I think that the few who were permitted to know and love the object of
this sketch spent the rest of their days not only in an attitude of
apology for having at first failed to recognize her higher nature, but
of remorse that they should have ever lent a credulous ear to a priori
tradition concerning her family characteristics. She had not escaped
that calumny which she shared with the rest of her sex for those
youthful follies, levities, and indiscretions which belong to
immaturity. It is very probable that the firmness that distinguished
her maturer will in youth might have been taken for obstinacy, that her
nice discrimination might at the same period have been taken for
adolescent caprice, and that the positive expression of her quick
intellect might have been thought youthful impertinence before her
years had won respect for her judgment.
She was foaled at Indian Creek, and one month later, when she was
brought over to Sawyer's Bar, was considered the smallest donkey ever
seen in the foot-hills. The legend that she was brought over in one of
"Dan the Quartz Crusher's" boots required corroboration from that
gentleman; but his denial being evidently based upon a masculine vanity
regarding the size of his foot rather than a desire to be historically
accurate, it went for nothing. It is certain that for the next two
months she occupied the cabin of Dan, until, perhaps incensed at this
and other scandals, she one night made her way out. "I hadn't the
least idee wot woz comin'," said Dan, "but about midnight I seemed to
hear hail onto the roof, and a shower of rocks and stones like to a
blast started in the canyon. When I got up and struck a light, thar was
suthin' like onto a cord o' kindlin' wood and splinters whar she'd
stood asleep, and a hole in the side o' the shanty, and—no Jinny!
Lookin' at them hoofs o' hern—and mighty porty they is to look at,
too—you would allow she could do it!" I fear that this performance
laid the foundation of her later infelicitous reputation, and perhaps
awakened in her youthful breast a misplaced ambition, and an emulation
which might at that time have been diverted into a nobler channel. For
the fame of this juvenile performance—and its possible promise in the
future—brought at once upon her the dangerous flattery and attention
of the whole camp. Under intelligently directed provocation she would
repeat her misguided exercise, until most of the scanty furniture of
the cabin was reduced to a hopeless wreck, and sprains and callosities
were developed upon the limbs of her admirers. Yet even at this early
stage of her history, that penetrating intellect which was in after
years her dominant quality was evident to all. She could not be made
to kick at quartz tailings, at a barrel of Boston crackers, or at the
head or shin of "Nigger Pete." An artistic discrimination economized
her surplus energy. "Ef you'll notiss," said Dan, with a large
parental softness, "she never lets herself out to onst like them mules
or any jackass ez I've heerd of, but kinder holds herself in, and, so
to speak, takes her bearings—sorter feels round gently with that off
foot, takes her distance and her rest, and then with that ar' foot
hoverin' round in the air softly, like an angel's wing, and a gentle,
dreamy kind o' look in them eyes, she lites out! Don't ye, Jinny?
Thar! jist ez I told ye," continued Dan, with an artist's noble
forgetfulness of self, as he slowly crawled from the splintered ruin of
the barrel on which he had been sitting. "Thur! did ye ever see the
like! Did ye dream that all the while I was talkin' she was a
meditatin' that?"
The same artistic perception and noble reticence distinguished her
bray. It was one of which a less sagacious animal would have been
foolishly vain or ostentatiously prodigal. It was a contralto of great
compass and profundity—reaching from low G to high C—perhaps a trifle
stronger in the lower register, and not altogether free from a nasal
falsetto in the upper. Daring and brilliant as it was in the middle
notes, it was perhaps more musically remarkable for its great
sustaining power. The element of surprise always entered into the
hearer's enjoyment; long after any ordinary strain of human origin
would have ceased, faint echoes of Jinny's last note were perpetually
recurring. But it was as an intellectual and moral expression that her
bray was perfect. As far beyond her size as were her aspirations, it
was a free and running commentary of scorn at all created things
extant, with ironical and sardonic additions that were terrible. It
reviled all human endeavor, it quenched all sentiment, it suspended
frivolity, it scattered reverie, it paralyzed action. It was
omnipotent. More wonderful and characteristic than all, the very
existence of this tremendous organ was unknown to the camp for six
months after the arrival of its modest owner, and only revealed to them
under circumstances that seemed to point more conclusively than ever to
her rare discretion.
It was the beginning of a warm night and the middle of a heated
political discussion. Sawyer's Bar had gathered in force at the
Crossing, and by the light of flaring pine torches, cheered and
applauded the rival speakers who from a rude platform addressed the
excited multitude. Partisan spirit at that time ran high in the
foot-hills; crimination and recrimination, challenge, reply,
accusation, and retort had already inflamed the meeting, and Colonel
Bungstarter, after a withering review of his opponent's policy,
culminated with a personal attack upon the career and private character
of the eloquent and chivalrous Colonel Culpepper Starbottle of
Siskiyou. That eloquent and chivalrous gentleman was known to be
present; it was rumored that the attack was expected to provoke a
challenge from Colonel Starbottle which would give Bungstarter the
choice of weapons, and deprive Starbottle of his advantage as a dead
shot. It was whispered also that the sagacious Starbottle, aware of
this fact, would retaliate in kind so outrageously as to leave
Bungstarter no recourse but to demand satisfaction on the spot. As
Colonel Starbottle rose, the eager crowd drew together, elbowing each
other in rapt and ecstatic expectancy. "He can't get even on
Bungstarter, onless he allows his sister ran off with a nigger, or that
he put up his grandmother at draw poker and lost her," whispered the
Quartz Crusher; "kin he?" All ears were alert, particularly the very
long and hairy ones just rising above the railing of the speaker's
platform; for Jinny, having a feminine distrust of solitude and a
fondness for show, had followed her master to the meeting and had
insinuated herself upon the platform, where way was made for her with
that frontier courtesy always extended to her age and sex.
Colonel Starbottle, stertorous and purple, advanced to the railing.
There he unbuttoned his collar and laid his neckcloth aside, then with
his eye fixed on his antagonist he drew off his blue frock coat, and
thrusting one hand into his ruffled shirt front, and raising the other
to the dark canopy above him, he opened his vindictive lips. The
action, the attitude, were Starbottle's. But the voice was not. For
at that supreme moment, a bray—so profound, so appalling, so utterly
soul-subduing, so paralyzing that everything else sank to mere
insignificance beside it—filled woods, and sky, and air. For a moment
only the multitude gasped in speechless astonishment—it was a moment
only—and then the welkin roared with their shouts. In vain silence
was commanded, in vain Colonel Starbottle, with a ghastly smile,
remarked that he recognized in the interruption the voice and the
intellect of the opposition; the laugh continued, the more as it was
discovered that Jinny had not yet finished, and was still recurring to
her original theme. "Gentlemen," gasped Starbottle, "any attempt by
[Hee-haw! from Jinny] brutal buffoonery to restrict the right of free
speech to all [a prolonged assent from Jinny] is worthy only the
dastardly"—but here a diminuendo so long drawn as to appear a striking
imitation of the Colonel's own apoplectic sentences drowned his voice
with shrieks of laughter.
It must not be supposed that during this performance a vigorous attempt
was not made to oust Jinny from the platform. But all in vain.
Equally demoralizing in either extremity, Jinny speedily cleared a
circle with her flying hoofs, smashed the speaker's table and water
pitcher, sent the railing flying in fragments over the cheering crowd,
and only succumbed to two blankets, in which, with her head concealed,
she was finally dragged, half captive, half victor, from the field.
Even then a muffled and supplemental bray that came from the woods at
intervals drew half the crowd away and reduced the other half to mere
perfunctory hearers. The demoralized meeting was adjourned; Colonel
Starbottle's withering reply remained unuttered, and the Bungstarter
party were triumphant.
For the rest of the evening Jinny was the heroine of the hour, but no
cajolery nor flattery could induce her to again exhibit her powers. In
vain did Dean of Angel's extemporize a short harangue in the hope that
Jinny would be tempted to reply; in vain was every provocation offered
that might sting her sensitive nature to eloquent revolt. She replied
only with her heels. Whether or not this was simple caprice, or
whether she was satisfied with her maiden effort, or indignant at her
subsequent treatment, she remained silent. "She made her little game,"
said Dan, who was a political adherent of Starbottle's, and who yet
from that day enjoyed the great speaker's undying hatred, "and even if
me and her don't agree on politics—YOU let her alone." Alas, it would
have been well for Dan if he could have been true to his instincts, but
the offer of one hundred dollars from the Bungstarter party proved too
tempting. She passed irrevocably from his hands into those of the
enemy. But any reader of these lines will, I trust, rejoice to hear
that this attempt to restrain free political expression in the
foot-hills failed signally. For, although she was again covertly
introduced on the platform by the Bungstarters, and placed face to face
with Colonel Starbottle at Murphy's Camp, she was dumb. Even a brass
band failed to excite her emulation. Either she had become disgusted
with politics or the higher prices paid by the party to other and less
effective speakers aroused her jealousy and shocked her self-esteem,
but she remained a passive spectator. When the Hon. Sylvester
Rourback, who received, for the use of his political faculties for a
single night, double the sum for which she was purchased outright,
appeared on the same platform with herself, she forsook it hurriedly
and took to the woods. Here she might have starved but for the
intervention of one McCarty, a poor market gardener, who found her, and
gave her food and shelter under the implied contract that she should
forsake politics and go to work. The latter she for a long time
resisted, but as she was considered large enough by this time to draw a
cart, McCarty broke her to single harness, with a severe fracture of
his leg and the loss of four teeth and a small spring wagon. At
length, when she could be trusted to carry his wares to Murphy's Camp,
and could be checked from entering a shop with the cart attached to
her,—a fact of which she always affected perfect disbelief,—her
education was considered as complete as that of the average California
donkey. It was still unsafe to leave her alone, as she disliked
solitude, and always made it a point to join any group of loungers with
her unnecessary cart, and even to follow some good-looking miner to his
cabin. The first time this peculiarity was discovered by her owner was
on his return to the street after driving a bargain within the walls of
the Temperance Hotel. Jinny was nowhere to be seen. Her devious
course, however, was pleasingly indicated by vegetables that strewed
the road until she was at last tracked to the veranda of the Arcade
saloon, where she was found looking through the window at a game of
euchre, and only deterred by the impeding cart from entering the
building. A visit one Sunday to the little Catholic chapel at French
Camp, where she attempted to introduce an antiphonal service and the
cart, brought shame and disgrace upon her unlucky master. For the cart
contained freshly-gathered vegetables, and the fact that McCarty had
been Sabbath-breaking was painfully evident. Father Sullivan was quick
to turn an incident that provoked only the risibilities of his audience
into a moral lesson. "It's the poor dumb beast that has a more
Christian sowl than Michael," he commented; but here Jinny assented so
positively that they were fain to drag her away by main force.
To her eccentric and thoughtless youth succeeded a calm maturity in
which her conservative sagacity was steadily developed. She now worked
for her living, subject, however, to a nice discrimination by which she
limited herself to a certain amount of work, beyond which neither
threats, beatings, nor cajoleries would force her. At certain hours she
would start for the stable with or without the incumbrances of the cart
or Michael, turning two long and deaf ears on all expostulation or
entreaty. "Now, God be good to me," said Michael, one day picking
himself out from a ditch as he gazed sorrowfully after the flying heels
of Jinny, "but it's only the second load of cabbages I'm bringin' the
day, and if she's shtruck NOW, it's ruined I am entoirely." But he was
mistaken; after two hours of rumination Jinny returned of her own free
will, having evidently mistaken the time, and it is said even consented
to draw an extra load to make up the deficiency. It may be imagined
from this and other circumstances that Michael stood a little in awe of
Jinny's superior intellect, and that Jinny occasionally, with the
instinct of her sex, presumed upon it. After the Sunday episode,
already referred to, she was given her liberty on that day, a privilege
she gracefully recognized by somewhat unbending her usual austerity in
the indulgence of a saturnine humor. She would visit the mining camps,
and, grazing lazily and thoughtfully before the cabins, would, by
various artifices and coquetries known to the female heart, induce some
credulous stranger to approach her with the intention of taking a ride.
She would submit hesitatingly to a halter, allow him to mount her back,
and, with every expression of timid and fearful reluctance, at last
permit him to guide her in a laborious trot out of sight of human
habitation. What happened then was never clearly known. In a few
moments the camp would be aroused by shouts and execrations, and the
spectacle of Jinny tearing by at a frightful pace, with the stranger
clinging with his arms around her neck, afraid to slip off, from terror
of her circumvolving heels, and vainly imploring assistance. Again and
again she would dash by the applauding groups, adding the aggravation
of her voice to the danger of her heels, until suddenly wheeling, she
would gallop to Carter's Pond, and deposit her luckless freight in the
muddy ditch. This practical joke was repeated until one Sunday she was
approached by Juan Ramirez, a Mexican vaquero, booted and spurred, and
carrying a riata. A crowd was assembled to see her discomfiture. But,
to the intense disappointment of the camp, Jinny, after quietly
surveying the stranger, uttered a sardonic bray, and ambled away to the
little cemetery on the hill, whose tangled chapparal effectually
prevented all pursuit by her skilled antagonist. From that day she
forsook the camp, and spent her Sabbaths in mortuary reflections among
the pine head-boards and cold "hic jacets" of the dead.
Happy would it have been if this circumstance, which resulted in the
one poetic episode of her life, had occurred earlier; for the cemetery
was the favorite resort of Miss Jessie Lawton, a gentle invalid from
San Francisco, who had sought the foot-hills for the balsam of pine and
fir, and in the faint hope that the freshness of the wild roses might
call back her own. The extended views from the cemetery satisfied Miss
Lawton's artistic taste, and here frequently, with her sketch-book in
hand, she indulged that taste and a certain shy reserve which kept her
from contact with strangers. On one of the leaves of that sketch-book
appears a study of a donkey's head, being none other than the grave
features of Jinny, as once projected timidly over the artist's
shoulder. The preliminaries of this intimacy have never transpired, nor
is it a settled fact if Jinny made the first advances. The result was
only known to the men of Sawyer's Bar by a vision which remained fresh
in their memories long after the gentle lady and her four-footed friend
had passed beyond their voices. As two of the tunnel-men were
returning from work one evening, they chanced to look up the little
trail, kept sacred from secular intrusion, that led from the cemetery
to the settlement. In the dim twilight, against a sunset sky, they
beheld a pale-faced girl riding slowly toward them. With a delicate
instinct, new to those rough men, they drew closer in the shadow of the
bushes until she passed. There was no mistaking the familiar
grotesqueness of Jinny; there was no mistaking the languid grace of
Miss Lawton. But a wreath of wild roses was around Jinny's neck, from
her long ears floated Miss Jessie's hat ribbons, and a mischievous,
girlish smile was upon Miss Jessie's face, as fresh as the azaleas in
her hair. By the next day the story of this gentle apparition was
known to a dozen miners in camp, and all were sworn to secrecy. But
the next evening, and the next, from the safe shadows of the woods they
watched and drank in the beauty of that fanciful and all unconscious
procession. They kept their secret, and never a whisper or footfall
from these rough men broke its charm or betrayed their presence. The
man who could have shocked the sensitive reserve of the young girl
would have paid for it with his life.
And then one day the character of the procession changed, and this
little incident having been told, it was permitted that Jinny should
follow her friend, caparisoned even as before, but this time by the
rougher but no less loving hands of men. When the cortege reached the
ferry where the gentle girl was to begin her silent journey to the sea,
Jinny broke from those who held her, and after a frantic effort to
mount the barge fell into the swiftly rushing Stanislaus. A dozen
stout arms were stretched to save her, and a rope skilfully thrown was
caught around her feet. For an instant she was passive, and, as it
seemed, saved. But the next moment her dominant instinct returned, and
with one stroke of her powerful heel she snapped the rope in twain and
so drifted with her mistress to the sea.
