Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1884-07-04
Guppy's Daughter.
lChailes Howard Sbinn in Overland Monthly

i"r crowd between Redding Bar and
Klamath"
My host, who was one of the best
known pioneers of the pretty mining vii
lagc Of northern California to Which a
tripfor business and pleasure had called
me-, emptled his brier wood pipe on the
flat stone that served as door step to
hls cabin, and walked slowly down the
path to the gate, which sagged quite to
the ground on its leather hinges.
thrust handful of letters and
papers into my pocket, and
hurried out from the pleasant
shade of the grapevine arbor extend
ing from the house to the well. The
lonngers in front of the saloon oppo.
site took their hands out of their
pockets, hitched their tilted chairs back
to more scientific angle, and turned
fishy eyes i'll the same direction. The
blacksmith suspended his task of put
ting new steel points on worn out
pick, and stood massivelv in the door
way. shading his face with red and
harry hand. Even the boys picking ap-
pies in the treetops in the orchard by
the cleaning mountain river saw the
nearing cloud of dust, heard faint
sounds from beneath it, knocked off
work, and began to speculate as to
who or what was approaching. for they
could hardly see through the bushes
massed along the road. Doubtless the
children droning over their books in the
brown schoolhouse standing on the
bed rock of an exhausted gravel mine
locked furtively out of the windows,
and reported to their companions by
look and sign. Everybody at the Bar
knew that "Old Gnrpy" was coming.
Down the sloping trail rode man
and a boy, driving drove of twenty
five or thirty grunting and contrary
minded hogs. Their horses were the
shabbiest of mustangs. The man with
his high cheek bones, Indian express
sion OF stolidity, long grizzled locks,
cap of fox skin, an old shot gun laid
across his knee, and the boy with his
ow-colored hair and prematurely old
expression, seemed to belong to the
traditional backwoods of Il 100 years
ago. They kept their unruly charges
well together. and rode through the
town with averted faces, hardly casting
glance to left or right.
"Guppy, what's pork worth ?" shouted
a sandy-haired. bare-legged urchin.
who sat by the roadside dabbling with
hands and feet in the soft, brick-red
dust.
The boy on horseback struck viciously
at him with the long whip he carried,
Int the urchin rolled down the low
bank and under a friendly bush, just in
time to escape the stinging rawhide-
tipped lash. Neither father nor son
spoke a word, but they looked at the
townspeople with undisguised animos-
ity. and went on, soon disappearing
with their attendant dust cloud over n
pine covered ridge toward the west
Guppy's queerosity," said the
chatty pioneer. "Buys his hogs and
cattle on the coast. Drives 'em here
an there, an makes money every trip
That's all right. Nobody's down on
him for not gamblin' nor settin' 'em up
for the boys, but look how he lives"
Here the usually 'good-natured pioneer
grew excited. you go matter Of
fifteen miles right north of here, an
you'll come on u little canyon, head
ing ont kinder circular. It's the
breshiest place you ever set eyes
on. Bresh all across the bottom an
up the mountain side, so you can
walk on the top of the scrub oak an.
hazel bushes an manZanita, an stuff of
that sort It's the ALFRED widest,
forsaken section that lies outdoors
The only way up thar is along trail
by the crick, an it's so high in winter
that unless you know just how ter take
the ford, whar to strike in an how to
bear, an whar ter come out, down you
go thirty miles into the Klamath, like q
bowlder in fume. An that's whar
Guppy keeps his family. Been thar
five or six years. Packs in his grub.
cuts wild hay on the fiat, an the crowd
live in tent-that boy an two or three
grown-up girls, an several smaller chill
dren, an their mother. None of them
ever wear shoes, an as little else as
they can help, an the women folks
shoot deer an other game. Once the
dogs treed California lion, an one of
the gals-Sal, they call her-tuk rife
an walked up clost ter the tree an
dropped him the first shot"
The old pioneer walked back to his
cabin door, sat down, and began filling
his pipe.
"Redding Bar and the Guppy family
do not seem to be on very good terms"
said l, remembering how different the
scene of few minutes before was from
the usual free-hearted, genial good
will of mining camps.
"No, 1 guess not was the reply.
"There's circumstances, sich as MISS
ing calves and hogs-not that we ac-
cuse nobody. But my wife's sorry for
the girls. The biggest one, Dosy,
come over to our town an said she
were Soin' to school last summer, and
had found place to stop ut. Trustee
Ryan raised objections but Jack Mason
and us voted them down. SO the girl
came. But land, there couldn't
no one do thing with her.
She didn't know but just how
to read them Webster spellin'-
book stories, an she swOre like q
trooper; an at recess one day squared
of with her fists to whip the girl that
spelled her down. She staid two days,
an it couldn't he stood no, how. so l
saw Mason, an we both dropped in on
Ryan, tellin him we We're not strenoos
rs regarded the Guppy question. An
while we was a-talkin' it over in Billv's
saloon cross the way school let out. an
down the street comes Dosy, with ten
or dozen boys hootin' after her. She
ketches up a five pound rock, flung it
right in among them, grabs up another
and scatters the crowd, and marches
sassily ont of sight The next alter
noon we went up to school an told her
not to come any more. All at once she
stood up in her seat an said very slow
like:
II hate you all I hate your Internal
town. I'll come back some. night and
burn YOUR old houses Then she caught
up her books, making big racket, and
flung out of the door, kicking over
three or four dinner-pails in the entry.
An she vent along the hillside so as
not to go through the town. an took
the straight trail for home, though it
was 3 o'clock in the afternoon and