The Conquest: The Story of a Negro PioneerMicheaux, Oscar
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The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer
Micheaux, Oscar
African American pioneers -- Fiction; Autobiographical fiction; South Dakota -- Fiction; Western stories
From here the train descends a gentle slope to Green River, Wyoming, a
division point in the U.P. South on the D. & R.G. is Green River, Utah.
Arriving at Granger one feels as though he had arrived at the jumping
off place of creation. Like most all desert stations it contains nothing
of interest and time becomes a bore. Here the traffic is divided and the
O.S.L. takes the Portland and Butte section into Idaho where the scenery
suddenly begins to get brighter. Indeed, the country seems to take on a
beautiful and cheerful appearance; civilization and beautiful farms take
the place of the wilderness, sage brush and skulking coyotes. Thanks to
the irrigation ditch.
After crossing the picturesque American Falls of Snake River, the train
soon arrives at Minidoka. This is the seat of the great Minidoka
project, in which the United States Government has taken such an active
interest and constructed a canal over seventy miles in length. This has
converted about a quarter of a million acres of Idaho's volcanic ash
soil into productive lands that bloom as the rose. It was the beautiful
valley of the Snake River, with its indescribable scenery and its many
beautiful little cities, that attracted my attention and looked as
though it had a promising future. I had contemplated investing in some
of its lands and locating, if I should happen to be compelled by stress
of circumstances to change my occupation. This came to pass shortly
thereafter.
The end came after a trip between Granger and Portland, in company with
a shrewd Irish conductor by the name of Wright, who not only "knocked
down" the company's money, but drank a good deal more whiskey than was
good for him. On this last trip, when Wright took charge of the car at
Granger, he began telling about his newly acquired "dear little wifey."
Also confiding to me that he had quit drinking and was going to quit
"knocking down"--after that trip. Oh, yes! Wright was always going to
dispense with all things dishonest and dishonorable--at some future
date. Another bad thing about Wright was that he would steal, not only
from the company, but from the porter as well, by virtue of the rule
that required the porter to take a duplicate receipt from the conductor
for each and every passenger riding on his car, whether the passenger
has a ticket or pays cash fare. These receipts are forwarded to the
Auditor of the company at the end of each run.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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