Title: Bigfoot Joe and Others
Author: Bedford-Jones, H. (Henry)
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Bigfoot Joe and Others" ***


[Transcriber's note: spelling and grammar oddities have been
preserved as printed]



  BIGFOOT JOE
  And Others


  Figments of Fancy, Written
  Hand-set in Type, &
  Printed, by


  H BEDFORD-JONES



  Done At Lakeport
  MCMXX



To The KING

Most Gracious Sovereign,

I beg leave to approach Your Royal Person with an humble Offering,
glean'd from long acquaintance with Your Majesty's subjects.  A Work,
which owes it's Rise, it's Progress, and Completion to this Source,
is hence with all Humility proffered to Your Sacred Majesty.  That
Providence may long preserve the blessings of Your Reign to this
Profession and Nation, is the constant prayer of,

May it please Your Majesty,

Your Majesty's most humble and devoted

Servant and Subject,

H. BEDFORD-JONES

To HUMBUG, Rex et Imperator.



CONTENTS


BIG FOOT JOE

THE CLEAR WORD

THE NAKED MAN

ONE NIGHT AT HEALY'S

THE SHEPHERD'S FAILURE



BIGFOOT JOE


In a town of the north there dwelt three men apart from their
fellows.  One of these men was a Philosopher, one was a Poet, and one
was a Painter.  These lived and wrought, while all the folk looked up
to them from afar off.  There was a halfbreed called Bigfoot Joe who
hewed in a lumber camp, so that the folk knew nothing of him.

The Philosopher penned a mystical work on the philosophy of the
woods, and he grew known in the world.  The Poet wrote stanzas filled
with the music of the pines and cedars, and his verse brought high
wage.  The Painter limned a single hemlock, instinct with the breath
of the lonely forest; and it found fame.  But, deep in the woods,
trees crashed down and the unknown lumberjack lopped off their
branches.

Now it so happened that a certain Great Author, having heard of the
famous Three, journeyed across the seas to visit them; for he was an
unwearied seeker after the truth that is in life.

The Artists, receiving him as a brother, expounded to him the
philosophy and rhythm and tonal harmony of Nature; but the Great
Author warmed himself in their steam-heated studios and said little.

One day the Artists took the distinguished guest on a visit to the
woods.  They came to camp in time to lunch with the jacks, and the
visitor was seated next Bigfoot Joe.  Naturally observant, he noted
that the halfbreed, coming from the woods bare-headed, flung an
expressive glance at the thick furs of the Philosopher.

During their meal the Painter apologized for the coarse fare--the
beans and bread, the creamless coffee; but the halfbreed gorged
hugely, and drank his molasses-sweet coffee with gusto.  The Poet was
disgusted by the table manners of the jacks, for a bread-fight arose
amid jests and curses; but the halfbreed deftly caught a crust and
devoured it.

Later, the visitors went to the woods and watched the work.
Presently they came to Bigfoot Joe; the others would have passed on
but the Great Author paused and spoke.

"B'jou," replied the halfbreed, wiping his brow and staring at the
stranger.

"Is the work hard?"

"It is my work--I am strong, me!  You little man, wear four eyes."
His gaze swept in contempt over the visitor.  "Dis tree, she's be my
brudder; she's be tall, strong like me.  'Bon!' she's say.  'You good
lumberjack, you Joe!'"  And his axe bit a deep chord of assent from
the heart of the pine.

The Great Author perceived that here was a philosopher, who drew from
the woods his one rule: "Work!  You are here; so it is evident that
you were to be a lumberjack--but be careful to be a _good_
lumberjack!"

The halfbreed was a poet, for he could read the secret heart of the
woods and make response from his own.  He was a painter, whose brush
was the axe; with that brush he limned great canvases, whose truth
all woodsmen loved instantly.

The Philosopher groped after his soul, the Painter strove to express
his soul, and the Poet tried to clothe his soul in words.  The
half-breed, caring nothing about soul, struck fire from the spirit of
the Great Author, who knew what a plain thing the soul really is;
this, in fact, was why he was a Great Author.

And so, when he had returned again to his own country, the Great
Author neglected to write about the famous Artists.  Instead, he
penned a wonderful tale about a halfbreed Indian, and the world cried
out in rapture.

But the three Artists bitterly termed him an ignorant fakir.



From the "Sonnet" of Felix Arvers

  Within my soul there lies a secret, thieved
    Eternally from Love, that knows no sleep.
    All innocent it she whose name lies deep
  Enshrined upon my heart, nor has she grieved
  With love's kind sorrow; naught have I achieved
    Though alway at her side.  Thus shall I keep
    My secret, while I live.  How might I reap
  Rewards unsought, when none can be received?

  For she, to whom God gave a soul so tender,
    Goes calmly on her way, and will not hear
  The murmured homage Love would gladly render;
    So pure is she, so quiet and austere!
  Scanning my lines, "Who can this angel be?"
  She smiling asks--and fails herself to see.



THE CLEAR WORD


There has been a good deal of mysticism in the public prints
lately--emanations from Point Loma, perhaps; subtle propaganda.

They are interesting, these men with the wide eyes.  They write about
a multitude of things; they are masters of glowing phrases, golden
wordings, witchery of thought.

Eternally invincible are they, being very nebulous and vague.  So
lofty are their ideals and visions that never by any chance can they
be brought down to concrete wordings.  Fixed in the abstract, they
leave to their readers the interpretation of these sacred
thought-gems.

Fine fluidity rounds the paragraphs, and a wizardry of poeticism
gilds the pages, until any central idea is lost in dazzled wonder at
the pyrotechnics.  The type of writing is intoxicating but not tonic.
It is impressionistic and owns a very vague sense of philology; "vers
libre" is a case in point.  Art or music may legally convey
impressions, but the business of words is to convey thought; each
word in the language is an historical entity.  When words are so
cleverly conjoined as to present only an impression, something is
amiss.

Our mystics have some central thought, spread it across scores of
pages, and lose it; they are style et praeterea nihil.  They won't
play to the gallery, preferring the circle.  As a matter of fact,
they have no hope of ever reaching the gallery.

It is the great mass of our fiction magazines that reflect the
gallery, the vox populi.  Magazinedom is aligned in favor of the
story related with an artful simplicity--the clear word!

The clear word; that is the thing!  The forthright, honest word,
signifying something foursquare and definite!  When Snorri quilled
that great chronicle, the Heimskringla, his words fitted like a
mosaic; he left us a perfect example of the clear word.

A work of literature creates a character, then evolves it through the
stress of exterior circumstances.  The magazine story takes its
character ready-made, evolving a plot through the stress of that
character upon exterior circumstances.  If we regard this as
cheapening of a noble art, and decidedly infra dig., then recollect
how our grandsires applied like terms to Dumas and other masters.

The past twenty years have here evolved a type of magazine that
serenely ignores the ranting of the Elder Brethren.  It has created a
writer as peculiar to this country as is the feuilletoniste to
France.  These magazines of fiction have filled a gap; and they have
been eagerly acclaimed by the reading public.

This reading public, not being confined to the New England states but
being comprised largely of hoi polloi, does not want character
studies.  It wants a well-ordered, wholly false and often absurd
plot-scheme, progressing in a straight line instead of by zigzag
dashes, as in life; but it demands that this plot-scheme be
plausible, intricate and fascinating.

A new fiction magazine makes its curtsey by deploring these facts and
apologetically devotes its pages only to the highest forms of
writing.  Stuff!  Why cringe to the Elder Brethren?  An editor
interprets the wishes of the public; he is not to suit his own whims,
but to make money for the owners.

The public knows what it wants, and will pay to get it.  The mystics
may become the oracles of new cults, may set about remaking their own
petty worlds after their hearts' desires; but they cannot make a
living by the quill.  Even the music critics have come from their
misty pinnacles.

Simplicity has cash value.  That is why the magazines pay such
excellent prices for the clear word--which is the hardest of all to
write.



  LA CATHEDRALE ENGLOUTIE

  Bells far and fine
  Lost evermore
  To the blue sky,
  Yet still implore
  And bid us fly
  The citied roar,
  To seek God's shrine
  And hold divine
  The rich, deep things
  That men decry.
  A bell that rings
  And echoes o'er
  On angels' wings;
  Sweetly it sings--
  "All life is thine!
  Give God an hour
  And feel His power
  Steal far and fine
  Like bells across
  The city's dross--"



THE NAKED MAN


A section of the Argonne wood is feebly lighted by distant star
shells.  Over the mechanical and human wreckage eddies the vapor of
poison gas; yet the two men sitting against the ruined
gun-emplacement wear no masks, and seem not to feel the gas.  One is
a husky chap, a marine; his left foot, gone above the ankle, is
replaced by an ineffectual tourniquet.  The other is a conscript;
across his breast is a wide gash of bubbling red.

Nearby lies a German, bayonet-gashed, who from time to time opens his
eyes.  At his knee lies an empty U.S.A. canteen.

The Marine: You were a damn' fool to give him that bottle!  Not that
it matters to us, only--

The Conscript, smiling: You gave him yours first!

The Marine: Sure; I figured yours 'ud do us, but we should worry now!
Say, Fritzie learned somethin' about fightin' today, huh?

The Conscript: I feel like writing a poem about it; only I'll never
write it, of course--

The Marine: Cut the comedy, bo!  Say, the way you knifed this guy was
one swell bit o' work!  After he ploughed you up, too!

The poet-conscript shivers.  The German opens his eyes wide and looks
at them.

The German: Listen--the music!  Can you hear it?  The Brunhilde
motif; it is the valkyr coming for me--

His eyes close again, his head droops.

The Marine: Plumb nuts; I bet he ain't et a square meal in a year!
Say, what d'you figure on seein' next, bo?

The Conscript, blankly: Eh?

The Marine: Why, we don't swallow no bull about fightin' for
democracy and goin' to heaven; everybody except the home folks is
wise to that bunk.  But where do we land on the other side, hey?
Fightin' Heinie won't ticket us to the pearly gates, will it?

The Conscript, gazing at the curling trees in the mist: Search me!
Religion never bothered me much; and just now I'm sorry.

The Marine: Sorry, hell!  Cut out the regrets.  If you hadn't give
that guy your canteen we might ha' lasted till morning.

The Conscript: If you hadn't crawled to help prop him up, your
tourniquet might not have given way--

Suddenly startled, both men turn their heads.  Before them appears
the figure of a man, nearly naked, an open wound in his side; he is
regarding them attentively.

The Marine: Hullo!  Where in hell did you come from--front lines?
Sit down and take it easy; no Croy Rouge nor nothin' here to hurry
you.  Got it bad?

The Conscript: Here's an extra first-aid packet--better stop the
bleeding.

The naked man moves closer, but refuses the proffered packet.

The Naked Man: Thank you, brother, but it would do me no good.

The Marine: I guess you're right there.  Bayonet, hey?  Jabbed up an'
got you.

The Naked Man: I've come from inside the German lines.

The Conscript: Captured and got away, eh?  Stripped off your uniform--

The Marine: What's your division?  I bet Liggett's corp's been
catchin' hell!

The Naked Man: I am unattached.

The Marine, feebly tossing out his mask: Take this; it can't help me,
but there's gas around.

The Naked Man: Thanks, brother, but I hardly think it would help me,
either.

The naked man moves, to show them his wounded feet.  He opens his
hands; and the conscript breaks into a bitter cry.

The Conscript: By God!  Crucified you, like they did to the Canucks!

The Marine, pityingly: Aw, hell!

The German soldier opens his eyes, staring about in vacant wonder.

The German: To whom are you talking?  There is no one here.  Ach, the
Valkyr song!  It is drawing nearer--

The naked man throws him a glance of stern pity.  Then he turns and
extends his hand to the conscript.

The Naked Man: Come!  I'll help you--

The Conscript, smiling: No use, pard!  You chase along--we're here
for keeps.

The Naked Man: Take my hand and get up!  I've come to take you home.

The Marine, laughing harshly: Home!

With a faint shrug, the conscript touches the extended hand, grips
it, and rises.  In his face dawns amazed incredulity.

The Conscript: Good lord!  I believe I can walk after all!

The naked man turns and holds out his hand to the marine in silent
command.

The Marine, roughly: Aw, don't be a fool--can't you see I only got
one foot?  You guys chase along--

The Naked Man: I tell you, come!  Put an arm around my neck; we'll do
very well.  Take my hand and get up!

Compelled, the marine obeys.  Into his bronzed face leaps surprise as
he rises.  After getting one arm about his helper's neck, he pauses
suddenly.

The Marine: Look here, you ain't in no shape to stand us both--

The Naked Man: Be quiet, brother!  We are going home, and you need
not doubt my strength.  Come, let us go.

They start away, the marine moving by awkward hops, but moving.  The
conscript holds to the arm of the naked man, throwing him sidelong
glances of frightened surmise--and at length checks himself abruptly.

The Conscript: I don't know if I'm out of my head--no, no!  It's an
impossibility.  I'm afraid even to think of it--

The naked man smiles.  Behind them the German once more opens his
eyes and looks about in wonder.

The German: Where are they gone?  No one is here--they were talking,
yet I see no one.  I can see no one!

The naked man casts over his shoulder a look of ineffable sorrow.
From him comes a murmur.

The Naked Man: No, you can see no one.  You cannot even see ME!  And
that, as you shall come to know, is hell.



  LES DEUX CORTEGES

  Within the church two companies are met.
    The one is sad and bears an infant's bier,
    A woman following; slow steals the tear
  On her pale cheek, where grief his mark has set.
  The other, a baptism.  Protecting arm
    Held close, a nurse upbears the precious mite;
    Comes the young mother, whose proud looks invite
  Praise and allegiance to her baby's charm.
  They christen, they absolve; the chapels clear.
    Then the two women, crossing in the aisle,
    Exchange a single glance at joining there;
    And--wondrous mystery to inspire a prayer--
  The young wife weeps in gazing on the bier,
    The mourner throws the newborn child a smite!



ONE NIGHT AT HEALY'S


We recall many a charming tale, done in the most Lamb-like of
accents, regarding the rare and curious old volumes picked up at the
farthing stalls.  Le Gallienne has reminisced most delightfully and
incredibly in this fashion, as have others; but I, for one, long ago
decided that these degenerate days never witnessed such discoveries
as those recorded in le temps jadis.

Many and many an hour have I spent delving along dusty shelves in
grimy shops, or by the less alluring ways of the spick-and-span,
rebound and furbished, dustless and listed Olde Book Shoppe whose
displays are priced at their weight in carets.  In both have I been
disappointed.  Many a catalog have I pored over, only to decide that
all catalogs are supplied from publishers' remainders.

One concludes that the old book trade is a thing of the past, at
least so far as we none too affluent consumers are concerned.  The
dealers know too much about their wares and are too eager after
excess profits.  They fatten upon the rich manufacturer who seeks
scholarly polish, or the scholar who has inherited the price of
gratification.  If they find an Elzevir, however mean, they placard
it at a rare price, and await the victim who thinks that all Elzevirs
are treasures.

Once, indeed, I found a little shop in New Orleans, off the tourist
lanes, where I encountered over a score of delightful volumes in
French, filled with hand-tinted plates, at some very low figure.
Alas!  I had just been entrapped in Royal street and had but little
money left.  I bought a number of the sweet tooled-morocco volumes at
some little sacrifice, and went my way.  Later, in funds, I returned
for the remainder of the set, only to find that a famous playwright
had discovered the treasure--and all were vanished.

With this exception, luck was seldom mine.  Old book shops were many,
bargains few.  From city to city it was the same old story; until,
upon a cold and foggy night in San Francisco, I chanced to pass the
forbidding and grimy portal of a shop kept by one Healy.

I merely sniffed and turned to catch a jitney; I had come from a
survey of certain downtown shops and felt that I had no more time to
waste.  Then I saw the proprietor, sitting in an easy-chair in his
window, which framed dull old spectacles within a luxuriant and
mighty fringe of reddish-grey whiskers.  Fascinated, I turned again.
Once more to try my luck!  Hopeless though I knew it to be, I would
still essay the impossible--and I entered.

Truth to tell, my entry was compelled less by hope than by that
curious spectacle in the window.  In the doorway I came to a pause,
aghast before a dim array of shelves which at some prior day had been
assorted, but were now jumbled and heaped in a most erratic madness
of confusion.

The fringed old gentleman in the easy chair was reading one of his
own books; and this was an excellent sign.  He barely vouchsafed a
grunt to my greeting, directed me to switch on the lamps and help
myself, then resumed his book and a huge pipe.

As directed, I turned on the lights and began my explorations.
Already the mystic alchemy of this stage-setting held me gripped in a
pleasant excitation, a glowing confidence that here awaited unguessed
treasure-trove!

Mirabile dictu!  At the very first turn I pulled down a glorious big
volume, newly bound in half morocco, which proved to be no other than
Dr. Shaw's Travels in Barbary.

Every map, every letter and engraving and page was perfect, even the
paper was as chastely unblemished as when struck off the press of
Oxford University in the days of the first George.  The press-work,
like that of the first folio of Beaumont & Fletcher, was a delight to
the eye; abounding in Arabic, old-style Greek, Hebrew and
less-remembered tongues, it was all as nobly executed as if it had
been drawn by hand and lithographed.

A price was penciled on the flyleaf; it would scarcely have amounted
to taxicab fare home.  I sighed over the high insolence that prompts
dealers to face their customers with the prices these wares fetched
twenty or fifty years ago; then I turned to the fringed divinity with
tremulous query.

"Everything marked plain," he made response, without raising his eyes
from the book in his lap.

Ye gods and little bookworms--the dream had come true!  Or was it a
chance find--perhaps some lure to catch unwary feet?

No matter; within five minutes dinner was forgotten, all
responsibilities put aside, and I was hooked fast.  Those unordered
shelves held everything from Russian novels to French scientific
treatises, and Americana ran riot.

Imagine a copy of Vetelius, that rare edition of saga-chants, for
fifty cents; and, no less expensive, a spanking fine copy of Mme. de
Grandfort's execrated work on the Louisiana Creoles, serene in its
dingy binding of ante-bellum days!  Here was the sort of place
hitherto found only in romancers' tales!

And a little old French handbook for gardeners, with quaintly tinted
plates; or a first edition of Palgrave, or a historical work from the
library of the Garde Royale Hussars!

Then the discovery of Ripperda's memoirs--Ripperda, that fine
Hollander who became a Spaniard, wearing the collar of the Golden
Fleece and ruling all the wide realms of Spain, then passed into
Morocco and ruled that land as pasha--Ripperda, who took new
religions or families at will, but ruled always until the gout
fetched him to a devout Christian end--here was the crowning find!

I staggered home that night freighted with treasure.  A few days
later I returned, with the intent of further March and seizure; but
this time I did not enter.  I only turned mournfully from the
doorway, above which flaunted the dire announcement:

THIS PLACE HAS CHANGED HANDS



  With a Branch of Semper-virens

  Unto the end that age to age shall know
    The perfect love which Ronsard gave in fee,
  How your warm beauty laid cold reason low
    And held in fetters all his liberty;
    Unto the end that age to age shall see
  How your sweet face shrined in his life was lying,
    How in his heart you dwelt eternally--
  I bring to you this flowered branch, undying,
  Which knows no frost to sere its radiant spring!
    When you are dead I shall revive you, chaste
  And lovely; such the tribute that I bring,
    Who in your service find all bliss embraced!
  Like Laura, loved of Petrarch, you will live--
  At least, while books immortal life can give!



THE LITTLE VISITORS


[1] This final title has been altered since the printing of the Table
of Contents.


It was lately my good fortune--and I so term it advisedly--to
entertain a budding Bolshevist in my midst.

He was an excellent young man and a fellow writer, who had been
discharged as an officer of the nation's armed forces.  Not knowing
him intimately, I invited him, with his brother, to spend a part of
the summer in a cottage which I maintained as an office.

In due time the twain arrived and were heartily welcomed.  They were
made quite at home in my studio, which was furnished to my own fancy
with books, rugs, tools of the trade, rare and curious objects from
foreign parts, and, what occasioned much interest, an amount of
correspondence filed away.

The young gentlemen made themselves very much at home, and, in the
course of a few days' intimacy, confessed to a boyishly intense
sympathy with the Bolsheviki.  They reveled in a white-collar
abstinence, oblivious that the hated uniforms were vastly more
becoming than their present garb, and took a keen delight in tearing
to shreds the integrity of the press and the administration.  One
must admit that the latter was rather silly; but to think the press
of the world in a vast conspiracy of lies against Lenine et al.,
savored too much of a de Quincy phantasy.

Political creeds, of course, could not mar the pleasure of the visit.
But in course of time it gradually dawned upon me that my guests were
rather exacting in their way of taking things for granted.

They acquired a happy faculty of letting me run their errands, or of
utilizing my services as chauffeur.  The only argument against this
was its matter-of-course air.  I presume that the Bolsheviki, like
the Arabs, feel any expression of gratitude to be unworthy them.

Still, this was but a small cavil against great writers--men of
genius who had accomplished high things in their profession and were
attaining a worthy place in literature!

It was with some misgivings, however, that I observed certain very
odd tendencies; such as, for example, plying the gentle arts of
Munchausen upon the despised caste of editors.

When one delicately hinted that this might hardly be considered as
strictly ethical, the notion was greeted with roars of scornful
laughter.  Ethics were individual things entirely, much beneath the
consideration of free artists.  And what was an editor compared with
one who wrote literature?  Less than the dust!

However, the suggestion that it was the editor who wrote the checks,
proved to be sobering--amazingly sobering.

The days wore breezily on, with much writing and earnest endeavor,
and much discussion of why no man in the writing game today deserved
the place he held; that is, no man at the top.  One or two had some
facility; a little plot, perhaps, a gift of words, a lilt to
paragraphs--but this was "all they had."  The heroic dead, happily,
possessed virtues.

There began to be a Bolshevik atmosphere about the place, a vague and
unsatisfied air of much begun and little finished.  Oddly enough, my
friend were working on anti-red propaganda; excellent work, too, if
it did come but slowly.  Curious how antipathy to white collars seems
to involve in its anathema all forms of hard labor!

The visitors found the country lonely.  One evening I dropped in
unexpectedly at the office, and my presence seemed to excite an odd
embarrassment.  It developed that my friends were giving a party, so
of course I at once withdrew gracefully.

Some time later, a young man about town informed me, grinningly, that
them letters I got from editors were suttinly rich!  Upon inquiry I
found that my guests kindly elucidated the art of writing, to their
local acquaintance, by means of my correspondence.

Nor did they deny the matter.  They were so puzzled at my objections
that anger could not exist; since I did object, of course it would
occur no more.  In the face of so charming a simplicity, what could
the ruffled course of hospitality do but resume the even tenor of its
way?

But little things, as is their habit, in time grow onerous.  Around
the books, the rare and curious objects, the writing tools, climbed
filth and squalor unbelievable.  In despair, seeking the kindliest
way out of the impasse, I was summoned away for a month or so.  Not
without some misgivings--quite justified by events.

When I returned to the office, I found that my guests had departed.
So had many of my books and things.  In their stead remained castoff
raiment and much misplaced matter.

I have now adopted the firm rule of invariably inquiring into the
politics of a friend before erecting him into the status of a guest.



  Sonnet au Lecteur

  I hailed you, reader, after ancient wont,
    Crying "Bonjour!" upon my first fair page;
  Closes my book in type of gloomier font--
    For we are come into a perilous age.
    Gone are the golden days of merry wage,
  Of nymphs and laughing gods, of kings who ranted,
  Of sober men who jeered me for a child,
    Of merry fools who jeered me for a sage.
  In factioned strife our troubled time is veiled,
    Our poets sing, with politics inflamed;
  Yet shall I not be counted to have failed
    If you, who read me, read me once again!
    And if two words my wisdom may contain,
      Let them be Joy and Folly, unashamed!



  HERE ENDS THE BOOK
  BIGFOOT JOE & OTHERS

  HANDSET & PRINTED BY THE
  AUTHOR AND THIRTY COPIES
  DISTRIBUTED PRIVATELY



  From The Same Press

  Verse

  FIGS & THISTLES
  FRUIT BEFORE SUMMER
  GATHERED VERSE
  CORN WINE & OIL

  Prose

  THE MYTH WAWATAM
  L'ARBRE CROCHE MISSION
  SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Bigfoot Joe and Others" ***

Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.