Alaska -- Description and travel -- Juvenile literature
Let me give right here two or three instances of the bread of kindness
"cast upon the waters" and "found after many days." Nowhere is this
Bible saying oftener realized than in the friendly wilderness.
One of the first men I met at Nome was an old Colorado miner, whom I
had known at Dawson. I had done him some kindness at the Klondike camp
during the illness and after the death of his nephew. When he found me
at Nome he greeted me warmly. "You're just the man I've been looking
for. I know you don't do any mining, but I'm going to do some for you.
I expect to go 'outside' in a few days. You come out on the tundra
with me to-morrow, and I'll stake some ground for you; then I'll take
your papers out with me and try to sell the claims."
I went with him and he marked off three claims for me, which he had
already selected. The next spring, when my long illness had plunged me
deeply into debt and I was wondering how I could pay my obligations, my
old friend returned with a thousand dollars, from the sale of one of my
claims. I paid my doctor's bills and the other debts, and rejoiced. It
was as money thrown down to me from heaven, in my time of dire need.
At Dawson, in the summer of '98, I helped an old G. A. R. man from
Missouri. He had been sick with the scurvy and was drowned out by the
spring freshets and driven to the roof of his cabin, where I found him
helpless and half-devoured by mosquitoes. I raised money for his need
and sent him out home by one of the first steamboats down the Yukon.
Before he left he pressed upon me the only gift he could offer--a fine
Parker shotgun. I took this gun with me when I went to stake my claims
and bagged a lot of ptarmigan; and a number of times afterwards I shot
others of these delicious wild chickens with it. And when I was taken
ill and my money all spent, I was able to sell the gun for a goodly sum.
One more link in this chain of kindness: When my goods came ashore and
I was able to set up my tent, I found two men, one a Norwegian, the
other a Michigander, both of whom had just arrived, without a shelter.
I took them into my tent. They helped me to move my goods, made me a
cot and fixed up tables, box-chairs and shelves for me. The Norwegian
was a very fine cook and baked my "shickens" for me most deliciously. I
kept the men in my tent until they could build a cabin. When I became
ill they would come to see me, bringing ptarmigan broth and other
delicacies; and when I was convalescing and ravenous the Norwegian came
again and again to my cabin, bringing "shickens for Mr. Zhung," and
roasted them for me, serving them with his famous nut-butter gravy. In
the language of the Northwest, "I didn't do a thing to those chickens."
Of all places in the world, I think Alaska is most fruitful in return
for little acts of kindness.
Men such as I have just described were pure metal, and the heavy blows
they received on the anvil only made their characters more beautiful
and efficient.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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