matters, enters a saloon (twenty-five cents is the price for anything and
everything, and specie the only money used) and lays down a half dollar;
calls for whiskey and drinks it; the bar-keeper makes change and lays the
quarter in a wet place on the counter; the modest man fumbles at it with
nerveless fingers, but it slips and the water holds it; he contemplates
it, and tries again; same result; observes that people are interested in
what he is at, blushes; fumbles at the quarter again–blushes–puts his
forefinger carefully, slowly down, to make sure of his aim–pushes the
coin toward the bar-keeper, and says with a sigh:
“Gimme a cigar!”
Naturally, another gentleman present told about another drunken man. He
said he reeled toward home late at night; made a mistake and entered the
wrong gate; thought he saw a dog on the stoop; and it was–an iron one.
He stopped and considered; wondered if it was a dangerous dog; ventured
to say “Be (hic) begone!” No effect. Then he approached warily, and
adopted conciliation; pursed up his lips and tried to whistle, but
failed; still approached, saying, “Poor dog!–doggy, doggy, doggy!–poor
doggy-dog!” Got up on the stoop, still petting with fond names; till
master of the advantages; then exclaimed, “Leave, you thief!”–planted a
vindictive kick in his ribs, and went head-over-heels overboard, of
course. A pause; a sigh or two of pain, and then a remark in a
reflective voice:
“Awful solid dog. What could he ben eating? (‘ic!) Rocks, p’raps.
Such animals is dangerous.–‘ At’s what I say–they’re dangerous. If a
man–(‘ic!)–if a man wants to feed a dog on rocks, let him feed him on
rocks; ‘at’s all right; but let him keep him at home–not have him layin’
round promiscuous, where (‘ic!) where people’s liable to stumble over him
when they ain’t noticin’!”
It was not without regret that I took a last look at the tiny flag (it
was thirty-five feet long and ten feet wide) fluttering like a lady’s
handkerchief from the topmost peak of Mount Davidson, two thousand feet
above Virginia’s roofs, and felt that doubtless I was bidding a permanent
farewell to a city which had afforded me the most vigorous enjoyment of
life I had ever experienced. And this reminds me of an incident which
the dullest memory Virginia could boast at the time it happened must
vividly recall, at times, till its possessor dies. Late one summer
afternoon we had a rain shower.
That was astonishing enough, in itself, to set the whole town buzzing,
for it only rains (during a week or two weeks) in the winter in Nevada,
and even then not enough at a time to make it worth while for any
merchant to keep umbrellas for sale. But the rain was not the chief
wonder. It only lasted five or ten minutes; while the people were still
talking about it all the heavens gathered to themselves a dense blackness
as of midnight. All the vast eastern front of Mount Davidson, over-
looking the city, put on such a funereal gloom that only the nearness and
solidity of the mountain made its outlines even faintly distinguishable
from the dead blackness of the heavens they rested against. This
unaccustomed sight turned all eyes toward the mountain; and as they
looked, a little tongue of rich golden flame was seen waving and
quivering in the heart of the midnight, away up on the extreme summit!
In a few minutes the streets were packed with people, gazing with hardly
an uttered word, at the one brilliant mote in the brooding world of
darkness. It flicked like a candle-flame, and looked no larger; but with
such a background it was wonderfully bright, small as it was. It was the
flag!–though no one suspected it at first, it seemed so like a
supernatural visitor of some kind–a mysterious messenger of good
tidings, some were fain to believe. It was the nation’s emblem
transfigured by the departing rays of a sun that was entirely palled from
view; and on no other object did the glory fall, in all the broad
panorama of mountain ranges and deserts. Not even upon the staff of the