10. X.
THE MOUNTAIN FEVER.
I go back to my hotel and go to bed, and I do not
get up again for two weary weeks. I have the
mountain fever (so called in Utah, though it closely
resembles the old-style typhus) and my case is pronounced
dangerous. I don't regard it so. I don't,
in fact, regard anything. I am all right, myself.
My poor Hingston shakes his head sadly, and Dr.
Williamson, from Camp Douglas, pours all kinds of
bitter stuff down my throat. I drink his health in
a dose of the cheerful beverage known as jalap, and
thresh the sheets with my hot hands. I address
large assemblages, who have somehow got into my
room, and I charge Dr. Williamson with the murder
of Luce, and Mr. Irwin, the actor, with the murder
of Shakespeare. I have a lucid spell now and then,
in one of which James Townsend, the landlord,
enters. He whispers, but I hear what he says far
too distinctly: “This man can have anything and
everything he wants; but I'm no hand for a sick
room.
I never could see anybody die.”
That was cheering, I thought. The noble Californian,
Jerome Davis—he of the celebrated ranch—
sticks by me like a twin brother, although I fear
that in my hot frenzy I more than once anathematized
his kindly eyes. Nurses and watchers, Gentile
and Mormon, volunteer their services in hoops, and
rare wines are sent to me from all over the city,
which if I can't drink, the venerable and excellent
Thomas can, easy.
I lay there in this wild, broiling way for nearly
two weeks, when one morning I woke up with my
head clear and an immense plaster on my stomach.
The plaster had operated. I was so raw that I
could by no means say to Dr. Williamson, Welldone,
thou good and faithful servant. I wished he had
lathered me before he plastered me. I was fearfully
weak. I was frightfully thin. With either one of
my legs you could have cleaned the stem of a meerschaum
pipe. My backbone had the appearance of
a clothes-line with a quantity of English walnuts
strung upon it. My face was almost gone. My
nose was so sharp that I didn't dare stick it into
other people's business for fear it would stay there.
But by borrowing my agent's overcoat I succeeded
n producing a shadow.
I have been looking at Zion all day, and my feet
are sore and my legs are weary. I go back to the
Salt Lake House and have a talk with landlord
Townsend about the State of Maine. He came from
that bleak region, having skinned his infantile eyes
in York County. He was at Nauvoo, and was forced
to sell out his entire property there for $50. He
has thrived in Utah, however, and is much thought
of by the Church. He is an Elder, and preaches
occasionally. He has only two wives. I hear lately
that he has sold his property for $25,000 to Brigham
Young, and gone to England to make converts.
How impressive he may be as an expounder of the
Mormon gospel, I don't know. His beef-steaks and
chicken-pies, however, were first-rate. James and
I talk about Maine, and cordially agree that so far
as pine boards and horse-mackerel are concerned it
is equalled by few and excelled by none. There is
no place like home, as Clara, the Maid of Milan,
very justly observes; and while J. Townsend would
be unhappy in Maine, his heart evidently beats back
here now and then.
I heard the love of home oddly illustrated in Ore-gon,
one night, in a country bar-room. Some well-dressed
men, in a state of strong drink, were boasting
of their respective places of nativity.
“I,” said one, “was born in Mississippi, where
the sun ever shines and the magnolias bloom all the
happy year round.”
“And I,” said another, “was born in Kentucky—
Kentucky, the home of impassioned oratory: the
home of Clay: the State of splendid women, of gallant
men!”
“And I,” said another, “was born in Virginia, the
home of Washington: the birthplace of statesmen:
the State of chivalric deeds and noble hospitality!”
“And I,” said a yellow-haired and sallow-faced
man, who was not of this party at all, and who had
been quietly smoking a short black pipe by the fire
during their magnificent conversation—“and I was
born in the garden spot of America.”
“Where is that?” they said.
“Skeouhegan, Maine!” he replied; “kin I sell
you a razor strop?”
