Westward hoboes : $b ups and downs of frontier motoringDixon, Winifred Hawkridge
General
Westward hoboes : $b ups and downs of frontier motoring
Dixon, Winifred Hawkridge
Automobile travel; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
The Indians furnished the most entertaining spectacle of modern,
prosperous Albuquerque, whose solid virtues intrigue the hobo but
little. We took advantage of her porcelain bathtubs, and then hastened
on into a more primitive region, which became wilder and wilder as
we neared the Arizona boundaries. Only two little adventures befell;
neither had a proper climax. A two day old lamb, wobbly and frightened,
had lost its mother, and wandered bleating pitifully from one sheep to
another, who treated it with cold disdain. It finally approached our
car as if it had at last reached its goal; but asking for nourishment,
it received gasoline, and seeking woolly shelter, it was startled by
metal walls. Piteously weak and terrified, the thumping of its heart
visibly stirring its coat, it fled away in distress, with us at its
frail little heels. Yet run our fastest, we could not catch it, though
we tried every subterfuge. We baa-ed as if we were its mother, and
it approached cautiously, to scamper off when our hands shot out to
catch it. Poor little fool! It had not the courage to trust us, though
it longed to, and after a hot and weary hour, we had to leave it to
starve. As we started off, another car shot past us, challengingly,
its very tail light twinkling insolence. A dark and handsome face
leered back at us, with a full-lipped, sinister smile. At the next
settlement, where we stopped to buy food, this half-breed Mephisto was
there lounging against the counter, and looking at us with the look
that is like a nudge. When we left, he swaggered after, and kept his
car for some miles close behind ours. The country was so wild that we
saw a coyote sneaking through the sage, and not long after, a wildcat
disappeared into a clump of piñon. Beyond the orange cliffs we saw
in the distance, we could expect no human assistance, and it was
uncomfortably near nightfall. Then, to our relief, the road branched,
one fork leading to a silver mine. Our Mexican shot into it, giving us
a parting grimace. Slight enough, this was our first and last encounter
with that particular sort of danger.
At sunset we came to Laguna, ancient and gray as the rocks on which it
sprawled, its church tower picked out against a golden sky. This is
the first Kersian pueblo met going from east to west. Ancient as it
seems, it is the offspring of the parent pueblo of Acoma, which itself
descended from an older town situated on the Enchanted Mesa. “Laguna”
seems a sad misnomer for this waste of sand and rock. But years ago,
what is now desert was a country made fertile by a great lake. When
a dissension arose in old Acoma, as frequently happened among these
“peaceful” Indians, the dissatisfied members of the tribe left Acoma,
and settled near the lake. Here they stayed from habit long after the
lake had dried and its green shores became barren sand-heaps, until the
new town became as weather-beaten as its parent. This is why, unlike
most pueblos, Laguna and Acoma share the same dialect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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