OCR Text |
Show 206 BY PATH AND TKAIL. I could appeal for an introduction to any one in the camp. The tents are of cotton or ship canvas, with broad floors of " rammed " earth, or simply rugs laid upon the dry sand. They are of varying sizes, furnished and orna mented according to the means or tastes of the occu pants. Most of them are divided into kitchen, living and sleeping apartments. In some, the gloom of the " liv ing " room was relieved by the bright colors of a few Navajo blankets or Mohave rugs. In others were photo graphs of the dear ones at home, little framed titbits of western scenery, illustrated souvenir cards from Euro pean and eastern friends and caged California road-runners or Arizona mocking birds. Here also were earthenware jars called " ollas" holding water which cools by evaporation, banjos,' zithers and guitars, lying on the table or suspended from the sides of the tents. Now and then you entered an apartment where an accumula tion of Papago bows and arrows, obsidian tipped lances, Apache quivers and Moqui stone hatchets advertise the archaeological taste of the proprietor. Occasionally I entered a tent where the limited means of the owner or renter allowed him or her few luxuries. To be poor is not a disgrace nor ought it to be a humiliation, but there are times and places when to be poor I do not' say pov erty is very trying to the human soul and galling to the independent mind. Without money and a liberal supply of it no consumptive should come here. In the tent of the young man or woman of limited resources was a single cot, or perhaps two, an ordinary chair and a '* rocker, " a trunk, a small pine wash stand, an oil stove, a looking- glass and maybe a few books and magazines. Now and then the purest and gentlest of breezes merrily tossed the flaps and flies of the tent, and a harmless and |