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"If that's Eastern sarcasm," said Jenks, "it's beyond me."
"No, Mr. Jenks," I answered. "In your presence sarcasm drops dead. I think you'll prosper in politics."
But there I was wrong. There is some natural justice in these events, though I wish there were more. The jury, it is true, soon seemed oddly prosperous, as Stirling wrote me afterwards. They painted their houses; two of them, who had generally walked before, now had wagons; and in so many of their gardens and small ranches did the plants and fruits increase that, as Stirling put it, they had evidently sowed their dollars. But upon Jenks Territorial displeasure did descend. He had stayed away too much from Was.h.i.+ngton. A pamphlet appeared with the t.i.tle, "What Luke Jenks Has Done for Arizona." Inside were twenty blank pages, and he failed of re-election.
Furthermore, the government retaliated upon this district by abandoning Camp Thomas and Lowell Barracks, those important sources of revenue for the neighborhood. The brief boom did not help Tucson very long, and left it poorer than ever.
At the station I saw Mrs. Sproud and black curly, neither speaking to the other. It was plain that he had utterly done with her, and that she was too proud even to look at him. She went West, and he as far east as Willc.o.x. Neither one have I ever seen again.
But I have the photograph, and I sometimes wonder what has happened to black curly. Arizona is still a Territory; and when I think of the Gila Valley and of the Boy Orator, I recall Bishop Meak.u.m's remark about our statesmen at Was.h.i.+ngton: "You can divide them birds in two lots--those who know better, and those who don't. D'you follow me?"
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