Charley Also Wheeled The Baby Out Along The River Banks, For We
Had Had A Fine "Perambulator" Sent Down From San Francisco.
It
was an incongruous sight, to be sure, and one must laugh to think
of it.
The Ehrenberg babies did not have carriages, and the
village flocked to see it. There sat the fair-haired,
six-months-old boy, with but one linen garment on, no cap, no
stockings - and this wild man of the desert, his knife gleaming at
his waist, and his gee-string floating out behind, wheeling and
pushing the carriage along the sandy roads.
But this came to an end; for one day Fisher rushed in,
breathless, and said: "Well! here is your baby! I was just in
time, for that Injun of yours left the carriage in the middle of
the street, to look in at the store window, and a herd of wild
cattle came tearing down! I grabbed the carriage to the sidewalk,
cussed the Injun out, and here's the child! It's no use," he
added, "you can't trust those Injuns out of sight."
The heat was terrific. Our cots were placed in the open part of
the corral (as our courtyard was always called). It was a
desolate-looking place; on one side, the high adobe wall; on
another, the freight-house; and on the other two, our apartments.
Our kitchen and the two other rooms were now completed. The
kitchen had no windows, only open spaces to admit the air and
light, and we were often startled in the night by the noise of
thieves in the house, rummaging for food.
At such times, our soldier-cook would rush into the corral with
his rifle, the Lieutenant would jump up and seize his shotgun,
which always stood near by, and together they would roam through
the house. But the thieving Indians could jump out of the
windows as easily as they jumped in, and the excitement would
soon be over. The violent sand-storms which prevail in those
deserts, sometimes came up in the night, without warning; then we
rushed half suffocated and blinded into the house, and as soon as
we had closed the windows it had passed on, leaving a deep layer
of sand on everything in the room, and on our perspiring bodies.
Then came the work, next day, for the Indian had to carry
everything out of doors; and one storm was so bad that he had to
use a shovel to remove the sand from the floors. The desert
literally blew into the house.
And now we saw a singular phenomenon. In the late afternoon of
each day, a hot steam would collect over the face of the river,
then slowly rise, and floating over the length and breadth of
this wretched hamlet of Ehrenberg, descend upon and envelop us.
Thus we wilted and perspired, and had one part of the vapor bath
without its bracing concomitant of the cool shower. In a half
hour it was gone, but always left me prostrate; then Jack gave me
milk punch, if milk was at hand, or sherry and egg, or something
to bring me up to normal again. We got to dread the steam so; it
was the climax of the long hot day and was peculiar to that part
of the river. The paraphernalia by the side of our cots at night
consisted of a pitcher of cold tea, a lantern, matches, a
revolver, and a shotgun. Enormous yellow cats, which lived in and
around the freight-house, darted to and fro inside and outside
the house, along the ceiling-beams, emitting loud cries, and that
alone was enough to prevent sleep. In the old part of the house,
some of the partitions did not run up to the roof, but were left
open (for ventilation, I suppose), thus making a fine play-ground
for cats and rats, which darted along, squeaking, meowing and
clattering all the night through. An uncanny feeling of
insecurity was ever with me. What with the accumulated effect of
the day's heat, what with the thieving Indians, the sand-storms
and the cats, our nights by no means gave us the refreshment
needed by our worn-out systems. By the latter part of the summer,
I was so exhausted by the heat and the various difficulties of
living, that I had become a mere shadow of my former self.
Men and children seem to thrive in those climates, but it is
death to women, as I had often heard.
It was in the late summer that the boat arrived one day bringing
a large number of staff officers and their wives, head clerks,
and "general service" men for Fort Whipple. They had all been
stationed in Washington for a number of years, having had what is
known in the army as "gilt-edged" details. I threw a linen towel
over my head, and went to the boat to call on them, and,
remembering my voyage from San Francisco the year before,
prepared to sympathize with them. But they had met their fate
with resignation; knowing they should find a good climate and a
pleasant post up in the mountains, and as they had no young
children with them, they were disposed to make merry over their
discomforts.
We asked them to come to our quarters for supper, and to come
early, as any place was cooler than the boat, lying down there in
the melting sun, and nothing to look upon but those hot
zinc-covered decks or the ragged river banks, with their
uninviting huts scattered along the edge.
The surroundings somehow did not fit these people. Now Mrs.
Montgomery at Camp Apache seemed to have adapted herself to the
rude setting of a log cabin in the mountains, but these were
Staff people and they had enjoyed for years the civilized side of
army life; now they were determined to rough it, but they did not
know how to begin.
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