for another time and place.”
By then, the letter had been mailed and the postal clerk assured Gopher that any return mail would be held in the General Delivery box until he came to claim it.
“Why didn’t you just give your parents my address?” Ellen asked.
“I didn’t want to impose on your generosity, that’s all. Besides, using the postal office gives me an excuse to walk around the city now and then.”
“When do you expect a return?”
The trains run daily, so if they get it in a couple of days and pen a quick response, a letter may come in a week or so.”
“That seems like quite a long time. Why so long?”
Gopher did not want to admit he had no recipes, so he simply said his father wore two hats and was a very busy man.
“And just what does you father do for a living?”
“Well, he owns and runs a big restaurant in Santa Fe: Piddington’s International Dining Emporium, and he is the Mayor, so he doesn’t have a great deal of free time.”
Rather than press the issue, Ellen figured the young man was telling only part of the truth. “But no never mind”, she thought to herself, “Whatever little secrets he has are none of my business.”
On the way back, the two of them stopped at the assayer’s office so Gopher could inquire as to where the Fairlie engine might be assigned.
There was no good news but there was a hint of a location. “I took the liberty of sending a telegram to my counterpart in Leadville and he advised that a specially designed engine was reputed to be working the high rail routes in the Leadville area but he had no outright proof and the name Fairlie meant nothing to him. For all he knew, your engine might have been pulled from service or placed somewhere else.”
Gopher was back at square one but this go-around he had no money and no way of earning a dime. The position he currently held was rewarded with room and board only—no salary was offered.
BATHING AND BASE BALL
Daily life continued for Gopher. After Mister Oliveri departed, he proved true to his promise to pass the word around that the Nielsen house had good food.
Three male boarders applied to rent rooms for extended periods. All three were accepted. Ellen admitted she would not have taken them in if she were alone. But with Gopher in residence, she felt safer and eagerly took their money.
While Gopher was content with the arrangement, he did not like asking Ellen for money whenever he needed something. He considered it degrading and un-manly. The same negative feelings he held for her charity, he held for other avenues of assistance namely, the church sponsored Charitable Organization Society. They offered a number of programs designed to assist those citizens and travelers who were down on their luck.
Instead, the young man applied his father’s love of cooking to as many dishes as he could. All the recipes became a part of the regular Nielsen house dining offerings.
No matter how well received his culinary efforts were, Gopher still did not have any interest in pursuing his father’s chosen profession. His focus was on the elusive Fairlie locomotive.
The widow Nielsen tried to convince Gopher he needn’t borrow money each week to bath elsewhere. “You are welcome to use my tub anytime you feel the need. All I ask is you keep the crib filled with firewood and split kindling whenever you can—I so dislike handling that hatchet.”
Bathing on a weekly basis might have been the norm in Denver but Gopher was used to skinny-dipping in the river back home much more often, even in chilly weather. That feeling of being “soiled” simply didn’t agree with him. He began using Ellen’s big metal round tub two, sometimes three times each week.
The tub was also used to do the laundry when she chose not to send it out to the Chinese. The bathing room consisted of a large parlor stove with a bucket on top, the wood crib, the large tub, a scrub board and a shelf with soaps and bluing stored on it.
The procedures for cleaning one’s self and doing one’s small laundry items was pretty much the same; get the stove hot, bring to water to the boil and pour it into the tub along with enough cool water to make the temperature endurable, then set to cleaning either the clothing or the body.
Gopher soon established a routine that seemed to fit both their schedules. He had taken to bathing during the slow times in the kitchen, that being the early afternoon, where there was little need for preparations until the dinner hour neared.
As for Ellen, she usually went out for grocery needs during the slow times; perfect for a shy teen to clean himself.
The routine worked perfectly until one afternoon, while he was standing and pouring a bucket of warm water over his head, he heard her telling him that she had brought him a clean, dry towel.<
br />
More embarrassed than frightened, he found himself in a most awkward position. He couldn’t cover his privates without dropping the heavy bucket: to do so would have certainly spilt much water onto the wooden floor and may well have damaged the bucket and the tub.
Through the cascade of warm water, Gopher squinted to see what Ellen did next. To his surprise, she merely smiled briefly. Then she placed the folded towel on the sideboard near where he had put his trousers and quietly withdrew.
At supper, neither mentioned the incident and neither spent much time looking at the other. Instead, they concentrated on eating and chatting idly with the other boarders.
One day, Gopher was out walking in an unfamiliar part of town when he came upon an open field with a number of young men playing some sort of game. He had no idea what they were doing but judging from cheers and catcalls, they were all having the time of their lives.
As he stood there trying to figure out what they were doing and why they were doing it, one of the other bystanders asked, “You look like a fit young man, why aren’t you playing?”
“Playing what?” Gopher asked.
“Why base ball, that’s what. It’s all the rage these days. Where have you been?”
“Cooking and cleaning at a boarding house, why?”
“Son, this is a game for young men and you should get out into the fresh air now and then. Being cooped up in a hot kitchen all day does no one any good.”
“But it looks so confusing. What’s the point?”
“Well, one fella—the one in the middle inside that box throws the ball in such a way that prevents the fellow with the bat from hitting it. If the batter does hit it, that’s were the fellows in the field come in. They catch it and throw the batter out.”
“They throw him out just because he hit the ball? Sounds a bit cruel to me.”
“No no, you don’t get it. He’s not tossed from the game, he’s out.”
The older man could see Gopher had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. “Look, how about you and I watch the game while I tell you about each play and what’s happening? That way, you’ll understand it better.”
Two hours later, Gopher Piddington was hooked on the game of base ball. Not only did he understand what both sides were trying to do, he yearned to join them.
Every evening after dinner, Gopher walked to that field and watched in awe as the game unfolded. Sometimes one group would claim victory, sometimes the other. Either way, it was fascinating to watch the high-flying batted ball head for an open field only to be caught in mid-flight by an opposing outfielder.
One day, one of the players suffered a turned ankle and could not continue. Gopher was asked to fill in for the injured player. After re-shuffling various player’s positions, Gopher Piddington found himself in right field. He had been handed a tattered leather glove and told to catch anything that came his way and try to throw the ball to home plate to put out any advancing runners.
Later in the game, when the score was tied and the last batter came to the plate with but one out against his team, he took a mighty swing and made contact with the ball. Higher and higher it went, nearly all the way to the edge of right field.
Now, Gopher had watched enough of the game to know that batter would be out when the ball was caught. And, he knew there was another runner on second base just waiting for the opportunity to run all the way to home base and win the game for his team.
Gopher went back, back and farther back, nearly stumbling over his long legs. But he made the catch and immediately set himself for the long throw home. He reared back with all his might, unleashed the ball—all the way to home base, where the catcher caught it and tagged out the runner coming from second.
That terrific outfield catch and subsequent throw did not guarantee Gopher’s team would eventually emerge victorious but it did raise his esteem with his fellow teammates.
“Holy cow, what a throw. Young fella, with an arm like that you could play for the Denver Grizzlies.”
Gopher had no idea what the Denver Grizzlies were and he was afraid to ask for fear of looking every bit the fool. Instead he remained quiet and absorbed a round of back-slapping.
Gopher’s team ended up losing the game by one run but the team captain came up to him and congratulated him on the best play of the entire game. “You really should try out for the Grizzlies. They are the best team in all of Denver—and they play other big cities all over the state.”
“How would I go about doing that?” Gopher asked.
“Heck, boy, all you got to do is show up and tell their skipper that you want to try out for the team. They’re always looking for good players—gotta beat Leadville and the other teams, you know. But you’ll have to bring your own glove.”
Gopher found out where the really good base ball was being played and resolved to go there just as soon as he could find a way of putting enough money together to buy a suitable outfielder’s glove.
That night he told Ellen all about his day and the suggestion of trying out for Denver’s official team.
“Is this game really that important to you?”
He nodded and said he had never been much good at anything he tried. “Other boys could always outrun me but I could usually throw better than most of them, even the older boys.”
Ellen Nielsen had never had a brother but she could see his enthusiasm on the face of her star boarder. “When does this Denver outfit play?”
“Well, I’ve been told they usually play on Saturday afternoons. Most of the good players have chores and business duties during the week, so it shouldn’t interfere with my duties here.”
“What does it take to join up with them?”
Oh, I don’t know if I’m good enough to be chosen to play, but all I want is the chance to try out and see how well I do against seasoned players.”
“How much money do you need?”
“Enough to purchase a proper playing glove—you know, to protect my hand when catching that hard little ball.”
Ellen thought about it for the longest time. She was all for a young man getting exercise but she also wanted Gopher to be in residence more often than not. She was naturally concerned about the possibility of him moving on. And, while that thought did not please her, she wasn’t prepared to make any overt efforts to keep him in residence. But it might help if he felt indebted to her. “Gopher, if I fronted you the money, and you proved good enough to play for the Denver squad, would you leave me and go play for them?”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t think of such a thing. Why, I’ve got a home here and who knows what it would be like playing other cities? What if I got hurt like the fellow I stood in for and I got stuck somewhere with no way to pay my way back. No thanks, I like my soft bed and regular meals.”
“Well then, in the morning we shall go to the mercantile and pick out a suitable glove—assuming, that is, that Mister Dinkle will allow you to return it after your tryout.”
“You mean I wouldn’t own it?”
“Not if you don’t make the team. I’m not made of money, so you had better not be telling me a tall tale about that throw you made.”
“But what if I make the team and am asked to travel with them; what then?”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. I’ve managed this house all by myself before. I could do so again for the day while you’re away playing with your friends.”
THE GREAT GAME
On the other side of town there was a very nice, well-groomed base ball field, complete with wooden viewing stands, real leather-clad bases and green grass in the outfield. It was a grand sight and nothing like the dusty, open field where he had been playing. Here, fans of the game came to see men play ball—and they happily paid to watch.
It was early Saturday morning and only a few hardy players had showed up. It was a time for seasoned veterans to work on their once prodigious skills. It was also the only time anyone could try out to see if they had what it took to play ba
ll at the Colorado State League level.
There were other fellows eager for paying positions on the mighty Denver Grizzlies team. Some were shorter than Gopher and some were clearly much older. No one bothered to ask for anyone’s age.
The manager asked those trying out for the infield to take a bag. The rest, including Gopher were told to take a field. Gopher had never played in any other capacity other than right field. He was the only one in that lowly position—the place for rookies and untried newcomers. Center field had two fellows and left had three, all trying for what they hoped was a berth on a real base ball club.
One of the older team members began hitting balls to all three outfields. Some were hard grounders; others high fly balls. With each contact, the outfielder catching the ball was ordered to throw it to a particular base. There was no warning in which direction the order would be, just a barked order at the moment of catching.
One meant throw to first base. Two was for second; three for third and home for home plate. It was a glorious time for Gopher, watching the left and right fielders catch and throw the ball where ordered—or at least try to throw to the intended destination. Many were offline.
When it finally came time for the fellow with the bat to hit one in Gopher’s direction, the call to throw the ball home came to his ears and he gathered his balance and his strength and let the little white ball fly: all the way to home plate, as straight as an arrow.
“Jeez, the kid threw a frozen rope. What an arm.”
Three more balls were hit to Gopher, who managed to send the ball accurately to the three remaining bases.
“Kid, you’ve got a spot on this team if you want it. How’s that sound?”
Gopher just smiled a huge grin. It was a resounding but silent yes.
“Stick around, kid. When practice is over, we’ll introduce you around and get you signed up.”
The Adventures of Gopher Piddington Page 13