by Agnes Morley Cleveland, Edward Borein (Illustrator)
Paperback (October 1977)
Univ of Nebraska Pr; ISBN: 0803258682.
An unusual view of ranch life in the San Mateo Mountains, New Mexico in the early 1900s. Presented by a well written and humourous female author. They say truth is stranger than fiction, and in this case it certainly is.
Into which of these categories Al Clemens fell it would be impossible to say. Anyway, Al Clemens was anything but a frontiersman. he claimed a more or less close connection with the Clemens family of which Mark Twain is the shining member. He bought a ranch on the south rim of the San Augustine Plains in a range of mountains we call the San Mateos, one of the several San Mateo ranges in New Mexico, and stocked it with horses, a perfectly plausible reason for ranching inasmuch as a fresh supply of cow ponies was in steady demand. Had Al Clemens known anything about cow ponies his adventure might have been a success, but an Eastern upbringing had not prepared him for the hole of a horse breeer in that particular area. It was not too long before hundreds of head of A L horses which roamed the plains had become an obvious liability to him rather than an asset. By this time, Clemens had developed traces of eccentricity which had become legendary.
Preposterous is the word which comes most readily to my mind when three-quarters of a century later I think back upon the conditions under which we lived at that time. To illustrate this fact there was the occasion of Al Clemens and Thanksgiving dinner.
One day I literally ran into Al on a sidewalk in Magdalena when the sand was blowing so thickly that one could not see two feet ahead of him. He removed his hat with a courteous bow and said, "Miss Morley, I am delighted to meet you. I think I know what this country needs". "A little less wind," I suggested, but he did not think it was time for facetiousness and he said, "No, it needs a stricter observance of civilized conventions." Then he went on to develop the theme that national holidays were often lost sight of "even Christmas was occasionally overlooked" because somebody had been without communication with any source that could identify the day. He went on to say that Thanksgiving would be the most patriotic holiday and he had resolved to give a Thanksgiving dinner at his ranch and would I come.
I promised that big "if" that invariably accompanied any acceptance for an engagement even two days ahead "if" I could find the horses, "if" the buggy hadn't broken down, " if "," if "," if ".
He then asked my suggestions for Thanksgiving dinner. We happened to be standing in front of what was then called Becker-Mac's General Merchandise Store, and I suggested some canned plum pudding, an item that a store of that sort could well carry inasmuch as the climate did not particularly affect the contents. Canned milk would sometimes be hard and dry, as also would other groceries whicheven their tin coat could not sufficiently protect in our very arid region. We parted and the "ifs" triumphed.
I was not able to attend their dinner but I heard an accurate report about it from several of the cowboys who had done so.
Al Clemens had bought six cans of Cross & Blackwell's canned, or I presume they would have called it Tinned, English plum pudding, supplemented by nuts, raisins, hard candy and such imperishable food products. His ranch cook was a typical old round-up cook can well believe what his reaction was when Clemens asked if he knew how to deal with canned plum pudding. The cook snorted disdainfully and said he reckoned as to how he could handle any chuck that was given to him to prepare and with some confusion Al Clemens retired and left the matter of serving the plum pudding to the cook. He dropped them into an open cauldron of boiling water on the kitchen stove and went about preparing the rest of the dinner: large slabs of beefsteak, potatoes boiled with their jacket on, canned corn and green chile.
The guests, six or eight cowpunchers, assembled in the kitchen which served also as dining room, and were just prepared to seat themselves when the first explosion occurred. Steam had built up inside the cans, which had not been punctured to permit it to escape, and plum pudding was flung against the ceiling, over the walls, and down on the table. Six concussions in quick succession sent the guests out of doors falling over one another as they went, the cook in the lead and Al Clemens, the host, bringing up the rear. When it was certain that there were no more cans left in the cauldron of boiling water on the stove, they came back in cautiosly and beheld a Thanksgiving dinner well seasoned with plum pudding.
Al Clemens told me the story ruefully, but insisted that at least he had made an effort to bring a better public spirt into the section, which certainly could have profited by it.
Agnes Morley Cleveland, author of NO LIFE FOR A LADY Back to top of page