The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-05-07
BY MA .uMKINS

Yes, Mirandy, me and Pa Jimkins
took a flying trip to Californy, and
what with me havin' left the 1ittlest
Jimkins boy with his aunt and
KNOWN that there want Twin, thing
he should want that she wouldn't get
for him if twas in her power for to
do, went off feelin' right peart and
ready to enjoy myself, also thinkin'
about all I'd have to write the other
Children about, and how 1 was a.
goin' to fill my mental storehouse
with riches to last me thru any poor
years that might come
I'd heard folks talk about the des-
ert, and I'd saw pictures that showed
the hero a. perishin' with thirst out in
them places, and so I KEEP askin Pa
JimkinS when we was COMM to the
desert. When he told me we was in il
then I just couldn't hardly believe
him. 1t was sort of fascinatin', with
acres and acres of sage brush and
cactus, and the mountains always a
brooding over it, like a mother does
with her young 1t wasn't till we
come to the Mojave desert that I was
satisfied I'd saw one of the places
where they wasn't nothin' but white
sand a. whirlin' around, whites the
hero, clutchin' at his throat, stumbles
an falls. an sees a mirage that looks
like a lake of clear water, an craw1s
to it, his tongue hangin' out, only to
claw at that sand, with mebbe some
bones near by, suggestin' to the mind
| that some other Teller has been fooled
the same way.
Saw the Mirage.
+ And it want no movie lie about
mirage, either, because Pa Jimkins
and 1 see some of them things whites
we was goin from Barstow to the
Tehachepi mountains, and saw lakes
of water where no water was, and that
vanished as we looked at 'em, only We
was rolling 1uxuriously along on the
train and not sufferin' none for water
Times when I've. heard of Kansas
folks goin' to Californy and then
comm right home to sell off every
thing and go back to live where the
sun shines perpetual, I've sort of
scoffed an sneered, and said as how
1 wouldn't want to live out there,
| havin' been there several times in the
years before I knew there was any
Pa Jimkins, and thinkin' I knowed
all ABOUT it.
But la, YOU never can tell when
| you're a. goin' to get bit by the same
bug that nips other folkses magma
lions and sets them to doin' queer
things.
Eight Dollar Roses Everywhere.
I'd thought the desert mighty in
terestin' and not a bit monotonous
/ like what some folks did, but yet when
| / went to bed in a desert, and woke
! of passin' thru what looked like lovely
gardens, with So a dozen roses clam
| bering all over back fences a calm
to you to reach out and grab hand
ful,-tho, Mirandy, I didn't listen to
the tempter, havin' in mind always
the old sayin' that honesty is the best
policy, and anyhow two car windows
a. protectin' me against the tempta-
| toni Asst felt like sayin,' Here will
. 1 tarry. an pitch my tent" Bein' as
how a body can't do nothin' but pitch
tents these days, there bein' no houses,
seemed to me that it wa mt goin' to be
as wet and disagreeable in Ca1iforny
as in Kansas, bein' out in the weather.
The Grand Canyon.
They's scenery and climate and
roses and birds and everything to
make a body just feel like playing in
Californy, and so far as I could see
don't nobody do much else. unless it
| is the Japs.
And then after we'd dome" Cali
| forny, in three or four days, we come
on to the Grand Canyon. which. as
Irwin Cobb says, is beyond description,
and yet a1lus bein' described. It's like
what you've heard and read and
dreamed about, only so much more so
that you can't do nothin' but just set
an gawp aNit.
They's a sort of awe comes over
| folks when they look into that great
chasm a mile deep and thirteen miles
| aerost that they don't allus feel in
1 church even. For sometimes in
church, Mirandy. you see folks snig-
gering a other wimmin's bunnits, or