Miss Nobody Faces the West
Walker, Helen
346 THE COMMONWEAL August ii, 1926 MISS NOBODY FACES THE WEST By...
...It was with difficulty when the latWho shall chronicle the valiant efforts made by ter was announced that Miss Nobody refrained from the dudes to overcome their eastern riding manners, asking where the bulldog was...
...The Welsh are classed so far as religious life is concerned, and that "in order to as Celtic...
...will tell him that Archbishop Kedroffsky of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in New York is not recognized as such by COMMUNICATIONS faithful Orthodox Russians, who continue in their allegiance to Metropolitan Plato whom he dispossessed...
...for I cartridges resounded, and firecrackers cracked...
...Pic- responsibility if, in his heart, he suspects in addition tures, and emblems, and mementoes of the famous to the good-natured welcome, a lofty toleration 1) Of frontiersman were everywhere...
...Crowds of people, motors, and "Come, come," Miss Nobody remonstrated, "conhorses thronged the streets-cowboys and cowgirls in fess that you would have liked to have been one of brilliant shirts and bandanas, westerners, easterners, those glorious, bucking horses in the arena, with thouold and young-Indians in full regalia...
...Once which was to drive her several miles through the she thought she caught him laughing at her rather unmountains to one of the many ranches in that country successful simulation of a cowboy scarf-but then that set aside in summer for the delectation of the "dude" may only have been her sensitiveness...
...Miss Nobody went echoes of the laughter that in New York had greeted out to the corral to caution Cherokee about the perils her decision to go West, sounded in her ears one of Cody...
...learned on an English saddle...
...because if we examine his report we find that in the article, The Great Simplicity of Jefferson, in The it is a faithful relation of what he saw and nothing else...
...prefer the sane and the quiet...
...According to genealogists he was by thanks to the Bolsheviks, utter confusion now rules in Russia extraction both Welsh and Norman...
...failed to button on dismounting...
...And since Mr...
...remove any lingering doubt that might remain, some- Miss Nobody felt extremely humble, and hence she what aloof from the town and framed against a back- requested at once that a horse with conservative ideas ground of rugged mountain and blue sky, was the and staid manners be assigned her for the duration of equestrian statue of Colonel William Cody himself, her visit...
...The Saxon Chronicle calls them the very fact that Vedensky is a married secular priest-apart Frenchman and that is what they called themselves...
...Vedenskyites, about whose head Pere d'Herbigny writes: "Why," he went on, "don't you take advantage of "Vedensky's weakness consists in having consecrated a number your opportunity and remain in this glorious country...
...As the exhausted dudes drove out of Cody, received a false start when her first letter from home they passed "Woolfville," an entertainment place was addressed, not River Ranch, but "River Farm...
...grounds, longing, as one put it, for a sanitarium in- "Yes," said Cherokee, waxing enthusiastic (and, stead...
...There were times when she felt secretly in sympaNow the raison d'etre of a dude ranch is, obviously, thy with the dudine (lady dude) whose remark, made the dudes...
...town of Buffalo Bill...
...Cherokee proved to be conservative spectacle that had thrilled millions of easterners in in his friendships as well as in his manners...
...L. Maynard Gray [The Commonweal, July the spirit pervading the office at IIO West Fortieth Street...
...but not least, on the horses for their pleasure and Nevertheless, in spite of (or perhaps because of) instruction...
...that very report of the distinguished ;churchman, Pere TO the Editor:-"Jefferson's Saxon soul" is a phrase used d'Herbigny...
...The arena, already full of plunging horses, his rider suspected in all affection, a bit bromidic) was lined with eager spectators, and Indian squaws and "I don't understand why you people live in the East, their children interspersed the crowd...
...and there are the caviar sandwiches, and"- plied their efforts to destroy in general religion among the But Cherokee had flung his head disdainfully in the Russian people, as a proof of which we have the famous sayair, and was walking away, murmuring (or so Miss ing of Lenin engraved over the doorway of one of our most Nobody thought) famous shrines: "Religion is the opium of the masses...
...Having perceived their helpless position this discouraging attitude, our heroine heard and in the scheme of things, ego departs, and they become heeded the call of the West...
...where dancing and gambling (alas, for the traditional Oh, humiliation, and indelible stamp of the East West-only with paper money...
...It was evi-the visitor from the East...
...Cow- doubt if there was one, then, who had a better time boy "y-y-yip-ees" rent the air, and Cody on that day than I. I won't conceal from you that I was, to borreminded one of a movie seen long ago, picturing a row a seemingly paradoxical expression, a gay dog...
...The Wyoming sands applauding you !" sun beat down on a Cody flaming with color...
...of married priests...
...Spectators flock from "Indeed...
...she replied, trying not to notice the imfar and near, and the town is alive with color, excite- plied criticism...
...But now I much read: "They called it Calm City-but it wasn't...
...mild-mannered sorrel of no little beauty and dignity, This then, was the Wild West-for hadn't the fell to her lot...
...Learning this, Miss Nobody up before a group of attractive log buildings...
...dent with the Fourth of July...
...the true Normans had Scandinavian great-greatbetter wage war, the various rival orthodoxies vie with each grandfathers, but their corresponding grandmothers, with all other in creating new bishops...
...Over its gates hung this cheering inhad innocently brought home five of the domes- scription : "This is Woolfville, and it's our night to tic variety, shot while peacefully resting on a pond, howl...
...Miss Nobody was glad that she felt no predilection After it all, ranch life seemed unutterably peacefor shooting-though sometimes in the presence of ful...
...And around all, towered the nobility of the be off-or rather, she would...
...Now you seem spiritual services...
...We have also seen the "Thanks," murmured Miss Nobody...
...Commonweal of July 14...
...And surely ligious life of the people of that country, with the one excepyou are not one of those who believe that `clothes tion of our American Revolution, which proceeded from the make the man.' The old proverb," she went on with highest moral motives, and which always remained free from more confidence, "merely says, `boys will be boys'- every excess of the kind that marked the French Terror, and not `boys will be boys in the West, and something else the Russian one...
...They seem very much the same, it has taken place, has always had a sad influence on the reexcept for their hats, shirts, and accents...
...The trot had to be The last race run, the last steer thrown, and-but entirely renegotiated, for the only sort of posting no, not the last gun fired-for the festivities were to tolerated in the West is that of a letter...
...On seem to remember what I had really written...
...Only politicians and propagandists-not scholars Pere d'Herbigny never says that it would...
...Without a doubt, geoisie, though it was rumored about the corral that he he must have been...
...controversy with him on the subject of his most one-sided remarks, but I wish to state that they do not strike at the root THE GREAT SIMPLICITY OF JEFFERSON of my assertions, which, on the contrary, I find confirmed in San Diego, Calif...
...And be- me to say that the Bolsheviks have done away with monassides, in the East, we haven't so many spiders and teries, suppressed and murdered bishops and priests, and apmoths...
...yelling and firing off giant firecrackers under the noses "I wonder what they are in the East," Miss No348 THE COMMONWEAL August 11, 1926 body remarked...
...In proportache, and big hat) were depicted on all sides...
...7] of my article, Russia Loses Her Monasteries, in The Commonweal of June 16...
...The dudes were assured that it "Yes," he continued, "the experienced always rewas not a thing to be missed, so they set off for the main here during that racket in town...
...of a member of the Russian Orthodox Church to which I "Because," whispered Miss Nobody, so close to his belong, a fact which gives me the same right to reject the new Russian "Living Church" as well as the doctrine of the ear that it tickled her as he flicked it, "because Vedenskyites, as the French people during the bloody years of Cherokee, if you really want to know-even a nobody their great Revolution had to reject the preachings and miniscan be a dude-in fact, I think you will agree that the trations of the "Pretres Assermentes" recognized by the then terms are somewhat synonymous-whereas I doubt if French government...
...To tion to their knowledge, does their humility vary...
...from his political antecedents about which I do not want to Had Jefferson been English, it would still be reckless to concern myself now-would, in the eyes of every Orthodox, characterize him as Saxon, for, surely, the few keel-loads of whether belonging to the Russian branch of that community, fifth-century Saxons were absorbed and indistinguishable by the or to the Greek one, make him ineligible for a bishopric, and eighteenth...
...ment, and business...
...If he were impartial he would seek it everyT O the Editor:-I have read with great interest the critiwhere, whereas now his letter appears to have been written in cism of Mr...
...The ful that breeches had supplanted the once favored contestants were, to put it mildly, colorful, and "divided-skirt," for there was a story of another the old parody of that literary hero, who must, since dudine who had come to the ranch, years before, he "came out of the West," have been a westerner equipped with just such a criminal garment...
...Gray in his zeal does not "Oh, yes, they shall," she called after him...
...to which I referred in my article...
...And I will further say that in my article the Vedenskyites " `Oh, East is East, and West is West, were never once mentioned, and that I only referred to the And never the twain shall meet.' " Bolshevik "Living Church...
...dent that Cherokee believed in the dignity of leisure...
...Even to country folk anent the cities...
...saw the little Indian children, silent and immovable, Cherokee merely looked his scorn as he continued watching the spectacle, while several small boys, off- "This is the only place to live-out here in the spring of the conquering race, straddled the seats, West where men are men...
...and Cody, West to anyone who has come out of the East, may Wyoming, was achieved...
...346 THE COMMONWEAL August ii, 1926 MISS NOBODY FACES THE WEST By HELEN WALKER S TRANGER things, to repeat the well-worn of great stretches of earth, sky in immensity, and the phrase, have happened...
...Roemer...
...I will not enter into any long CATHERINE RADZIWILL...
...Percareered and bucked in the midst of traffic-blank haps in my young days-my buffalo days-yes...
...savagery of the red man in contrast to the civilization "You are wrong," she deferred timidly, "we have of the white, had to be completely rearranged when one the Pennsylvania Station and the Yankee Stadium...
...Whereupon, "Cherokee," a pleasant and done by Mrs...
...In Russia we have seen the "Living Church" sensible enough-for an effete easterner...
...Three days of travel, as little children waiting to be led...
...you're wasting your breath...
...Of that ride, two things might be said-the glorious He was reputed to be of excellent blood, and it was multi-colored hills, the tumbling, flashing streams, obvious that none of his forefathers had ever been in outsoared all her expectations...
...western town being "shot up," the caption of which Then such things appealed to me...
...while the road over trade...
...It was also obvious that he deemed hurrying which the motor drove justified all of Buffalo Bill's only becoming to the industrial classes and the bourclaims to the title of "rough-rider...
...Unfortunately, every revolution, no matter in what country EDWARD H. WHELAN...
...With this conviction firmly planted in pending on whether or not the latest dude talked and her mind, Miss Nobody clambered into the motor behaved as though she knew the right people...
...Five minutes after alight- once have indicated scorn, it now only carries with it ing from the train, one was indubitably convinced that a good-natured welcome (and it is the dude's own this was the town established by Buffalo Bill...
...Harry Payne Whitney of New York...
...Ideas of the where you have no big, open spaces...
...One was sure that they did...
...And regard- be continued far into the night, the stampede came ing letters, Miss Nobody felt that she had, indeed, to an end...
...He did Madison Square Garden, the gay citizens of Paris, not "take up" with strangers at once, and though polite, the solemn burghers of Germany, and the crowds of indicated plainly that real intimacies were not to be the Roman Colosseum, been termed Buffalo Bill's Wild forced, and could only come about in due time, deWest Show...
...And again I a dude ranch...
...Down was somewhat concerned when on his back, lest he a road the traveler glimpsed the saddle-house and should scent on the breeze a lone and last, stray, recorral where seventy or more horses waited to be maining buffalo-in which case she feared they would ridden...
...were to wear the Hearing a tale of a dude who, in quest of wild duck, night away...
...Where would Thomas Jefferson On the contrary, he confirms what I had asserted, namely, that, acquire a Saxon soul...
...These sundry to how her steed had gone, was: "Every time he was visitors from the East, drawn westward by the call coming up, I was coming down 1" August 11, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 347 When one pondered on this truism, one was thank- of nervous visitors and temperamental horses...
...These are Pere d'Herbigny's their other lines of ancestry, were French, Rollo having brought words, not mine...
...Through the melee went the dudes to the stampede "It is lovely here," Miss Nobody agreed...
...and yet they are, far and away, a pitiably on returning from a ride, in answer to a question as unimportant part of that institution...
...mountains-ever-changing...
...RUSSIA LOSES HER MONASTERIES Gray seems to desire getting first-hand evidence, why does not New York, N. Y. he mention as a person capable of giving it to us this venerable metropolitan...
...Bill with the buffaloes, course, there are dudes and dudes-those who know Bill without the buffaloes, the buffaloes without Bill the West well-those who know the West a little(but never Bill without his long hair, drooping mous- and those who know the West not at all...
...and facts impossible to contradict authorize one could become a successful westerner...
...In France we have seen what was called the "Pretres Assermentes," who were spurned by all true and in the East.' " good Catholics, to the extent that even when they were being "That's all beside the point," objected Cherokee led to the scaffold, they refused to avail themselves of their as he flicked a fly from his back...
...no women to Neustria...
...night as the conviction came, prompted by a smart "Stuff and nonsense," said he, shaking his wise head, on the neck, that she had been bitten by a moth...
...while the so-called Normans that folIn so far as the Vedenskyites are concerned, I never men- lowed after Duke William into England "flocked from every tioned them at all in my article, and I will remark here that part of Gaul...
...It was after a fashion, came frequently to mind: "Young said to have possessed innumerable harsh bone but- Lochinvar has got on a new vest-green is the border, tons down the back (which no lady in those days and red is the rest...
...refer to the English as Saxons or Anglo-Saxons nowadays...
...Horses "By green grass, no l" retorted Cherokee...
...Yet when Miss No- peace that only the mountains can give, find themselves body decided to spend a few weeks on a dude transplanted to a new and unfamiliar country, and...
...Reason began to be apparent in the warning great, black spiders, she longed for a gun...
...But it was not long before a had been, in his youth, most fleet of foot, and had once lovely valley came into view, and the motor drew chased down a buffalo...
...Why don't you cease being a mere dude, and become My article was written entirely from the point of view a real westerner...
...Don't you know that Now Cody has, as a city, one annual burst of glory, the stampede is only for the young and foolish-and the Cody Stampede-a three-day celebration coinci- the dudes...
...After a canter, The program progressed merrily from wild steerthis equestrienne would be heard calling plaintively riding, cowboy, cowgirl, Roman standing and Indian to the wrangler who was leading the party: "Oh, races, to wild cow-milking, calf-roping, saddle-bucking please help me-I'm riding on my buttons 1" and bulldogging...
...Timidly, they inthe last through a West that looked startlingly like quire why they are called dudes, and just how much that depicted in the movies, crossing a portion of the of an insult it is-meeting the gentle reassurance that Bad Lands (would they really have been bad if sub- though the term, applied everywhere throughout the jected to the right influences when young...
...ranch in Wyoming, it is to be feared that a certain utterly dependent on the executives, the "dude wrangderisive element colored the wonderment of her closer lers" (those who show where the trails lie) and last, intimates...
Vol. 4 • August 1926 • No. 14
