Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.) -- Fiction; Western stories
But there I was wrong. There is some natural justice in these events,
though I wish there were more. The jury, it is true, soon seemed oddly
prosperous, as Stirling wrote me afterwards. They painted their houses;
two of them, who had generally walked before, now had wagons; and in so
many of their gardens and small ranches did the plants and fruits
increase that, as Stirling put it, they had evidently sowed their
dollars. But upon Jenks Territorial displeasure did descend. He had
stayed away too much from Washington. A pamphlet appeared with the
title, "What Luke Jenks Has Done for Arizona." Inside were twenty blank
pages, and he failed of re-election.
Furthermore, the government retaliated upon this district by abandoning
Camp Thomas and Lowell Barracks, those important sources of revenue for
the neighborhood. The brief boom did not help Tucson very long, and left
it poorer than ever.
At the station I saw Mrs. Sproud and black curly, neither speaking to
the other. It was plain that he had utterly done with her, and that she
was too proud even to look at him. She went West, and he as far east as
Willcox. Neither one have I ever seen again.
But I have the photograph, and I sometimes wonder what has happened to
black curly. Arizona is still a Territory; and when I think of the Gila
Valley and of the Boy Orator, I recall Bishop Meakum's remark about our
statesmen at Washington: "You can divide them birds in two lots--those
who know better, and those who don't. D'you follow me?"
THE END
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise,
every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and
intent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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