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WINDOLOGY
(Washington)
Tom's note:
This is the finished version of the rough draft of
Windology.
Herbert Harris
Washington
WINDOLOGY
Well, that was the longest winter I spent in the mountains. Jefferson
County it was. Wouldn't have been so bad if we didn't have to tunnel
through the drifts to the peak to get our bearings. 'S it was, come
Monday, regular as a clock, there we would be, in the edge of the wind,
digging away. Funny thing that. Made us laugh, though we were so
miserable. Cold enough to freeze the marrow in the bone, yet we were
burning up, specially our faces. But only in certain places. At the proper
angle, she was a right smart gale. But it wasn't the wind that bothered us
much. Matter of fact, that's what we were after -- wind.
No, it wasn't the wind. It was them pesky wood ticks. Sure misery, they
are. First off, you had to find them; then, dig 'em out. Nicked our axes
plumb to hell. We honed them till there was nothing left of our hones.
Wore 'em to slivers. Couldn't shave then. See?
That was all virgin country. Fertile soil. Things just shot up. Same with
our whiskers. And when our hones gave out . . . Got so, a fellow couldn't
even scratch. Not to do any good, that is. Tangle got so thick. You
couldn't see the swellings on our faces, but you knew they were there,
a-burning away . . . just burning and burning. . . .
We had one lad, smart as they came. Hailed from Omaha, Nebraska. "Looka,
here," he said. "Where I came from, folk have an old Indian custom."
"And what might that be," said I.
"Well," he said, "when whiskers in Omaha get to be real unmanageable, the
menfolk stick their faces round a street corner and let the northers burn
'em off. 'Course, the Indians had an easier time than white folks. They
just went out a piece from camp, caught the edge of a norther and let it
singe off their whiskers merely by turning about to accomodate the blade,
as it were. Now things are different back home. More houses than people;
more street corners than a wind knows what to do with. If you went a
complete singe, you got to catch the norther at the right angle. Well,
gents, I heard tell some men, special the older ones, get plumb wore out
chasing from one corner to another to get a proper singeing."
"Well, that's so," I said. 'It ain't in Nebraska only people get their
whiskers singed off by the northers. My dad used to get a pretty good
shave in Chicago, just by standing on the shore of a lake there. What's on
your mind, boy?"
"I was thinking," he said, "suppose now we gets the North Wind to do 'at
little chore for us."
Well, that got us. Here we were, getting feverisher and feverisher every
minute with all that poison from the woodticks 'cause we had no hones to
sharpen our axes with and cut through the underbrush and get at 'em. And
if that North Wind would do that little job for us, why, we figured, we
had no call not to take advantage of his offer, in a manner of speaking.
That's where all the researching in the science of Windology we had been
doing would come in right handy, I thought. So we headed for the peak of
Mount Olympus. You'd never believe what that North Wind could do when he
set himself to raise hell. Once he tore up a whole mountainside. But that
was before my time, long before even Omaha, Nebraska, was settled, long
before any Indian ever thought of getting a free singe, I guess.
Well, so we tunnels our way to the peak. On the summit, it blows so hard
we have to lash ourselves to a boulder to keep from being blown away.
"Take it easy, gents,," yells the Nebraskan. "Its hitting straight on,
wait till it starts climbing to lift its tail over the peak."
So we huddles there watching old North Wind lifting his tail over the
peak. Most fearsome sight you ever saw. To get that peak he had to circle
and circle, easing up to the stars, now backing a bit to let the tail
clear a ledge, now flicking it to straighten it out. That tail must have
been as long as from here to Alaska. It was bright up there on the peak.
If you looked close, you could see a million nicks in that tail.
"That's where the Omahaans had rasped it," said the Nebraskan in a kind of
an awe. "My God! Never knew bristles could be so tough!"
Well, when it got so cold we couldn't stand it any more, we took a chance
sticking our faces over the boulder to get our whiskers singed. Nearly
took our heads off, I can tell you. Blowed particularly bad when he was
swishing his tail. And the cold froze the woodticks stiff.
But as I was saying, it was virgin country then, everything grew
overnight. Next morning, sure enough, our whiskers were an inch long. And
a week later they were a foot long. And then woodticks had thawed out and
were making up for lost time. Well, we kept singeing them. But it was hard
work, I can tell you.
One night, when we got to the peak, there was this Nebraskan putting the
finishing touches to the finest board walk you ever did see. We hadn't
missed 'im because we were each so miserable with all that woodtick poison
in us, we couldn't see straight. But there he was, hammering away at the
braces, pulling and hauling to test the strength of his boardwalk. Ran it
clear around the peak, with cable rails, a-curving in and out like them
derbies they make for the kids in playlands.
We were so astounded, we just stood
there. Up north we could hear Old North Wind commencing on his nightly
rounds. Was due to hit the peak any moment. 'Cause on straight ground
North Wind was faster than greased lightning. Well, the Nebraskan threw
off his clothes -- everything but his wool socks, weighted 'em down with a
boulder and got on his board walk. Maybe I should call it a balcony. If
you saw one side -- or curve, I should say, it looked just like a wooden
platform sticking from a rock tower. Them curves were built according to
the laws of Higher Windology. Perfect. Just an eighteenth of an inch into
the known inner stream -- path, that is -- of North Wind's tail. It had to
be so. If you built that platform a seventeenth of an inch out, the edge
would take your skin off; on the other hand, if you'd get no better than a
singe you would have to do it over again next week.
Well, sir, that wind was coming a-whooping. We lashed ourselves to a
boulder. I saw the Nebraskan fasten his High Rigger's belt to the cable
railing just in time. The blow was at first terrific. Then Northwind
started to spiral to the stars, to lift his tail over the peak. We heard a
funny sputtering sound. Sure enough, when we looked over the boulder,
there was sparks flying just above the cable rail. The Nebraskan was so
coated with frost he looked a frozen ghost. A walking ghost. Cause he was
moving around, now one way now the other, leaning a bit into the edge,
then jumping back, like it was getting too hot. From time to time he would
lean back hard against the cliff to shatter the frost off him, and then
you could see bits of him as clean and pink as if he'd been just
sandpapered.
After a while it got warmer. Felt like heat was coming from the wind's
tail. We got up on the boardwalk and started to undress, figuring that as
soon as the Nebraskan had got his shave, another one of us would step up
and the rest wait in line for their turn.
The Nebraskan waved us away. Sweat was pouring from him and he was red all
over like a beet. Clean shaved! Everywhere! Even under the arm pits!
Then came the most goshawful scream you ever did hear. Sounded like the
world was being torn apart in one rip. The North Wind's tail dropped so
fast, the head was in sight before you could yell "Timber." Blood ran from
the cable rail about the board walk and splashed all over the planking.
Down below, in the canyon, the snow was turning red. We looked to the
east. Narry a sign of the dawn. It was blood that was turning the canyon
crimson. The North Wind was bleeding from all those woodticks that had dug
into it as soon as its cutting edge had warmed up on the Nebraskan's
beard. That's why. Those ticks dug in so deep they gave the wind a fever.
Only he's a sluggish creature, is the North Wind. That's why it took him
so long to realize what was happening to him. That wind is so long it
takes hours for its nervous system to click. But once it does . . . .
Well, sir, the Nebraskan got the cleanest shave all over any man could
want. The best part was, his hair never grew again. Wind froze the roots.
Now if I had thought of rigging up that platform, I might be the cleanest
permanent shaved man in the State of Washington now.
Text from: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection
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