Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner [129]
With King was a large good-natured man named Thomas Donaldson, chairman of the Public Lands Commission, and in the two months that their camp was pitched there it drew a stream of celebrities. Where did they spend their evenings? Grandmother’s cabin, naturally. She was a lamp for every moth that flew. In her single room whose usable space was hardly fifteen feet square there assembled every evening an extraordinary collection of education, culture, talent, eloquence, reputation, political power, and intellectual force. There was no way to keep the two cots curtained off; they were always being exposed to serve as sofas. I doubt that Grandmother was offended to have her bedroom once again invaded; she was never more stimulated in her life. Braced for dutiful and deprived exile, ready to lie in the rude Western bed she had made, she found herself presiding over a salon that (she told herself more than once) Augusta’s studio itself could hardly have matched for brilliance.
If you do not believe we live gaily in Leadville, let me tell you about our July Fourth. I had Mrs. Abadie and Mrs. Jackson, whose husbands had not returned from inspection trips. Mr. Ward dropped in with his hands full of wildflowers, and then Frank Sargent on his way fishing. He helped me get lunch–Oliver has burned his leg with nitric acid and can’t stoop down as one must do to cook on our open Franklin. We had fish chowder (canned) from Boston, white muscat grapes (canned) from California, tea (English breakfast, contributed by Mr. Ward), tapioca pudding with raisins à la Leadville, contributed by the Geological Survey cook who saw we were having a celebration, and toast, made and burned by Frank. Our table service was somewhat permiscus. Frank sat on a packing box, Mr. Ward rocked in our rocker and pretended he was a bad little boy bent on spilling things (he is always the wag of the party, to his own great amusement), Oliver twirled in an old screw office chair and ate his grapes out of a Budweiser tumbler left over from our last picnic. After lunch an ice cream man came mournfully crying his wares along the ditch. Oliver and Mr. Ward rushed out (or Mr. Ward rushed and Oliver hobbled), and Mr. Ward bought some oranges as well. When we went down to dinner that evening there was a foot race going on, accompanied by a brass band. Nothing can be done here, from a tightrope performance to a show by a lot of short-skirted girls at the Great Western Amphitheater, without a band. After supper Mr. Ward took us to Chittenden’s to select carpets and cretonnes for his “trousseau”–he is building a house near us and next year will have a wife. You have no idea what elegant things can be bought here for money–lots of it.
Somehow we kept picking up other friends, and when we arrived home we bulged our little cabin. Mr. Jackson and Mr. Abadie had returned, which gave us three sedate couples, but there were in addition Mr. King, Mr. Emmons, and Mr. Wilson of the Survey, Conrad Prager and Henry Janin who have recently arrived, Mr. Donaldson of the Public Lands Commission, Oliver’s clerk Pricey, who hid under the chairs, practically, but immensely enjoyed himself, and Frank, who had returned from fishing with two fish which he handsomely presented to me. He helped me do the dishes left from lunch. Mr. King went up to his camp and brought back a bottle of brandy, and we toasted the republic and sang war and jubilee songs around the fire.
Most of these people are skeptical