7 Among the Stars

Professor Longworth and Jedediah Simpson o’ Lexin’ton, K—y, at once took their places in the little community, and Charles and Herbert rejoiced every day, because they had extended the invitation, and because it had been accepted. The Professor, despite his queer appearance, was a man of infinite wit and resource. He had been everywhere, he had seen everything, and he had done most things. Moreover, he retained a keen interest in daily life, and Jed was a perfect well of optimism. The union of the four greatly lightened the labors and vastly improved the comfort of all.

Jed took charge of the cooking, and the Professor prowled through the village, minutely examining everything. He was of the opinion that it had been abandoned many generations, and perhaps had not been visited by anyone in the last hundred years, except their own little party.

“The cliff dwellers have vanished, that’s certain,” he said. “The tribe that lived here is extinct, or a pitiful remnant of it may be hidden in the fastnesses of Northern Mexico, while their village in this place is protected from another invasion of Utes or Apaches by some sort of superstition. All savage tribes are greatly given to superstition, and certainly, as I have said before, there is no wilder or stranger country in the world than this.”

“No,” said Herbert, “I don’t believe there can be. It seems to me that we’re in a sort of an oasis on a mountain top.”

“Probably this is a peninsula of green and fertile country,” said the Professor, “running back for some distance and then dropping down into the desert, or hooked on by a narrow neck to the great Arizona pine belt. But whatever it is we might as well be on the crest of a lone peak of the Himalayas, so far as the rest of the civilized world is concerned.”

“But snug and comfortable,” said Herbert with enthusiasm.

“Yes, snug an’ comfortable, Herb,” said Jed, “with most o’ the comforts an’ not without some o’ the luxuries o’ civilization. Now there is the matter o’ music. Jest listen.”

He produced from under his coat a small accordion and suddenly began to play, while he sang the accompaniment, “Poor old Uncle Ned, he had no wool on top of his head.”

Professor Longworth promptly drew a revolver and made an ominous gesture.

“Now, that’s enough, Jed,” he said. “You’re a good man, a useful man and a friend of mine, but there are limits. Put up that accordion and quit singing.”

Jedediah Simpson o’ Lexin’ton, K—y, put the instrument back under his coat.

“Genius is always bein’ squelched,” he said, “an’ gen’ally by those who pretend to be its best friends. Now when I git that big, red brick house o’ mine in the outskirts o’ Lexin’ton, K—y, I’m goin’ to have an organ built into the wall, one o’ the biggest in the world—I’ve heard tell o’ sich things. I’m not goin’ to play it myself, I guess it’s a little late fur me to be up with the topnotchers now, but I’m goin’ to hire the best D. M. thar is.”

“D. M.!” interrupted Herbert. “What’s that?”

“Doctor o’ music. All these learned an’ gifted fellers have letters before an’ after their names nowaday—the Purfessor has used up all the letters o’ the alphabet, an’ then some more—an’ every time I come into the house my D. M. will strike up, ‘See the conquering hero comes, oh, see him! see him!’ Now, how would that strike you. Herb, fur real bang-up style?”

“It strikes me pretty hard,” said Herbert.

“An’ I’d go aroun’ to the best hotel in Lexin’ton, K—y,” continued Jed, “an’ I’d hire the best room in the place, an’ I’d leave a call with the clerk for five o’clock in the mornin’. An’ when the man knocked on my door at the app’inted time, an’ called out, ‘Wake up, Mr. Simpson, it’s five o’clock,’ I’d call right back, ‘Git right out o’ this, I don’t have to.’ I tell you, Herb, thar’s nothin’ like bein’ rich. Then, an’ only then, you can be jest as sassy as you want to.”

“I’ll be willing to listen to your D. M., Jed,” said the Professor.

“An’ you don’t shoot him, neither, Purfessor, ef you don’t happen to like him,” said Jed. “You give me that promise right now.”

“I promise, Jed,” said the Professor earnestly.

Jed heaved a deep sigh of relief.

“Now,” said the Professor, smiling, “I’ll give you real music. I do not wish to discourage a worthy ambition, but Jedediah admits that he has begun late. Hence I have to restrain him with my revolver. Instead, I’ll let you hear some great singers.”

He went to one of the cliff houses and returned with a polished mahogany box from which jutted the mouth of a small brazen trumpet.

“This,” he said, “is a music box on the phonograph plan but beautifully condensed. Small as it is, it sings gloriously and, well—some great prima donnas are small, you know. I have with me thirty of my favorite records, and this little box has sung splendidly for Jedediah and me in many a strange place. You will not feel jealous, will you, Jedediah, you with your accordion, if I let it play a few airs for the boys?”

“Me jealous?” said Jed. “I wouldn’t think o’ sech a thing. I like that box as well as you do, Purfessor, so let ’er rip.”

Professor Longworth put the box down on the terrace, touched a spring, and the strains of Wolfram’s Evening Song from “Tannhäuser” floated out for the first time over this wild corner of the Arizona mountains.

The great song has been heard by innumerable audiences but rarely in such a setting. It was only a mechanical box, but the wild mountains and the great gorge gave back the majestic strains in many a softened note. Applause followed and the Professor gave them several others, mostly songs from the greater operas, to all of which they listened with rapt interest that only such surroundings could furnish. Then the Professor carefully covered up the box with a cloth and put it away.

“We always take it with us on our travels,” he said, “and often it proves a great solace. It shall play for you again.”

It was a promise kept faithfully. Many another evening it played for them, and sometimes, when the Professor was absent, Jedediah Simpson o’ Lexin’ton, K—y, pulled out a tune or two on his old accordion.

More pleasant days passed. The question of the gold still remained in abeyance. It was quite sure now that they would spend the winter in the village, and, before entering upon any elaborate quest for treasure, they meant to provide to the fullest extent against cold weather. More deer and wild turkeys were found, trout were caught in the stream, and in a way they lived luxuriously. Herbert developed rapidly both as a hunter and fisherman, and he grew wonderfully in strength, agility and knowledge of the wilderness. The Professor spent a great deal of his time prowling about the village, trying to reconstruct the past.

“It’s a difficult task, one of tremendous difficulty,” he said with a sigh. “In the Old World, history is practically continuous. One nation develops into another. We are Old World people ourselves, transplanted merely, but here in America the native races are all strange and new, and we do not know where to begin. About all we do know is that the cliff dwellers lived.”

The Professor spoke thus when they were sitting out one evening on the terrace, which they always preferred to the close rooms. The air was quite crisp after nightfall, and they had built a fire which could be seen at a considerable distance. But danger seemed so remote now that they preferred to be comfortable, and take the chances.

The blue gulf at their feet had turned into a black abyss, but overhead arched a beautiful blue sky in which countless stars sparkled and blazed. Jed was lying on his back, his head propped on a piece of wood, a picture of content.

“I ain’t botherin’ much about them cliff dwellers,” he said, “but I’m glad they left a house for me to live in when I want it. Did you ever see a brighter sky, Herb?”

“No, I don’t think I ever did,” replied Herbert, gazing up at the wonderful blue dome, shot with stars of blue and silver.

“Didn’t know I was an astronomer, did you, Herb?”

“No, I shouldn’t have suspected it.”

His irony, if irony it was, was lost on Jedediah Simpson o’ Lexin’ton, K—y.

“Well, I am,” he said. “I’ve learned a lot o’ things that are mighty cur’ous an’ interestin’ since I’ve been travelin’ the last ten years with the Purfessor. See that silver dot across thar, Herb? That’s old Jupe, the biggest in our bunch. He’s only about a billion miles away. You wouldn’t see him at all if he wasn’t so big. Mercury an’ Venus are a lot brighter, ’cause they’re so close. People sometimes call each o’ ’em the mornin’ an’ the evenin’ star, though they ain’t stars at all, but jest planets like ourselves. But they ain’t much more than marbles when it comes to size compared with old Jupe.”

“You do know a lot, Jed.”

“Shorely I do, but I learned it all from the Purfessor. He’s the fount o’ wisdom. After I’d traveled around a while with him, an’ had seen all the won’erful countries an’ seas an’ lakes an’ rivers I began to feel right pert an’ stuck up about this world o’ ours. Then the Purfessor took it all out o’ me, knocked me right into a heap by tellin’ me that we didn’t amount to shucks after all.”

“Don’t amount to shucks? Why, how is that, Jed?”

“It’s the Gospel truth, Herb. He showed me that the earth is jest a poor little one-cent postage stamp sort o’ a planet, an’ our whole bunch, even with old Jupe his-self at the head o’ it, are a purty small lot. Jest about fit fur one o’ the lowest-priced seats away off in the corner o’ the universe, whar nobody, likely to amount to anything, will ever see us. Thar ain’t anything at all strikin’ about us, ’cept Saturn with his rings, which they say ain’t no rings at all, but jest strings o’ little moons or somethin’ o’ that kind hangin’ along in curves an’ close together. Maybe Saturn with them bright collars around his neck might git a passin’ notice, but the rest o’ our bunch ain’t in it, not even old Jupe hisself.”

“An’ do you know, Herb,” continued Jed, warming to his subject, “that the sun which you saw set an hour or two ago, an’ which you thought so gran’ an’ big an’ fine, all fire an’ gold, or maybe like a big diamond a million miles through, is jest a cheap little fourth-rate sun, one o’ the kind all soiled an’ dirty that they hand down from the back shelf an’ say, ‘Aw, take it along, you haven’t got more’n five cents, anyway’? Why, Herb, when you come to them real big suns you’re talkin’! Now there’s Canopy!”

“Canopus,” corrected the Professor. “How many times, Jedediah, have I given you the proper pronunciation of that name?”

“Well, Canopus. Do you know, Herb, that Canopy is ten thousand times bigger than our sun? An’ thar are a heap more in the class that he trots along at the head of. Thar’s Rigel, an’ Aldebaran an’ Sirius, that’s the Dog Star, an’ Antares, an’ Arctury an’ lots more, more than you can ever count. Why, Herb, when all them big, proud, haughty suns, Canopy at their head, go slidin’ by, their noses in the air, they don’t take any more notice o’ our little piker o’ a sun than ef it wasn’t above groun’ at all. Makes me think o’ the time when I was in New York with the Purfessor, an’ I stood on Fifth Avenue an’ watched all them big, proud-lookin’ women ridin’ by in their carriages an’ always lookin’ straight ahead. They never saw Yours Truly, Jedediah Simpson o’ Lexin’ton, K—y, a-standin’ on the sidewalk an’ not ridin’ at all.

“I tell you it knocked me all in a heap, when the Purfessor showed me what a poor little peanut lot we was, an’ me thinkin’ all the time that I was swingin’ round on a right fine planet, that most o’ the stars was settin’ up fur an’ lookin’ at an’ admirin’. Why, Herb, they don’t ever see us at all, or if they do it’s jest to laugh. I can see one o’ them fine, big, fust-class stars now, callin’ out to another, ‘Say, do you see that funny, teeny, weeny, little sun way down thar in the corner in the dark tryin’ to shine an’ tryin’ to pretend he’s a real sun?’ ‘Yes,’ says the other, ‘I caught sight o’ that thar obscure object once about a million years ago, but I thought it was only a chip off one o’ them fourth-rate suns, an’ that it had been dead nearly ever since. An’ does that thing call itself a sun? Makes me think o’ that old tale about the frog that wanted to be a bull, an’ kep’ puffin’ an’ puffin’ an’ swellin’ itself out till it busted.’ An’ then they both go wheelin’ on, laughin’ fit to kill.”

“And do you still feel that way, Jed?” asked Herbert, sympathetically.

“No. I was clean snowed under fur about two days, and then I got relief. Me an’ the Purfessor was in New York at that time, an’ the Purfessor took me to hear a Pole feller play the piano, knowin’ that I always liked music. Don’t ask me his name, but you take a big lot of x’s, k’s, c’s and z’s, put ’em in a bag, shake well before takin’, an’ then empty ’em out on the floor. Whatever way they fall will be his name. But, my eyes, Herb, the way he could play the piano! I didn’t dream that sech things could be. He began to hit them keys slow like, then he got fast, then he stopped so suddint you fell over on your toes, then a little bit o’ a key ’bout as big as the voice o’ a baby two days old went whinin’ off into the air, but kept gittin’ a little louder an’ a little stronger till it got to tearin’ at your heart. Then I clean forgot all about the Pole feller with the name that used up the whole dictionary, and the Purfessor and the hall an’ everybody in it, and I saw ’way back thar my father that had been dead twenty years, an’ my mother, jest a young woman, with soft face an’ smilin’ eyes, bendin’ over me, an’ all the little fellers that I played with when I was a boy, an’ the green grass in the medders, the greenest o’ the green, and the creek that me an’ the other little fellers swam in, that shore wuz the finest creek that flows on this earth, an’ the red apples, hangin’ on the apple trees, an’ the peaches with their rosy sides to the sun, an’ when I come to after a while, real tears wuz runnin’ down these horny cheeks o’ mine that hadn’t knowed sech irrigation fur twenty years afore, an’ the Purfessor he don’t scold me none, cause he was a-lookin’ purty solemn hisself.

“An’ when we goes out I says to the Purfessor, ‘Purfessor, you needn’t tell me any more about Canopy an’ Rigel an’ all them big overbearin’ suns. They don’t bother me no more. I guess it ain’t what you might be, but what you are, that counts. I was made to fit this here round, rollin’ earth o’ ours, an’ she looks mighty good to me. She’s got some fine big seas, and she’s got some fust-class continents, North Ameriky an’ Europe in partic’ler, worth all the others put together, an’ a power o’ smart islands, big an’ little, an’ lots o’ things mighty cur’ous an’ interestin’.’

“I like that feller down in Tennessee who said he wuz fur his country ag’inst any other country, fur his state ag’inst any other state, fur his county ag’inst any other county, fur his town ag’inst any other town, an’, ef it come to the pinch, he wuz fur his side o’ the street ag’inst the other side. That’s me. I’m fur this earth o’ ours. I’ve had a pretty good time on it; it fits me like a kid glove, an’ I expect to have more good times. Old Canopy can swell till he busts, like the frog, an’ all them big fust-class stars can laugh at us, jest as much as they like as they go wheelin’ by; I don’t hear ’em. I’m fur this earth o’ ours, she’s a peach, she is, an’ the center o’ it is Lexin’ton, K—y, as you can see when you are thar, because the sky touches the ground at equal distances on all sides of it, an’ I’m fur our bunch, too, mean-in’ our earth an’ the five planets that I can see with my eye an’ the two that I can’t see, Neptune an’ Urany, which are thar all the same. Yes, sir, I’m proud o’ old Jupe, so big an’ gran’, an’ Saturn with them beautiful collars on, an’ Venus an’ Mars so bright an’ gay, an’ sassy little Mercury. It’s a nice friendly, little bunch, kinfolks fur a long time, an’ I’m fur it ag’inst any other bunch, a thousand times bigger or ten thousand times bigger.”

Jed stopped for want of breath and the Professor strolled further up the terrace, to examine the effects of the moonlight on certain strata of rock. Jed nodded toward him, and said in a loud, confidential whisper to the two boys:

“Thar’s one o’ your real great men. I can’t say until I knowed the Purfessor an’ worked with him that I had a power o’ respeck fur all that old-time learnin’. But him an’ the fellers like him are the real thing. They have to know. The politicians an’ that kind can keep on shoutin’ that a thing is as they say it is, but they don’t prove it. They don’t ever show their cards. They just keep on shoutin’, and they shout so much an’ so hard that people after a while believe ’em when they ain’t real at all. But fellers like the Purfessor, with all them letters before an’ after their names, parted in the middle so to speak, have got to deliver the goods. If they have the cards they must show down. When the Purfessor goes over thar to Babylon to dig up that old town, fifty thousand years old, some other pow’ful learned man will say to him, ‘Purfessor Longworth have you got your town?’ The Purfessor will say, ‘Yes,’ and then the other old Solomon will say, ‘Purfessor Longworth, I’m from Missoury, you got to show me.’ And then the Purfessor will have to trot out his town, temples an’ stores an’ baths an’ dwellin’s, all complete, or they’ll say, ‘Back to the woods with you, Purfessor Longworth, you’re a fake, an’ fakers don’t go with us.’ But don’t you be worried about the Purfessor, he’ll trot out his town, everythin’ complete, includin’ the walls.”

“I’m sure he will, Jed,” said Herbert. He, too, had conceived a great opinion of the Professor’s learning and abilities. The Professor not only knew the heavens and ancient times, but the world about him as well. None so skillful as he to find the hidden cures of roots and herbs, none knew more about the habits of wild animals and how to track them, and catch them, none was a better judge of weather signs or the properties of soils. All looked up to him, all respected him, and the two lads no longer saw anything humorous in his little figure, his great head and his enormous pith helmet.

Two or three days later the Professor and the two boys went on a combined exploring and hunting expedition, leaving Jed in charge of the village. They were a formidable little party, each carrying a rifle that he knew how to use, and also a revolver, handy in case of emergency. They waved a brief farewell to Jed and climbed up the pole that led to the path over the cliff. When they had reached the summit they stood for a few moments resting and looking about them. It was a crisp, beautiful day of extravagantly bright sunshine, and every rock stood out with singular vividness. Both Charles and Herbert were conscious of a certain pride and a homelike sense as they looked. All this was theirs and their comrades’. No one else ever came to claim it.

“It’s quite sure that we stand on a peninsula here,” said the Professor. “It probably descends toward the north, but I’m thinking that it’s larger than we supposed hitherto. At any rate we’ll see.”

It was early morning and they walked briskly forward. They passed the forest in which they had first found the wild turkeys, and then another, further away, in which these great birds still perched at night, carefully avoiding as they went along the sudden precipices, the location of which they now knew pretty well. Sometimes it was hard traveling, merely a path along a steep, with the sight of pine crests far below, and now and then the foamy flash of a mountain torrent. Far away, they saw other ridges and peaks, many with white snowy crests, all lonely and grand.

They descended rapidly now, still passing through the great pine forest, until they came into a region of poplar, birch, maple and other deciduous trees. It was singularly attractive, fresh and beautiful in its foliage. A great deer sprang up almost at their feet and fled swiftly away among the tree trunks. A brook, born in some lofty crest of snow, dashed tumultuously down the slope. Herbert knelt and drank of its waters, which he found to be ice-cold.

“We have descended pretty far,” said the Professor, “and I can see the valley just below. It seems to be one of those fine nooks that are scattered throughout the Rocky Mountains all the way from Mexico to Alaska.”

They advanced through the trees, the Professor leading, until they reached the valley, a noble, comparatively smooth, wooded plain, four or five miles long and about a mile broad. But before they had taken a half dozen steps into it the Professor suddenly lifted up his hand and gave a warning whisper.

The brook that they had seen on the slope had become a little river on the level and then had broadened out into a flood. At a point not far ahead it achieved a width of at least sixty yards, and, as they looked, a strange little chestnut-colored animal jumped into the water with a splash, and swam with powerful hind legs, while the small front ones were peacefully folded in front of him close to his breast, toward a queer conical construction that stood with others in the center of the flood, projecting above the water.

“A beaver dam and a beaver colony,” whispered the Professor, “a big one, too. We’re in luck, lads. It’s one that’s never been seen by the fur hunters, hidden away in these vast mountains. Wouldn’t they give a pretty penny to find it! Don’t move boys, and we’ll see a lot that will interest us.”

The boys did not move, in fact they scarcely breathed so great was their curiosity. They had stumbled upon what is now a rare sight in the United States, and, sinking down softly, the three lay long, watching. They saw more of the beavers in the water or at the edge, rather thick and clumsy-looking animals, weighing probably thirty-five or forty pounds apiece, with great oval tails, as broad as long, and bare of hair, but covered with thick hard black skin.

Some of them were gnawing at a tree that they had felled, cutting it into lengths, and the two lads noted the great incisor teeth with which they bit into the wood, as a boy’s jack knife slips into pine. The lengths of wood, when cut, they floated off to the lodges in the middle of the pond that they had made, and there sunk and anchored them by some method of their own.

“That’s for food in the long winter months,” whispered the Professor. “Look, Herbert. See what’s coming!”

The great pool itself had grass and weeds growing here and there in it, but, leading off from it, were channels or runways about a yard wide, extending perhaps a hundred yards into the forest. These were perfectly clear, and Herbert saw the reason why, when he looked at the Professor’s suggestion. Two beavers were floating a large freshly-cut piece of maple down a channel into the main pool.

“More food,” softly chuckled the Professor. “They’ve been here a long time, and they’ve cut away the trees immediately about them, until they have to make canals leading to the trees further on, down which they can float their food supply. Just like people! The pool is their central station, and the canals are the railroads leading to it from the grain fields. They keep ’em clear, because they’ve got to have unobstructed navigation.”

Herbert’s attention now wandered to the lodges, which were perhaps twenty in number, the longer of them at least seven feet in diameter and three feet high, every one of them with two entrances below water, as the Professor afterward told Herbert. They were built of matted mud, grass, sticks and moss, and they both looked and were very strong, sufficient to protect them from any animal invader.

The dam with which they created this pool, as a site for their city, was an even greater work of engineering. It presented a convex outline against the current of the creek, and had been raised to a height of fully five feet across the channel with a length of at least sixty yards, perhaps seventy. It was built of saplings that the beavers had cut and sunk lengthwise across the stream, stones, grass, sticks and mud, and, as the Professor afterward said, had been strengthened continually by the accumulation of floating debris.

It was all very wonderful to Charles and Herbert, and they looked and admired. It was a settlement as complete and thorough in its way as that of the cliff dwellers had been, and it probably had been there a long time. It was, perhaps, not strange that no one of the three human beings felt the slightest desire to fire upon these industrious little animals, while they worked in preparation for the coming winter, as their ancestors had done in isolation and security for generations.

Truly it was a scene of activity! More sections of logs came floating down the canals, and, even as they looked, two large beavers attacked a tree at the edge of the forest, a trunk fully three feet in circumference. Each animal stood on its hind feet and gnawed in parallel lines across the grain. When they had gone deep enough they wrenched out the chip with their teeth, and then the process was repeated, going deeper and deeper. Other beavers strengthened their lodges, and still others gave new touches to the dam, everyone working as he pleased, but all contributing to the general good. It impressed the imaginative Herbert as a singularly free, intelligent and happy life, a proper mingling of healthy work and entertainment.

“I hope the fur hunters will never run across them,” whispered Herbert.

“It’s too much to hope for that,” replied the Professor in a similar whisper, “but it may be a long time yet. At least let us think so. Now we’d better be going, boys, and, as we go, I want to show you something.”

He rose up and purposely stepped on a twig that broke with a snap. A big beaver slapped the water with his tail, making a resounding smack. In an instant all the beavers leaped into the water, and, together with those already there, sank at once from sight. There were ripples on the water which quickly died away, and then nothing. The tops of the lodges showed above the water, and all around were signs of the beaver workshop, but not a beaver.

“They are in their lodges,” said the Professor. “It’s wonderful how big a village they will build sometimes, though of course they may be at work at the same place for many years. I’ve heard that up in Northern Wisconsin or Minnesota they have built dams at least two hundred yards in length, although I have seen none of those myself.”

“I’m very glad to have seen them,” said Herbert. “It’s added to my experience something that Jed would call mighty cur’ous an’ interestin’.”

It was almost twilight, when they began to climb down the ancient pole ladder. A sound of long drawn notes reached their ears, and the Professor laughed.

“Jed has taken advantage of our absence,” he said, “to play his beloved accordion. We’ll let him finish his tune.”

They slipped quietly down the ladder and Jed did not hear. The supper cooked, he was sitting before the fire on the terrace, pulling away at his accordion, a rapt look on his face as he ground out, “Massa’s in the cold, cold ground.” They let him go through to the end, and then the Professor called out:

“Now having listened to your music, Jed, we’ll see how you can cook.”

Jed sprang to his feet with alacrity, his face beaming.

“Welcome, fellers,” he called. “Supper’s ready an’ I hope you’ve had as good a time as I have. Every time I feel a little tired o’ work, an’ that’s right often, I sit down an’ play a tune on the accordion, that is, if the Purfessor ain’t aroun’. It’s sweet music, an’ I’ve had heaps o’ pleasant thoughts to play. I’ve gone right back to Lexin’ton, K—y, an’ I’ve seen myself in my great red brick house, with the Purfessor, an’ Charlie and Herb guests o’ mine, settin’ aroun’ in big easy chairs, drinkin’ mint juleps, an’ that hired man o’ mine, the D. M., poundin’ out gran’, glorious tunes on the big organ, built in the wall. Oh, I tell you it was magnificent!”

“Let us hope that it will all come true, Jed,” said the Professor.

“It shorely will! It shorely will!” said Jed with conviction. “I feel it in every bone o’ me.”

Then they ate and told Jed of the beaver colony, and soon afterwards all were sound asleep, wrapped in their blankets on the terrace, while Jed’s stars, the size of which no longer awed him, sparkled in a sky of resplendent blue.

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