Twenty-five years a parson in the wild West : being the experience of Parson Ralph Riley

Front matter

Chap. ^ C(tpyr^hOo..

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Parson Ralph Riley.

Introduction

MARK TWAIN and other humorists have described to us the great half-civihzed frontier of the West, but no one has ever before attempted to do so from the same standpoint our author does. To our mind this book throws much new Hght on life in the wild West as few other books do, for it tells the whole story honestly and in a most natural way, without giving it any religious coloring. It is full of fun and humor, because the parson saw much to laugh at. Like other frontier parsons, he no doubt saw much also to weep over, but this does not come within the province of the present volume.

The author's record on the Western missionary field is well and honorably known to the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions. To young ministers contemplating work on our great Western borders, to the tens of thousands who are contributors to the extension of religion and civilization all over this land from sea to sea, to those who have near relatives roughing it on the frontier, as well as to those who have, or are likely to have, financial interests in our new States and Territories, this artless

6 INTRODUCTION.

Story will be read with more than passing interest. There are too many among us here in the East who find Hfe dull and aimless, and because of this a sort of mental and moral miasma has taken hold of their vitals, who if they would but read what Parson Riley has to tell them, they would be stirred by the hfe-giving breezes which blow from the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada, the wide plains of Texas, and the South Atlantic Ocean. It will give information and amusement to all, and that too in language which is charming in its simplicity.

P. M. MACDONALD,

Pastor St. Andrew's Church,

Boston, Mass.

CHAPTER I. PAGE The Preparation 9

CHAPTER H.

The Start ^7

CHAPTER HI.

The Work 28

CHAPTER IV.

The Indians 3^

CHAPTER V.

The Hotels 3^

CHAPTER VI.

The Blundering • • 45

CHAPTER VH.

The Gambler 5^

CHAPTER VHI.

The Miner 57

CHAPTER IX.

The Stage Robber 72

CHAPTER X.

The Queer Preacher 75

CHAPTER XI.

The Church Member 83

CHAPTER XII.

The Church Row 9^

CHAPTER XIII.

"Indian Joe" • • 95

8 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XIV. PAGE

The Mormon loo

CHAPTER XV.

Texas 119

CHAPTER XVI.

The Cowboy 123

CHAPTER XVII.

Tricky Fellows . . . . . . .129

CHAPTER XVIII.

Dangerous Fellows 140

CHAPTER XIX.

Train and Land Robbers . . . . .148

CHAPTER XX.

Lonely Traveling i55

CHAPTER XXI.

The Changed Scene . . . . . -159

CHAPTER XXII.

The Unlucky Ranch 166

CHAPTER XXIII.

The Struggle 176

CHAPTER XXIV.

The Victory i79

CHAPTER XXV.

The Busy East 185

CHAPTER XXVI.

The Eastern Woman 19^

CHAPTER XXVII.

The Marriage « . 204

CHAPTER XXVIII.

The Kyles of Bute . . . . • .211

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS A PARSON.

CHAPTER I.

THE PREPARATION.

TDOSTON is a busy city where every one ^^ is on the rush after the golden ox, knocking you right and left as you attempt to walk the streets. I therefore left the jostling crowd one day recently and retired to the Common, that is, the city park, and there for a while, beside a little lake, I sat looking at the chirping sparrows, playing children, and budding trees, when a man who was evidently a preacher joined me on the seat. His talk was so interesting in spots that I requested him to give me an outline of his life for publication, for I perceived that it might be instructive and interesting to the growing generations here in the East, seeing that the times and manners of life he referred to are fast passing away.

lO . TWENTY-FIVE YEARS A PARSON.

After considering the matter a little, he agreed to do so, and this is what he said :

Perhaps before complying with your request I had better tell you the fate of all papers which have published what I gave them. Out in Nevada, nearly thirty years ago, an editor there asked me to contribute weekly articles for Sunday reading, as I was a little behind with my subscription and had neither wood nor watermelons to bring him. That editor left town the following week. My first article appeared on Saturday, and on Monday he quietly folded his tent and stole away, Arab-like. Down in Texas, some twenty years ago, an editor requested me to give him some religious articles for the edification of his readers, and I had only given him two or three when his only cow jumped over a bluff and broke her neck, his wife went crazy, the poor man skipped between two suns, and the last seen of him he was heading for the North Pole.

In Washington city another of the brotherhood asked me to help fill up his columns with my best thoughts on the moral and

THE PREPARATION. I I

political aspects of the country at large, and his poor Bird of Freedom expired in great agony after swallowing my first article, and the sheriff took the carcass when the spirit fled. In Fall River, here in Massachusetts, the Tribune got to publishing my sermons on Labor and Capital every Monday morning, and the electricity went out of it, and the people are without their Tribune till this day. If you publish therefore what I tell you, you will please caution the editor beforehand, for I do not wish any one any harm.

If I am to tell you anything in a connected form, I may as well begin at the beginning. Each mortal life is a distinct unit, and you cannot understand it unless you begin at the start.

The day of the week, the month of the year, or the year of our Lord in which I came to this mundane sphere, I do not recollect. I remember, however, that there was a great hubbub outside and inside the parental home on the occasion. Outside the dogs barked and the neighbors shouted to each other, "Did you hear the news?" Inside there were general congratulations. I observed certain old women present who must have followed the business of prophesying, for they told all sorts of things that would happen to me on the journey just started. Some of them, too, were so advanced in their profession as to tell what sort of a man I would be. One benevolent old granny said, " He '11 be a good man ! " Another said, "I'll wager you he'll be a soldier; look at his fists ! " And another said, " He '11 cross the seas and have many ups and downs in life ; his friends will be much attached to him, and his enemies will be as malicious as old Nick." One old visitor took a peep at me, who seemed wiser than the rest, and shook her head, saying as she did so, *' I '11 bet you a penny he '11 be a mixed sort of a beaver ! " Thus they discoursed in their knowing way, and I wondered much at their talk.

A brother, who had just learned to wag his tongue, asked one of the old ladies present, "Where do babies come from?" "Hush, child," she replied, " but since you have asked it, I will tell you. They come down from heaven." That question being satisfactorily answered, another was propounded by the

THE PREPARATION. 1 3

same inquisitive relation : '* Why do babies have red faces?" The question seemed to stagger the old lady for a moment, but she was equal to the occasion and replied : *' My little man must not ask such questions, but I will answer you just once more. Babies have red faces because they get awfully scorched when passing down by the blazing sun. Now run out and play, that 's a good boy."

After a few weeks my parents took me to church, and, holding me up before a man I had never seen before, water was poured upon my face. I was a meek and submissive child up to this point, but I thought it now high time to assert myself, and I kicked and screamed, so much so, indeed, that all present were glad when I was taken outside. I did not know then what it all meant, but I have learned since, and I am glad they did this thing to me, otherwise I would have grown up a heathen. The good man in the pulpit called me '' Ralph." Had I been born in France they would have called me '' De Ralph," or in Wales, " Ralphwzmlpp," but I am glad that I was born in a Christian country. As I grew up I was sent to school, and the teacher used to dust my coat quite often. I did not complain of this, for a healthy boy needs a healthy dusting once in a while, and I was healthy. But one day the teacher, who was a great big fellow, whipped a little girl that I had a sort of fondness for, and I struck him. More than my coat was dusted that day, and when my father examined my back at night he saw ridges like the Blue Ridge of Virginia all over my back. I never went to that school again.

Some years after I wanted to be a preacher, but it was a daring thing for a poor boy at four dollars a week to think of going to college. Dukes and lords might send their sons there, but who was I or my generation that I should seek such exaltation ? The sons of the nobility in my native land were at that time usually divided into three classes ; the brave ones went into the army, the lazy ones into the navy, and the fools into the church.

I, however, entered college, for I seemed, to myself at least, to have beautifully combined in me all of the three different ele-

THE PREPARATION. 1 5

ments that went, with a few others, to make up the greatest nation on earth. Well, the first thing- they required of me there was to get a cap with a square board on top of it ; that was to show my classmates that my head was level ; also a red gown that was to show the rabble on the street that I belonged to the noble army of orators who made the Roman Forum ring with their eloquence in days of old.

Many years of weary work followed. Young men preparing themselves for the gospel ministry in this country know but little of the privations of a poor student where I came from, for here there is so much done for them by their parents and by the charitably rich. I had to pay my way through college, without a cent from any outside source whatever. To accomplish this I worked in a store till nine o'clook at night, and then studied till two in the morning.

But the struggle was more than I could endure through the theological course, and I came across the ocean to this country at the close of the war, believing that, after the terrible number of people killed, there would be room somewhere here for a fellow like me.

I went to work on a farm in New Jersey, and good, kind people there promised me aid if I continued my studies, which I did, and so in course of time I was made a reverend, and ever since they call me " Parson Ralph Riley."

, I am very glad now of my hard preparation for the ministry, in view of my twenty-five years in the wild West. I am glad of it also because I am now fast reaching that period in life when I am not wanted. In my native land ministers, like wine, improve with age, but somehow the churches do not think so in this country. But while I am blessed with good health I can go back to the farm or the store again, and so I am independent as a king. The most helpless, most hopeless, and most useless of men livinpf is the minister who, in his declining years, is not wanted by the churches, and who, in the days of his youth, has failed to acquire something more than mere book learning.

Chapter II. The Start

" I "HE wise men who put a prefix to my -^ name had an affix to their own as well as a prefix ; but they did not give me that, they kept it for themselves. When I asked for it they said it meant a great deal after their name, but it would mean nothing after mine. Therefore, thankfully taking what I got, I went out from their presence and got for myself a good dinner, — the first in ten years, — for I felt that to begin preaching aright a good dinner was of more real value than all the ecclesiastical titles imaginable fore and aft to my name. Dr. Talmage was right when he said: "Give your preacher beefsteak through the week, and he will give you beefsteak on Sunday ! " So was the old darky who thus prayed for his new minister : " O Lord, feed him with the heavenly manna, and we will feed him on chicken, hog, and hominy ! "

Dinner over, I took my old Hebrew, Greek, and Latin lexicons and all their kin to a second-hand bookstore and sold them for money, having found them to be very full of contrarieties when we roosted together in garrets. Still, I could not help dropping a tear as I handed them over the counter, saying as I did so : —

" Fare thee well ! and if forever, Still forever fare thee well."

With the money I got for my old books I went to a tailor and arrayed myself for the first time in clerical garments. Oh, the intoxication of that supreme hour ! When I looked at myself in the mirror I felt that I was indeed a *' son of thunder," and would surely turn the world upside down if I got a good chance at it. Will that day never come back again ? Will the bright visions of success now return no more ? Is all the bliss- of yon hour clean gone forever ? Alas ! what dreams we are made of.

But the whistle blows, and the sailors shout, " All on board ! " and I am on a big steamer going to the Isthmus of Panama. The passengers on board were a mixed multitude from all parts, and were going- to all parts of the world. When we got fairly out on the great sea a furious storm sprung up. A storm at sea is a sublime thing. I do not know of anything in nature's wide realm so grand. The waves roaring like thunder, and the winds howling the chorus, make music between them that is inspiring ; that is, if you are ready to die. For a day or so things looked shaky for us, and we were all made to stay below. An infidel was present, and he did not like the idea of going into the other world by water, and he confessed to me, for we were both in the same stateroom, that if the good Lord only gave him another chance on dry land he would become a Christian and teach in Sunday-school. If the recording angel took note of all the good things conditionally promised in that storm, it must be interesting reading.

By giving the sailors a pull at the ropes, and perhaps a plug of tobacco on occasion, we got to be on very gracious terms with them, and they would tell us sea yarns by the hour.

One day while sailing along the coast of

Cuba, the sea was smooth and nothing specially doing, some of us thought it might be a good thing to put Jack's truthfulness to the test, and asked him to relate to us the most wonderful thing he ever witnessed at sea. A pause for a while followed and a feeling around in memory's storehouse for the right goods.

Then was told this, in all seriousness : " Many years ago I was on board the Dora of Boston, on a homeward voyage from the West Indies. One calm Sunday evening, when off the coast of New Jersey and we were about to retire for prayers, we saw a great black cloud approaching us from the shore. The skipper was in a perfect stew over it, for he could not make out what it was. It could not be a balloon, for it was too large for that ; it could not be a thundercloud, for the barometer did not indicate any change of weather. Some of the superstitious thought there was something supernatural about it. But on and on came the black monster, and when we were all beside ourselves with terror, it struck us a few feet above deck and carried away every stitch of canvas from the masts. And what do you think it was ? Why, a cloud of New Jersey mosquitoes ! " A vote being taken, it was unanimously agreed not to believe the story unless it was corroborated by some one else. This was soon forthcoming from a brother tar, and here it is : ''I remember that mosquito cloud very well. I was on board the ship Ocean Wave, and on that Sunday night was about twenty miles northeast from where the Dora was, and as sure as I am telling it, if that terrible cloud did not pass over us and every mosquito in it had on canvas pants." That settled it. But when we talked over the matter by ourselves we expressed our concern for the spiritual and moral condition of our sailor boys. One lady said that they were the biggest liars she had ever met. '' It is just awful," said she, '' to think of it, that our lives are intrusted to such a crew." Another lady wondered if there was n't a minister on board who would talk to them. It was now my turn to speak. Up to this point I told no one who I was, but I felt now that I must unbosom myself. To keep my light under a bushel in the midst of such darkness was cowardly. That was not all ; I had never preached a sermon before, and now was my chance to practise a little to see how it would go. My audience could not criticise me very much, for they would be getting what I had to give for nothing, at any rate. If I blundered or broke down altogether, we would soon scatter and forget all about it. So I stepped out, and with a bow said: "Ladies, I am the man you wish for ; I am the Reverend Ralph Riley, going to preach to the heathen Californians ; but it strikes me that I might begin the good work right here." This made everybody glad, but one lady began to reproach me for not comforting them during the storm. "Ah, madam!" said I, "I needed all the comfort I could spare for myself."

This was on Saturday, and arrangements were made for my holding forth on the morrow. Just a little before the hour of service a lady was seen running up and down the cabin saloon wringing her hands and crying, " Oh, my jewels and my money ! Somebody stole my valise. I am a ruined woman, and far from home among strangers ! Oh, my jewels and my money ! " Every one expressed the greatest sympathy for her, of course, and promised to help hunt up the thief. When about to begin worship, the distressed woman came up close to me and whispered, '' Preach on stealing." ''All right, madam," I replied, and began loading my gun for the bird wanted. I had for an audience before me sailors, stewards, steerage and cabin passengers. It was a mixed lot I had to preach to, and I took for my theme the place that liars and thieves go to when they leave this world. I described the terrible region in the most awful colors imaginable, and the more realistic I got the more pleased my lady friend seemed to be, and I could hear her say now and then, "That's it, give it to him! Bless the Lord ! " I had the impression that one of the black stewards stole the lost jewels and money, and I pictured how Satan would roast the faithless, thieving servant who would steal from helpless passengers their property.

Perhaps my gun was not of polished steel, but it brought down the game I was after. The story-telling sailors whispered as they passed out that the mosquito yarn was not true, and the black thief went to the lady's stateroom that night and handed her the lost valise, saying as he did so, " Pardon me, madam, and for God's sake don't tell the captain ! "

On crossing the isthmus our one-horse railroad broke down, and for four mortal hours we had to endure the. horrors of thirst under a broiling sun. There was not a breath of air stirring, and there in the jungle we were stewed till we were all as dry as a cork. We all felt that if the valley we were in was not the valley of Tophet, we were not far from it. It was not a pleasant experience, I assure you, when not a drop of water could be got for love or money. At last, when we felt that water must be procured or we would all go crazy, a band of young men started in search of the precious liquid, regardless of savage-looking natives, wild beasts, or crocodiles. What will a man not risk when the throat is parched and the blood on fire ! Water, blessed water, '* it cooleth the lip, it cooleth the brain."

After an hour's search our daring youths returned with a bucketful of the muchdesired liquid, and as diey approached the train cheer after cheer rang out from one car after another, but, oh, the dismay caused at the sight of the stuff in the bucket ! Both flavor and appearance were simply disgusting. Some of the ladies tried to weep, but there was not moisture enough in their bodies to form even one little tear. Could nothing be done to help the situation ? Yes ; I had something in my satchel — a bottle of French brandy — which I was advised to take for just such an emergency ; but could I produce it in the presence of my fellow-passengers ? Up to now I did not require to do any mixing in rotten water, but surely if the law and the gospel allowed such a thing, now was the time to do it. I was in a quandary for a little. Impulse said, " Give it to them ; pour it in the bucket." Prudence said, " Don't you do it. They will say you are a tippling preacher.

" ' Aye free off han' your story tell, When wi' a bosom crony, But still keep something to yoursel' Ye scarcely tell to ony.' "

The internal struggle prevailed in favor of mixing, and I rose up in my seat and said: '' Fellow-travelers, we are in a dry and parched condition, and there is no telling when this thing is going to end. The unholy looking stuff in the bucket may be good enough for the heathen natives of this godless country, but for us, who are from the States and accustomed to drink from the springs that run among the hills, or from the old wooden buckets that sit by the wells of the fathers, it is not safe unless we put something in it."

''Amen, the parson is right!" shouted a brother at the end of the car. "That he is, indeed," chimed in an old chap just in front of me, whose eyes were sparkling with expectation."

" In my satchel," I continued, " ladies and gentlemen, there is a bottle of brandy. It is reported good for bad water and snake bites, I am disposed, however, to risk the water and the snakes of California and to mix it in this loathsome stuff, if you are willing to drink it afterwards." Three cheers for the parson followed, and the brandy was poured in the bucket and stirred with a stick. Then addressing my fellow-travelers again, I said : " You know that heathen male bodies drink and eat first, and if there is anything left over, the female bodies get it. But we will show a better example of good manners to the heathen hereabouts by giving the ladies to drink first. So take the bucket to the first car on the train and keep on to the last, and what the ladies do not drink we will."

Alas ! there 's many a slip between the cup and the lip. When the ladies had all sipped there was not a drop left to moisten the masculine lip or to cheer the masculine heart. It was a woeful disappointment, and some of those men would come to me and say, " Parson Riley, have n't you got another ? "

No ; I had only one, and I am now glad that I gave it away as I did, for through all my wanderings since on this continent I have never yet come to a place where I could not get plenty of good water that needed no mixing, and as for the snakes they have never given me the least trouble.

Chapter III. The Work

/^N arriving at San Francisco I entered ^^ into the work of the ministry with no small enthusiasm. I was given, however, a very hard field to work in ; that is, I was given a church building perched on the side of a rocky hill about a mile beyond the suburbs of the city and about half a mile from the nearest dwelling. Talmage himself could n't draw a baker s dozen in such a place. I soon saw through the motives of the builders. It was not the spirit of the gospel, but the spirit of real-estate speculation that erected yon beautiful church. I have often since wondered if the city has yet reached out to my old church on the portrero where I used to practise oratory six days in the week, and ring the bell on Sundays just to scare the rabbits. The spirit of speculation was rampant on the coast in those days, and if it could have reached up high

THE WORK. 29

enough it would have scooped in the New Jerusalem

Religion was *' mighty scattering " in the city by the Golden Gate when I was there, and I attributed this, to some extent at least, to the fleas of the place. Go where you would, in millionaire's palace or the hut of the lowly toiler, the lively flea was there by the bushel, and very persistent in his attentions to your anatomy. I have seen the housewife, while in conversation, reach for her broom and sweep the little pests by the million dancing to the street. It is very singular, but true, nevertheless, that where the fleas are plentiful religion is scarce. Go to Palestine, for instance.

I attributed also the lack of religion on the Pacific Coast to the fact that all the people there went to get gold, and when they got It they lost their religion, and when they did not it was all the same. But I suppose in this respect most newly settled countries are alike. There the restraints of religion and refined society are cast to the winds, and as a man feels within so he acts without.

The best place in all the world to study human nature is on the frontier. A minister of the gospel has special advantages, too, for this. It is said that the doctor knows people as they are, but the parson as they would like to be. On the frontiers of civilization, however, the parson, too, knows them as they are, for there as a man thinketh in his heart so is he. The doctor may know the anatomy of a man, but the parson generally finds out the nobility and meanness, the worth and the worthlessness, of those with whom he associates ; therefore he sees much to laugh at and also much to weep at.

For a young preacher the frontier is the place for him. As a rule, when he starts out to preach he thinks himself very wise and able to do mighty things against Satan. He finds out after a time that the " race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." The hardened, wicked world is a stern reality, and strutting about like a peacock in the sunshine, and talking wisely to people who know as much as you do about mysteries, is disappointing. I was a fair sample of the young preacher myself when I started out in the clerical life, but the frontier soon took the conceit out of me. It will do it every time.

Chapter IV. The Indians

T YING between the Rocky Mountains ^-^ and the Sierra Nevada range, which skirts the eastern boundary of California, is the great American Desert. In about the centre of that desert I went and fixed my headquarters along the newly opened railway, built a church and hung a bell in the tower of it.