Perth Amboy evening news., 1921-08-01

This cabin Joaquin had built when he spent
some time in the capital on his return from
rustic corner of the city and made his cabin
of stones left over from the Washington Monu-
he left this residence for his California noun
tain home, the section around the cabin was
built up into city squares, and so Joaquin was
always associated with nature unimproved, the
California Society arranged to have the cabin
placed in a clearing by Rock Creek.
Here the bust of the poet is to be placed.
Gertrude BOYLE. the sculptor who has modelled
the heads of John Muir, Luther Burbank and
other famous westerners, is the only person
who ever modelled Joaquin while he was alive.
She has three studies of him, one of which
she is to have cast in bronze for the memorial.
Miss Boyle, who has just been in Washington
to see the place where the memorial is to be
located. told the writer how she went to
Joaquin's California mountain retreat on THE
Nights" overlooking Oakland. She went to
model him, but he urged her TO make a bust of
his mother at once. He seemed so impatient
to have his mother modelled that Miss Boyle
settled down in one of the mountain cabins
nearby and went to work, and the bust was
completed just before Mrs. Miller died.
Then, the sculptor stayed on in the little
colony of artists. writer's, and people who, want
ing quiet, had collected in the half dozen cabins
during that time she had ample opportunity to
study and model him.
Typical Outdoor Statue.
The bust, which is to be placed in the national
capital shows the poet in the familiar sombrero
hat with his flowing beard and keen eyes. The
lines of a coat over one shoulder are suggested
10 represent II Elm > ulu COdl he Luz "
slung over his shoulders. The face is a careful
likeness. Aside from that the bust gives the
impression of rough, simply cut lines. 1t is
typically an outdoor statue, heroic in size, and
most impressive from a short distance. MISS
Boyle says she tried to make her statue sug-
gestive of the lemental outdoor type of man
He never posed for Miss Boyle consciously.
They talked and read together-at one period
she read the entire Bible aloud to him. once
she saw him fighting a forest fire that menaced
his little colony.
HE was SO intensely eager and determined
as he worked that day." she said. Il watched
him closely and tried to put something Of this
force and vitality that 1 saw in his face into
the bust
The sculptor saw him in entirely different
mood when he entertained the steady stream OF
visitors. He would throw on his elk's hide coat
or a fur skin around his shoulders and put on
an Indian headdress or some OF his other
curious souvenirs and stand in front or his
cabin to greet strangers and admirers who came
to pay their respects or to satisfy their curiosity.
They expect me to look unusual, and wont
them" he would say laughinSly TO
his friends when they inquired why he went to
the trouble of dressing up"
Sometimes he would further entertain a SEN
sation seeker by a joke in which he particularly
delighted. If it was a hot dry day he would
say that he was going in to pray to the ram
god for rain, and into a chapel-like room of his
cabin he would lead the wondering visitor. Then
he would mournfully chant an Indian song or
with weird gestures. Soon the sound OF
Miller would announce that the rain god had
him.. Dramatically he would throw
open the door to snow the rain pouring GOWN
among the cherry trees before the house.
How He Made Rain.
The rain was always of brief duration be-
cause it was produced by a spout arrangement
similar to the rain storms produced in the
movies. One of Miller's characteristics was to
keep his head always covered:
II wanted to make a bust showing the mag
.nifcent dome of his forehead" says Miss Boyle,
but he always wore a broad -brimmed hat, or
q cap or some sort of headdress. In the house
he generally wore odd silk caps which his
Juanita, made and sent to him.
Eventually I did model his head uncovered.
But when he saw it he objected strongly to
the bald effect, and finally I added a lock OF
hair to please him."
The base of the memorial bust Miss Boyle
expects to make of stones from Rock Creek.
Joaquin used to collect stones and cement them
together to make monuments to his raVorite
characters-Moses, Browning, Fremont, the
pioneer, and others. The pedestal of the bust
is to resemble these monuments which seemed
to mean so much to him.
One of them he built for a funeral pyre for
himself. But the use Of it was regarded as
impractical, and when he died his body was
in Oakland, then the ashes were
from the ridge at his cabin. On TINS
pyre, Gertrude Boyle hopes some day to place
a bust of the poet as a memorial at his real
home.
The bust in Rock Creek Park will be deep in
the park, but near the road along which many
and some pedestrians pass. Close
to the stream, near the cabin, there is a rustic
table which Miss Boyle says is very like one
come regularly through the summer months.
Rock Creek Park is a favorite drive OF motor
in Washington. Every evening a steady
stream OF cars winds in and out along the miles
of road cut through the woodland. The bust
of Joaquin Miller will be the first statue to be
placed in the park, and it will be more con-
spicuous and attract more interest there than
il would in Statuary Hall or the Cpaitol or In
one of the small city parks.
Tributes to Joaquin Miller are now taken as
a matter of course. Unfortunately, most OF
them have come just a few years too late Tor
him to have had the satisfaction of knowing
his work was appreciated by his own people.
He felt deeply the tribute of the California
Society when his cabin was placed in ROCK
Creek Park, and he doubtless would have been
doubly happy if he could have known that his
statue was to be added to the memorial.