It never was clearly ascertained how long they had been there. The
first settler of Rough-and-Ready—one Low, playfully known to his
familiars as "The Poor Indian"—declared that the Saints were afore his
time, and occupied a cabin in the brush when he "blazed" his way to the
North Fork. It is certain that the two were present when the water was
first turned on the Union Ditch and then and there received the
designation of Daddy Downey and Mammy Downey, which they kept to the
last. As they tottered toward the refreshment tent, they were welcomed
with the greatest enthusiasm by the boys; or, to borrow the more
refined language of the "Union Recorder,"—"Their gray hairs and bent
figures, recalling as they did the happy paternal eastern homes of the
spectators, and the blessings that fell from venerable lips when they
left those homes to journey in quest of the Golden Fleece on Occidental
Slopes, caused many to burst into tears." The nearer facts, that many
of these spectators were orphans, that a few were unable to establish
any legal parentage whatever, that others had enjoyed a State's
guardianship and discipline, and that a majority had left their
paternal roofs without any embarrassing preliminary formula, were mere
passing clouds that did not dim the golden imagery of the writer. From
that day the Saints were adopted as historical lay figures, and entered
at once into possession of uninterrupted gratuities and endowment.
It was not strange that, in a country largely made up of ambitious and
reckless youth, these two—types of conservative and settled
forms—should be thus celebrated. Apart from any sentiment or
veneration, they were admirable foils to the community's youthful
progress and energy. They were put forward at every social gathering,
occupied prominent seats on the platform at every public meeting,
walked first in every procession, were conspicuous at the frequent
funeral and rarer wedding, and were godfather and godmother to the
first baby born in Rough-and-Ready. At the first poll opened in that
precinct, Daddy Downey cast the first vote, and, as was his custom on
all momentous occasions, became volubly reminiscent. "The first vote I
ever cast," said Daddy, "was for Andrew Jackson; the father o' some on
your peart young chaps wasn't born then; he! he! that was 'way long in
'33, wasn't it? I disremember now, but if Mammy was here, she bein' a
school-gal at the time, she could say. But my memory's failin' me.
I'm an old man, boys; yet I likes to see the young ones go ahead. I
recklect that thar vote from a suckumstance. Squire Adams was present,
and seein' it was my first vote, he put a goold piece into my hand,
and, sez he, sez Squire Adams, 'Let that always be a reminder of the
exercise of a glorious freeman's privilege!' He did; he! he! Lord,
boys! I feel so proud of ye, that I wish I had a hundred votes to cast
for ye all."
It was hardly necessary to say that the memorial tribute of Squire
Adams was increased tenfold by the judges, inspectors, and clerks, and
that the old man tottered back to Mammy, considerably heavier than he
came. As both of the rival candidates were equally sure of his vote,
and each had called upon him and offered a conveyance, it is but fair
to presume they were equally beneficent. But Daddy insisted upon
walking to the polls,—a distance of two miles,—as a moral example,
and a text for the California paragraphers, who hastened to record that
such was the influence of the foot-hill climate, that "a citizen of
Rough-and-Ready, aged eighty-four, rose at six o'clock, and, after
milking two cows, walked a distance of twelve miles to the polls, and
returned in time to chop a cord of wood before dinner."
Slightly exaggerated as this statement may have been, the fact that
Daddy was always found by the visitor to be engaged at his wood-pile,
which seemed neither to increase nor diminish under his axe, a fact,
doubtless, owing to the activity of Mammy, who was always at the same
time making pies, seemed to give some credence to the story. Indeed,
the wood-pile of Daddy Downey was a standing reproof to the indolent
and sluggish miner.
"Ole Daddy must use up a pow'ful sight of wood; every time I've passed
by his shanty he's been makin' the chips fly. But what gets me is,
that the pile don't seem to come down," said Whisky Dick to his
neighbor.
"Well, you derned fool!" growled his neighbor, "spose some chap happens
to pass by thar, and sees the old man doin' a man's work at eighty, and
slouches like you and me lying round drunk, and that chap, feelin'
kinder humped, goes up some dark night and heaves a load of cut pine
over his fence, who's got anything to say about it? Say?" Certainly
not the speaker, who had done the act suggested, nor the penitent and
remorseful hearer, who repeated it next day.
The pies and cakes made by the old woman were, I think, remarkable
rather for their inducing the same loyal and generous spirit than for
their intrinsic excellence, and it may be said appealed more strongly
to the nobler aspirations of humanity than its vulgar appetite.
Howbeit, everybody ate Mammy Downey's pies, and thought of his
childhood. "Take 'em, dear boys," the old lady would say; "it does me
good to see you eat 'em; reminds me kinder of my poor Sammy, that, ef
he'd lived, would hev been ez strong and beg ez you be, but was taken
down with lung fever, at Sweetwater. I kin see him yet; that's forty
year ago, dear! comin' out o' the lot to the bake-house, and smilin'
such a beautiful smile, like yours, dear boy, as I handed him a mince
or a lemming turnover. Dear, dear, how I do run on! and those days is
past! but I seems to live in you again!" The wife of the hotel-keeper,
actuated by a low jealousy, had suggested that she "seemed to live OFF
them;" but as that person tried to demonstrate the truth of her
statement by reference to the cost of the raw material used by the old
lady, it was considered by the camp as too practical and economical for
consideration. "Besides," added Cy Perkins, "ef old Mammy wants to
turn an honest penny in her old age, let her do it. How would you like
your old mother to make pies on grub wages? eh?" A suggestion that so
affected his hearer (who had no mother) that he bought three on the
spot. The quality of these pies had never been discussed but once. It
is related that a young lawyer from San Francisco, dining at the
Palmetto restaurant, pushed away one of Mammy Downey's pies with every
expression of disgust and dissatisfaction. At this juncture, Whisky
Dick, considerably affected by his favorite stimulant, approached the
stranger's table, and, drawing up a chair, sat uninvited before him.
"Mebbee, young man," he began gravely, "ye don't like Mammy Downey's
pies?"
The stranger replied curtly, and in some astonishment, that he did not,
as a rule, "eat pie."
"Young man," continued Dick, with drunken gravity, "mebbee you're
accustomed to Charlotte rusks and blue mange; mebbee ye can't eat
unless your grub is got up by one o' them French cooks'? Yet WE—us
boys yar in this camp—calls that pie—a good—a com-pe-tent pie!"
The stranger again disclaimed anything but a general dislike of that
form of pastry.
"Young man," continued Dick, utterly unheeding the explanation,—"young
man, mebbee you onst had an ole—a very ole mother, who, tottering down
the vale o' years, made pies. Mebbee, and it's like your blank
epicurean soul, ye turned up your nose on the ole woman, and went back
on the pies, and on her! She that dandled ye when ye woz a baby,—a
little baby! Mebbee ye went back on her, and shook her, and played off
on her, and gave her away—dead away! And now, mebbee, young man—I
wouldn't hurt ye for the world, but mebbee, afore ye leave this yar
table, YE'LL EAT THAT PIE!"
The stranger rose to his feet, but the muzzle of a dragoon revolver in
the unsteady hands of Whisky Dick, caused him to sit down again. He ate
the pie, and lost his case likewise, before a Rough-and-Ready jury.
Indeed, far from exhibiting the cynical doubts and distrusts of age,
Daddy Downey received always with childlike delight the progress of
modern improvement and energy. "In my day, long back in the twenties,
it took us nigh a week—a week, boys—to get up a barn, and all the
young ones—I was one then—for miles 'round at the raisin'; and yer's
you boys—rascals ye are, too—runs up this yer shanty for Mammy and me
'twixt sun-up and dark! Eh, eh, you're teachin' the old folks new
tricks, are ye? Ah, get along, you!" and in playful simulation of
anger he would shake his white hair and his hickory staff at the
"rascals." The only indication of the conservative tendencies of age
was visible in his continual protest against the extravagance of the
boys. "Why," he would say, "a family, a hull family,—leavin' alone me
and the old woman,—might be supported on what you young rascals throw
away in a single spree. Ah, you young dogs, didn't I hear about your
scattering half-dollars on the stage the other night when that
Eyetalian Papist was singin'? And that money goes out of Ameriky—ivry
cent!"
There was little doubt that the old couple were saving, if not
avaricious. But when it was known, through the indiscreet volubility
of Mammy Downey, that Daddy Downey sent the bulk of their savings,
gratuities, and gifts to a dissipated and prodigal son in the
East,—whose photograph the old man always carried with him,—it rather
elevated him in their regard. "When ye write to that gay and festive
son o' yourn, Daddy," said Joe Robinson, "send him this yer specimen.
Give him my compliments, and tell him, ef he kin spend money faster
than I can, I call him! Tell him, ef he wants a first-class jamboree,
to kem out here, and me and the boys will show him what a square drunk
is!" In vain would the old man continue to protest against the spirit
of the gift; the miner generally returned with his pockets that much
the lighter, and it is not improbable a little less intoxicated than he
otherwise might have been. It may be premised that Daddy Downey was
strictly temperate. The only way he managed to avoid hurting the
feelings of the camp was by accepting the frequent donations of whisky
to be used for the purposes of liniment.
"Next to snake-oil, my son," he would say, "and dilberry-juice,—and ye
don't seem to pro-duce 'em hereabouts,—whisky is good for rubbin' onto
old bones to make 'em limber. But pure cold water, 'sparklin' and
bright in its liquid light,' and, so to speak, reflectin' of God's own
linyments on its surfiss, is the best, onless, like poor ol' Mammy and
me, ye gets the dumb-agur from over-use."
The fame of the Downey couple was not confined to the foot-hills. The
Rev. Henry Gushington, D.D., of Boston, making a bronchial tour of
California, wrote to the "Christian Pathfinder" an affecting account of
his visit to them, placed Daddy Downey's age at 102, and attributed the
recent conversions in Rough-and-Ready to their influence. That gifted
literary Hessian, Bill Smith, traveling in the interests of various
capitalists, and the trustworthy correspondent of four "only
independent American journals," quoted him as an evidence of the
longevity superinduced by the climate, offered him as an example of the
security of helpless life and property in the mountains, used him as an
advertisement of the Union Ditch, and it is said in some vague way
cited him as proving the collateral facts of a timber and ore-producing
region existing in the foot-hills worthy the attention of Eastern
capitalists.
Praised thus by the lips of distinguished report, fostered by the care
and sustained by the pecuniary offerings of their fellow-citizens, the
Saints led for two years a peaceful life of gentle absorption. To
relieve them from the embarrassing appearance of eleemosynary
receipts,—an embarrassment felt more by the givers than the
recipients,—the postmastership of Rough-and-Ready was procured for
Daddy, and the duty of receiving and delivering the United States mails
performed by him, with the advice and assistance of the boys. If a few
letters went astray at this time, it was easily attributed to this
undisciplined aid, and the boys themselves were always ready to make up
the value of a missing money-letter and "keep the old man's accounts
square." To these functions presently were added the treasurerships of
the Masons' and Odd Fellows' charitable funds,—the old man being far
advanced in their respective degrees,—and even the position of almoner
of their bounties was super-added. Here, unfortunately, Daddy's habits
of economy and avaricious propensity came near making him unpopular,
and very often needy brothers were forced to object to the quantity and
quality of the help extended. They always met with more generous
relief from the private hands of the brothers themselves, and the
remark, "that the ol' man was trying to set an example,—that he meant
well,"—and that they would yet be thankful for his zealous care and
economy. A few, I think, suffered in noble silence, rather than bring
the old man's infirmity to the public notice.
And so with this honor of Daddy and Mammy, the days of the miners were
long and profitable in the land of the foot-hills. The mines yielded
their abundance, the winters were singularly open and yet there was no
drouth nor lack of water, and peace and plenty smiled on the Sierrean
foothills, from their highest sunny upland to the trailing falda of
wild oats and poppies. If a certain superstition got abroad among the
other camps, connecting the fortunes of Rough-and-Ready with Daddy and
Mammy, it was a gentle, harmless fancy, and was not, I think,
altogether rejected by the old people. A certain large, patriarchal,
bountiful manner, of late visible in Daddy, and the increase of much
white hair and beard, kept up the poetic illusion, while Mammy, day by
day, grew more and more like somebody's fairy godmother. An attempt
was made by a rival camp to emulate these paying virtues of reverence,
and an aged mariner was procured from the Sailor's Snug Harbor in San
Francisco, on trial. But the unfortunate seaman was more or less
diseased, was not always presentable, through a weakness for ardent
spirits, and finally, to use the powerful idiom of one of his
disappointed foster-children, "up and died in a week, without slinging
ary blessin'."
But vicissitude reaches young and old alike. Youthful Rough-and-Ready
and the Saints had climbed to their meridian together, and it seemed
fit that they should together decline. The first shadow fell with the
immigration to Rough-and-Ready of a second aged pair. The landlady of
the Independence Hotel had not abated her malevolence towards the
Saints, and had imported at considerable expense her grand-aunt and
grand-uncle, who had been enjoying for some years a sequestered
retirement in the poorhouse at East Machias. They were indeed very
old. By what miracle, even as anatomical specimens, they had been
preserved during their long journey was a mystery to the camp. In some
respects they had superior memories and reminiscences. The old
man—Abner Trix—had shouldered a musket in the war of 1812; his wife,
Abigail, had seen Lady Washington. She could sing hymns; he knew every
text between "the leds" of a Bible. There is little doubt but that in
many respects, to the superficial and giddy crowd of youthful
spectators, they were the more interesting spectacle.
Whether it was jealousy, distrust, or timidity that overcame the
Saints, was never known, but they studiously declined to meet the
strangers. When directly approached upon the subject, Daddy Downey
pleaded illness, kept himself in close seclusion, and the Sunday that
the Trixes attended church in the school-house on the hill, the triumph
of the Trix party was mitigated by the fact that the Downeys were not
in their accustomed pew. "You bet that Daddy and Mammy is lying low
jest to ketch them old mummies yet," explained a Downeyite. For by
this time schism and division had crept into the camp; the younger and
later members of the settlement adhering to the Trixes, while the older
pioneers stood not only loyal to their own favorites, but even, in the
true spirit of partisanship, began to seek for a principle underlying
their personal feelings. "I tell ye what, boys," observed Sweetwater
Joe, "if this yer camp is goin' to be run by greenhorns, and old
pioneers, like Daddy and the rest of us, must take back seats, it's
time we emigrated and shoved out, and tuk Daddy with us. Why, they're
talkin' of rotation in offiss, and of putting that skeleton that Ma'am
Decker sets up at the table, to take her boarders' appetites away, into
the post-office in place o' Daddy." And, indeed, there were some fears
of such a conclusion; the newer men of Rough-and-Ready were in the
majority, and wielded a more than equal influence of wealth and outside
enterprise. "Frisco," as a Downeyite bitterly remarked, "already owned
half the town." The old friends that rallied around Daddy and Mammy
were, like most loyal friends in adversity, in bad case themselves, and
were beginning to look and act, it was observed, not unlike their old
favorites.
At this juncture Mammy died.
The sudden blow for a few days seemed to reunite dissevered
Rough-and-Ready. Both factions hastened to the bereaved Daddy with
condolements, and offers of aid and assistance. But the old man
received them sternly. A change had come over the weak and yielding
octogenarian. Those who expected to find him maudlin, helpless,
disconsolate, shrank from the cold, hard eyes and truculent voice that
bade them "begone," and "leave him with his dead." Even his own
friends failed to make him respond to their sympathy, and were fain to
content themselves with his cold intimation that both the wishes of his
dead wife and his own instincts were against any display, or the
reception of any favor from the camp that might tend to keep up the
divisions they had innocently created. The refusal of Daddy to accept
any service offered was so unlike him as to have but one dreadful
meaning! The sudden shock had turned his brain! Yet so impressed were
they with his resolution that they permitted him to perform the last
sad offices himself, and only a select few of his nearer neighbors
assisted him in carrying the plain deal coffin from his lonely cabin in
the woods to the still lonelier cemetery on the hill-top.
When the shallow grave was filled, he dismissed even these curtly, shut
himself up in his cabin, and for days remained unseen. It was evident
that he was no longer in his right mind.
His harmless aberration was accepted and treated with a degree of
intelligent delicacy hardly to be believed of so rough a community.
During his wife's sudden and severe illness, the safe containing the
funds intrusted to his care by the various benevolent associations was
broken into and robbed, and although the act was clearly attributable
to his carelessness and preoccupation, all allusion to the fact was
withheld from him in his severe affliction. When he appeared again
before the camp, and the circumstances were considerately explained to
him, with the remark that "the boys had made it all right," the vacant,
hopeless, unintelligent eye that he turned upon the speaker showed too
plainly that he had forgotten all about it. "Don't trouble the old
man," said Whisky Dick, with a burst of honest poetry. "Don't ye see
his memory's dead, and lying there in the coffin with Mammy?" Perhaps
the speaker was nearer right than he imagined.
Failing in religious consolation, they took various means of diverting
his mind with worldly amusements, and one was a visit to a traveling
variety troupe, then performing in the town. The result of the visit
was briefly told by Whisky Dick. "Well, sir, we went in, and I sot the
old man down in a front seat, and kinder propped him up with some other
of the fellers round him, and there he sot as silent and awful ez the
grave. And then that fancy dancer, Miss Grace Somerset, comes in, and
dern my skin, ef the old man didn't get to trembling and fidgeting all
over, as she cut them pidgin wings. I tell ye what, boys, men is men,
way down to their boots,—whether they're crazy or not! Well, he took
on so, that I'm blamed if at last that gal HERSELF didn't notice him!
and she ups, suddenly, and blows him a kiss—so! with her fingers!"
Whether this narration were exaggerated or not, it is certain that the
old man Downey every succeeding night of the performance was a
spectator. That he may have aspired to more than that was suggested a
day or two later in the following incident: A number of the boys were
sitting around the stove in the Magnolia saloon, listening to the onset
of a winter storm against the windows, when Whisky Dick, tremulous,
excited, and bristling with rain-drops and information, broke in upon
them.
"Well, boys, I've got just the biggest thing out. Ef I hadn't seed it
myself, I wouldn't hev believed it!"
"It ain't thet ghost ag'in?" growled Robinson, from the depths of his
arm-chair; "thet ghost's about played."
"Wot ghost?" asked a new-comer.
"Why, ole Mammy's ghost, that every feller about yer sees when he's
half full and out late o' nights."
"Where?"
"Where? Why, where should a ghost be? Meanderin' round her grave on
the hill, yander, in course."
"It's suthin bigger nor thet, pard," said Dick confidently; "no ghost
kin rake down the pot ag'in the keerds I've got here. This ain't no
bluff!"
"Well, go on!" said a dozen excited voices.
Dick paused a moment, diffidently, with the hesitation of an artistic
raconteur.
"Well," he said, with affected deliberation, "let's see! It's nigh
onto an hour ago ez I was down thar at the variety show. When the
curtain was down betwixt the ax, I looks round fer Daddy. No Daddy
thar! I goes out and asks some o' the boys. 'Daddy WAS there a minnit
ago,' they say; 'must hev gone home.' Bein' kinder responsible for the
old man, I hangs around, and goes out in the hall and sees a passage
leadin' behind the scenes. Now the queer thing about this, boys, ez
that suthin in my bones tells me the old man is THAR. I pushes in,
and, sure as a gun, I hears his voice. Kinder pathetic, kinder
pleadin', kinder—"
"Love-makin'!" broke in the impatient Robinson.
"You've hit it, pard,—you've rung the bell every time! But she says,
'wants thet money down, or I'll—' and here I couldn't get to hear the
rest. And then he kinder coaxes, and she says, sorter sassy, but
listenin' all the time,—woman like, ye know, Eve and the sarpint!—and
she says, 'I'll see to-morrow.' And he says, 'You won't blow on me?'
and I gets excited and peeps in, and may I be teetotally durned ef I
didn't see—"
"What?" yelled the crowd.
"Why, DADDY ON HIS KNEES TO THAT THERE FANCY DANCER, Grace Somerset!
Now, if Mammy's ghost is meanderin' round, why, et's about time she
left the cemetery and put in an appearance in Jackson's Hall. Thet's
all!"
"Look yar, boys," said Robinson, rising, "I don't know ez it's the
square thing to spile Daddy's fun. I don't object to it, provided she
ain't takin' in the old man, and givin' him dead away. But ez we're
his guardeens, I propose that we go down thar and see the lady, and
find out ef her intentions is honorable. If she means marry, and the
old man persists, why, I reckon we kin give the young couple a send-off
thet won't disgrace this yer camp! Hey, boys?"
It is unnecessary to say that the proposition was received with
acclamation, and that the crowd at once departed on their discreet
mission. But the result was never known, for the next morning brought
a shock to Rough-and-Ready before which all other interest paled to
nothingness.
The grave of Mammy Downey was found violated and despoiled; the coffin
opened, and half filled with the papers and accounts of the robbed
benevolent associations; but the body of Mammy was gone! Nor, on
examination, did it appear that the sacred and ancient form of that
female had ever reposed in its recesses!
Daddy Downey was not to be found, nor is it necessary to say that the
ingenuous Grace Somerset was also missing.
For three days the reason of Rough-and-Ready trembled in the balance.
No work was done in the ditches, in the flume, nor in the mills.
Groups of men stood by the grave of the lamented relict of Daddy
Downey, as open-mouthed and vacant as that sepulchre. Never since the
great earthquake of '52 had Rough-and-Ready been so stirred to its
deepest foundations.
On the third day the sheriff of Calaveras—a quiet, gentle, thoughtful
man—arrived in town, and passed from one to the other of excited
groups, dropping here and there detached but concise and practical
information.
"Yes, gentlemen, you are right, Mrs. Downey is not dead, because there
wasn't any Mrs. Downey! Her part was played by George F. Fenwick, of
Sydney,—a 'ticket-of-leave-man,' who was, they say, a good actor.
Downey? Oh, yes Downey was Jem Flanigan, who, in '52, used to run the
variety troupe in Australia, where Miss Somerset made her debut. Stand
back a little, boys. Steady! 'The money?' Oh, yes, they've got away
with that, sure! How are ye, Joe? Why, you're looking well and
hearty! I rather expected ye court week. How's things your way?"
"Then they were only play-actors, Joe Hall?" broke in a dozen voices.
"I reckon!" returned the sheriff, coolly.
"And for a matter o' five blank years," said Whisky Dick, sadly, "they
played this camp!"
