Where the Organ Pipes Grow

Lonesome Road in Lonesome Valley

A few thoughts inspired by our cover-page this month of a study of Lonesome Valley, Arizona, by Norman Rhoads Garrett, F. R. P. S.

The lonesome, lonely road drifts into the hills. It twists and turns and winds its way, easily and quietly along, to meet a gate here, to miss a hill there.

A truck, driven by a rancher in the hills, jogs along the road, raising the dust which settles on the grass beside the road, whitening the grass. A boy rides down the road in the morning, headed for school, his horse leaving tracks in the road, which is damp from the night's dew. His whistle and the sound of the hooves on the road break the silence of the valley. He'll be returning again in the afternoon, whistling the same tune, happy with his valley and his horse.

On a Saturday morning another truck will come out of the hills, over the road to town. A rancher's wife is going shopping, watching the road without seeing it, thinking of things to buy for the week, wondering about ribbons and yard goods and a new oil cloth for the kitchen table. Later that evening she will return from town over the dusty road, wondering whether the boys fed the chickens, her face showing some of the excitement of her shopping. A competent figure, serene and secure in her little world.

And still later that evening another car will come along, almost too fast for the road, and it will be a rickety car full of cowboys going to town on a Saturday night, their faces shining from too close shaving, from too severe scrubbing. The driver of the car and the laughing passengers ramble along, undisturbed by the peril of the fast driving, and why worry anyway when you know the road by heart and it's Saturday night and pay day.

In the spring and in the fall cattle will be driven down the road, and clouds of dust will mark their passing. The dust will be hot and white as it rises in the sunshine.

When summer comes, dark clouds will bank high in the hills along the road and then the rains will come, turning the dust into mud and where the ruts are in the road the rain will start little streams, which dig gulleys in the road that will have to be filled later. After the rains go the land is clean and fresh-smelling, and there will be no dust in the road. The road will dry out and bake hard in the sun and the dust will be washed off the grass by the road.

A road-runner will cross the road in the afternoon and at night the road, clear in the moonlight, will feel the padded footsteps of a coyote, a shadow in the night. And sometimes a gray figure will fade across the road, traveling fast and far, and the gray figure will be a lobo.

There are many lonely roads in America like the road in Lonesome Valley. The cavalcade of America took place on such roads, and to a large part of America today such lonely roads play an important part. Your great highways are for the cities, to join cities, and to join states. The roads like the road through Lonesome Valley, Arizona, are for the people away from the cities, for the people who live back in the hills, and who are, too, such a great and important part of America. Over such a road Tom and Nance Lincoln and their young son, Abe, traveled not so very long ago. R. C.