Document text
Herbert Harris
Washington
WINDOLOGY
Ne11,11wilmemiliMedelermalseated..144.4.4afiegm "hat 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.
InenninaqAme213L---Alan. But only in certain places. At the proper
angle, she was a right smart gale. But it wasn't the wind that bothered us
mach. Matter of fact, that's what we were after wind. lipe-oese4reieeed
s4mommat.
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.
h.
Same with our whiskers. And when our ho$es gave out 'Mote-InvelmR--P-oto+44-tmt
A
of--4120:10:3=1±1±1=3=e2=1±cenr=±97s. 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....
4e had one led, smart as they came. Hailed from Omaha, Nebraska.
I'Looka, here," he said. "Where I come from, folk have an old Indian custom."
Windology 2
*CAnd what might that be," said 14 jitat=tC=etjj=132==a2itie===nt
111===r6V
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 'am 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 want a com-
plete 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 tomt a proper singeing."
wr-Vell, that's so,' I said. 'It allt in Nebraska only people gets
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?",
*—TI 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 feverieher 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 'am. And
if that North Wind would do that little job for us, why, we figured, we had
no call not to take advantage of/is offer, in a manner of speaking. That's
where all the researching in the science of Windology we had been doing would
cone in right handy, I thought. So we headed for the peak/ e Movnt C)!yorris.
Janda re6YET144
Windology 3
ThMtralmgclitan. You'd never believe at
'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. "Is hitting straight
on, welt 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 tails 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. Ilty God: Never knew bristLes could be so tough:*
'Regular hsrbsit wire. 5'IL1 the td. Mau I in 11
ested he said. COW'S@
Nort
SaV
"Nothing ilk
at, Mac: I am. Just one little quo
Wind can tear up mountain
s why couldn'
itself all that work climbing to
"I didn't say it can to
you quit inter
"RI
z
on: If your
shave off a peak and
mountainsides," said
if you wanna learn something.*
"I said it did.
waid the Kid. "Narry another peep out of me. Go right ahead,
Windology
4
Well,q=saternmelETRfthen it got so cold we couldn't stand it anymore,
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
Ahcl4ri 4kevoitcJ
bad when he was swishing his tail. -wo-airer-why-ne-icept
swiekt-ing--
mttef-sce=lnainew--..
04.rimpA Arr,
-o glee, we fell asieep,Avo
1But 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, =MA
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
touckeS
the finishing evettlpiree 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 =rye, I should
Windology 5
say, it looked just like a wooden platform sticking from a rock toyer. Them
curves were built according to the laws of Higher Windology. Perfect. Mast
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
yotc,
you'd get no better than a singe lea mould have to do it over again e next
A
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 rail-
ing 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 sputter-
ing 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 warner. 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 lit 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 diaveda Everywhere: Even under the arm nits1
Then cane the most goshawful scream you ever did hear. Sounded like the
world was being torn apart in one rip. The North Winds tail dropped so fast,
the head was in sight before you could yell niMber." Blood ran from the cable
Windology 6
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.'
1hyP 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,•••11
Ykle114;5%,(),F
"I'Vu:221i=i114" --"lzac AlRe Nebraskan got the cleanest shave all
over any man could want. The best part was, his hear 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.'