The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1918-09-06
HARKS
To MYSTIC CALL
Of BIG DESERT
Awed BY the Vast Solitudes of
Southwest.
NOW CROSSING PACIFIC
Former Banner Man Writes Of I'M
pressions While Crossing Arid
Land of America.
At Seattle Pacific,
August 1st, 1918.

At Sea-The Pacific,
August 1st, 1918.
Dear Folks:
The last place from which | wrote
was Canon City. Col, so | SUPPOSE it
devolves upon me to go back and pick
up the story Of this pilgrimage from
there. remember that | typed my
last letter seated on the public camp
ing ground-literarily and literally
in that place on a Sunday afternoon
so long ago, it seems, that have
hard work to imagine let alone be-
lieve that it was part Of this same
1 trip. Nearly four thousand miles
away, it was, from the spot on the
/ face OF the waters that | am indicting
/ this correspondence now. From the
experiences ! am having onw and the
sights ! am beginning to see, the trip
there had hardly begun
II was an oasis in desert, Canon
! City Coming down out OF the noun
tains we saw spread on the valley
floor below a town that in size and
1 style was not unlike Bennington or
Brattleboro or st. Johnsbury except.
lins that 1T lay baking on a great
.. = -.
dobe plain as fiat. as floor, as
have said Our view Of il resembled
those pictures one frequently sees of
a community from an aeroplane-the
streets all laid out in perfect Squares
with the blotches of garden and foil.
age alternating the colors and the
spires and the muticolored roofs
marking where interchangeable
(whewl) mankind has slapped nature
in the face and built him a dwelling
place wherever il has pleased him.
Descending into the place, we found
like many other of there southwest.
ern settlements, that ii was kept in
existence through the method of
bringing the water down from the
: mountain streams long deep mar.
row muddy bitches and not only the
country and gardening districts but
! the streets themselves gave the laugh
! to the perpetual drought by getting
: water in this manner. Between the
sidewalk curbings and the street pay
! ing, excepting on the main arteries of
: traiiic. was two to three-foot ditch
: about Is inches wide and in them
water was always flowing.
But there is something about this
i southern Colorado and southwestern
country that after all tires the New
| england Yankee after a time guess
? il is the lack of virility in the color.
+ scheme of the landscape. The towns
4 under forced irrigation are green
enough but always on the outskirts
{ the dull, dead, dried desert begins
and reaches away drearily under tho
baking sun to the lava-hued noun
tsns. Adobe-dried harder than ce.
ment- and gravel interspersed with
. dun-colored sagebrush or faded bunch
grass made a lifeless head-eche-ey
thirsty picture. There was no sod
anywhere, once the outskirts of
town was passed Just the desert
gravel with its uninteresting olive.
r brown foliage. And so it was from
S Canon City to far California.
S We pulled out OF Canon City the
y mcrning after | mailed my last letter
!. and headed for Pueblo This was an.
n other small city 1--WE would call them
n jus, good.sized towns in New Eng.
s. lard) like the one | have described
d above, the main industry being a steel
a plant on the southern edge and the
10 selling OF nearbeer to thirsty Mexi.
% cans. For the MeXicans began to an.
ls pear in numbers at about this point
ID and the land was filed with them
10 until We struck Los Angeles
had always imagined Pueblo to be n
ID scrl OF southwestern-lndian beehive
h. like the pictures of pueblos which we
N remember in our school books when
a. We were kids. | thought ii might be-
II. q whilemans settlement perhaps
built adjacent TO one Of those craz,
et rambling 'dobe apartment houses in
habited by the Pueblo Indians where
enc has 10 climb ladders and fall III
through the roof In order to make an
afternoon call. But travel Is great
=, diSillusionment Once upon a tim,
ihcre may have been such an Indiar
village on the location but all that re
~ mains is the name and some tumbled
m down ruins to the west of the settle
~ mont known as Mexican Village
7" Tho place now known as Pueblo is
!. city Of $4,000 people about the sz
os and stamp of Northampton, Mass I
..' has broad main streets and hoaul
lul residential section of bungaloy
homes with as llno department store
- as any eastern state can boast
We stayed quite u while at Piinbl
N owing to the fact that lost my wallo
II containing many things of wu
which | had to have on the tri
VI through Asia. Before | went furthc
VI ! made sure that Il was possible I
have the documents duplicated froi
n New York. else the trip would hay
stopped promptly But worse luck!-
N in due time they came TO hand an
III hnd 10 abandon thoughts Of goln
back TO the Joy Of publishing coui
try daily in New England
Tho time consumed In so.doing at
into that allotted for the balance
the trip so alarmingly, and Los Ang
.g,..st.....t ... g..,..I naUhl