Homer Davenport

“ It inspired me to draw pictures, and day after day, month after month I used to draw its people on the smooth surface of the pine boxes that brought dry goods to the town, and, strangely, many of them I mounted on fiery Arabian steeds, and the strangest part of Silverton is that it never releases me a day from its hold. A day never passes that I don’t hurry over its streets and see its last remaining pioneers, and in my vision replace those that have gone. ”

“ To me the old oak tree always stands and under it the men play marbles. The pioneers and their families that made it so full of character are still in their prime of life, the first beautiful girl I ever saw is still there just as beautiful as ever, and in the streets I yet hear the latest marches by the old Silverton band, the stores are still aglow with rich beauties. ”

“ They with the petty pains and pangs of life have been forgotten, and while I know that some of my expressions of love for this little town have been misunderstood by the newer and younger generation, yet I am certain that the pioneers, the men and women that belong to the old oak tree, have all seen in every word I have ever written or line I have ever drawn pertaining to Silverton and the farmers around it, nothing but love. ”

“ All the attention I have drawn to it in the past and any I may in the future was, will be, to benefit Silverton. My only regret is that we couldn’t have remained always the same as we were before the big oak tree was chopped down, as that tree seemed to fit into our landscape better than open or paved streets do. The tree seemed to be a center of dignity around which we could build, a tree with stories beyond the first white man it ever saw ”

“ There was a gaiety in the smoking-car that I wasn’t used to. The through passengers were all thoroughly acquainted with one another, and the second night I couldn’t really sleep in upper eight. So I was thinking how great San Francisco would look, of what artists I would see there, and whether the general body of people on the streets would look so different from what they did in Portland. I got up before daylight, and, as the gray dawn came, I could see great streaks of yellow flowers out in the fields we were running through. ”

“ The dog would travel all day on three legs and did, all the balance of his life, except when he saw a squirrel, then he seemed to forget all about his once sore foot and ran like any other dog, and this was an opportunity for Jake McClaine, as he would argue with his silent partner for fifteen minutes at a time why Coolidge didn’t make his dog walk on four legs, instead of three, whether there were any squirrels in sight or not. ”

“ So I went to a bank and told the cashier I wanted to draw on Ben Watson of Portland, Oregon, for $50. “Well,” said the cashier, “where is your identification?” “Who?” I said. “Where are your letters of credit; who identifies you?” “Oh, no one; I don’t know anyone in New Orleans but Jack Dempsey, and he is confined to his room.” All of my friends, the sports, had left for home while I was walking the back streets with a rooster under each arm. ”

“ Silverton was a queer place socially; while the townspeople were all of one set and there was little of any class hatred, the rich seldom ever lined up against the poor. Still if a very beautiful girl came to town all of us boys sort of took it for granted that she would turn us down if we did attempt to take her any place, so no one ever gave her the opportunity. We admired her and talked of her at the swimming holes and in fact everywhere we met, but no one ever had the nerve to approach her with a proposal of a “Let’s go to the dance, or the party or the entertainment.” ”

“ It’s funny how fashions vary. I remember one spell in Silverton that we were having our trousers cut with so much spring on the bottom that only the end of our toes were exposed and six months after that high tide of spring-bottom pants we wore trousers legs so tight that it was difficult for some of us to get our feet through them, and it was at the beginning of the tight-pants craze that a fellow with a curled moustache and a pocket knife with a girl’s picture in it and fifty pairs of roller skates came to Silverton. ”

“ I heard Father and Mother in arguments, and heard Father say that the city was no place to teach art; that art was most in evidence in the country, especially such a country, but women always win, so later in the spring my father sold the most beautiful farm I ever saw that we could move to Silverton, a town of three hundred inhabitants; that I might live in the Latin Quarter of that village, and inhale any artistic atmosphere that was going to waste.
Old John was left at Grandma Geer’s with their Old Charley, a horse nearly as old but not half as smart. ”

“ I didn’t want to see his wing, but father was determined, and as he lifted the feathers at the middle joint, we saw a scar, a knot in the bone where it had healed.
Everybody is a criminal more or less, and some of the crimes are done by stupid people. Thus I console myself in a way over the death of the Hutchins goose, that perhaps I am a murderer through stupidity and not by premeditation.
John Wolfard, who kept and still keeps the big store in Silverton, had an old hairless terrier dog. I can’t remember when he wasn’t “Old Bob.” ”

“ It had that effect that night air and rain sometimes have of making the brave fear. It was just the night that would cause the bravest of men to shudder and quiver like a leaf. We got hold of the slamming upstairs barn door, and held it fast as it slammed shut with the noise of a cannon. After tying it safely, we delayed before starting back to the house. We wished our bed and dry clothes were there in the barn so that we could stay all night. We looked at the cows and horses, all showing fear, as they listened to the storm. We were so cold we had to start. ”

“ The manhood and womanhood that had brought them together during the hardships and trials of a pioneer life, in the covered-wagon days, had brought about a brotherhood that was after all too strong a bond to be broken by even religious whims and differences, and they were soon back together as one big family. ”

“ But the skating rink had one moral effect upon the people of Silverton that it might never have had, as the town was full of philosophers, mathematicians and smart men, and none of them would have believed if they hadn’t seen it, that just a little wet feather could break a pane of glass. ”

“ I evidently hit it too high up, and instead of going up over the elephant and horse, I cushioned back up the spring-board, lit on the back of my neck, and fell off among the brass band. It made a tremendous hit with the audience, notwithstanding that it nearly broke my neck. They applauded and applauded until they saw me being helped into the dressing room.
It made another clown jealous, as he didn’t do anything half as funny that evening. It was some days before I recovered; but in a circus they use you all the time. ”

“ There was every class of people in Silverton but negroes; there were Chinamen, and Indians lived there in small numbers; but, for some strange reason, no coons. The founders of Silverton were all old pioneers that came mostly in 1851, and most of them came from Ohio and Illinois.
No city, no matter what size, could have the glare and good times that the people of Silverton enjoyed. But the main population were highly educated people, and very prosperous, as they are to this day. The population still varies, owing to what’s coming off in town. ”

“ At Denver we had coupled on our train a carload of real live sports, most of them being from San Francisco. I remember finishing the lunch the day we left Denver, and when we got into New Mexico we struck a blizzard, and the block system stopped us for three days, two days of which we had no food. And I might say at this point that real sports are not good humored when a train is up to its sides in snow, especially when the buffet is empty. My memory was that I had hurried over the lunch I had brought from Oregon, so I looked through the train and found it in the smoking car under the seat. ”

“ It was a lucky thing for Ben Davenport that he got hold of the bay horse, as most all of the property that he accumulated afterward was directly or indirectly due to the big bay horse. Everybody that came into that part of the country owned him at least a day, and he put several gypsy camps out of business. Whenever a stranger came over the road, Uncle Ben had occasion to go out with the big bay; and unless the man knew the horse he couldn’t resist giving everything he had for him, and a little to boot. ”

“ I wanted to get to the Murphy Building, in which building we had some friends living. A drummer put me on a car as it stood on the turn-table at the foot of Market Street. As this car rolled off the turn-table, I saw what a peculiar position I was in financially. When the conductor came for the fare, I told him that I had come from Oregon, that my father thought he gave me enough change to last until I got to San Francisco, but that he hadn’t. That on my back, sewed in my underclothes, I had a twenty-dollar gold piece. ”

“ The Appeal was unique in its way; there was an individuality about the paper that one would know it was published in Silverton and nowhere else. The editor was about as smart as any man in town, but once in a while he got things into the paper that they didn’t see till they were printed. I noticed an advertisement once for a lost horse that read as follows: “Found, a bay horse fifteen and a half hands high, left hind foot white, small star in the forehead; any one describing the property, and paying for this advertisement, can have the same by calling at my farm.” ”

“ It was winter and raining hard one night about eight-thirty, when I was in Wolfard’s store. John Wolfard was huddling around the store dreading to make the dash for home. We were talking about the opportunities of Silverton in general, when he said, “The trouble ain’t with Silverton; it’s with you boys. There ain’t any of you got any enterprise. For instance, there is old Bob. I don’t want to kill him and still he ought to be put out of his misery, and I have offered any of you boys time and again all the crackers and sardines you can eat if Bob disappears. ”

“ We caused a few runaways, but that had to be expected; we couldn’t stay old-fashioned just to suit the farmers with shy teams. Silverton had most everything from a Good Templar’s lodge to a bank. The bankers in Silverton were rather unusual as they didn’t look like the bankers at Salem. And the fact of Jake McClaine in that banking firm made the name of Coolidge & McClaine, Bankers, the greatest banking institution in the world by a big wide margin; that is, if you count all the deeds that bankers do, both in and out of the bank. ”

“ I backed the horse into the shafts and harnessed and hitched him right where he stood, but I got half of his harness backwards. I couldn’t think of anything pertaining to harness, so when I got into the buggy I drove out through the barnyard as quiet as possible and feeling about as good as a young man ever feels. I was afraid to breathe for fear my arm would touch hers. I wanted to get to the dance as quickly as possible before anybody left so that the advertisement I would get from being seen with this beautiful girl would be as big as possible. ”

“ From one butcher shop to another we went, playing all the time, and many of us marching in new shoes on the first cobblestones we had ever seen. Finally in the afternoon we bought a box of apples for lunch. The day was dark and cloudy. In front of one shop Uncle Jake brought a butcher, who he said had bought more cattle than any of the rest, and
he wanted us to play for this man, number eighteen in the new book. Eighteen in the new book was the one piece of classical music which we bought when we got the uniforms. ”

“ I got up and sorter stretched, when John Wolfard, lighting a new cigar, said, “It’s enterprise that you boys lack, the town’s all right.”
I went into the back part of the store where they kept the bacon and a certain portion of the eggs that are brought to a general store, and the cooking butter. Old Bob was peeking around the chair leg when I said “Rats,” and in a second he came grunting through the door, trying as best he could, for a dog that had to walk sideways, to be spry. I went to lift up a big empty coffee sack and old Bob dove into it hunting some rats that weren’t there. ”

“ The outside guard, who was one of Uncle Jake McClaine’s hired men, came, and I asked him if there was anything to be afraid of. He said he couldn’t tell me; that it was against the rules. I noticed he had cloves on his breath. He said, “Get ready; they may call for us any minute.” I asked him if I had mussed my hair when I put my regalia on, and he said I had, slightly, and he fixed it, and he gave me some perfume to put on my handkerchief and my coat lapel. Presently a rap came at the door, and a small peep hole opened, and a voice came in bass, “Who’s there?” ”