st week.
Any yellow-heads you'll see in the valley'll answer to the name of
Meakum as a rule, and the other type's curly black like this little
driver specimen."

"How interesting there should be only two varieties of Meakum!" said I.

"Yes, it's interesting. Of course the whole fifty-seven don't class up
yellow or black curly, but if you could take account of stock you'd find
the big half of 'em do. Mothers don't seem to have influenced the type
appreciably. His eight families, successive and simultaneous, cover a
period of forty-three years, and yellow and black keeps turning up right
along. Scientifically, the suppression of Mormonism is a loss to the
student of heredity. Some of the children are dead. Get killed now and
then, and die too--die from sickness. But you'll easily notice Meakums
as you go up the valley. Old man sees all get good jobs as soon as
they're old enough. Places 'em on the railroad, places 'em in town, all
over the lot. Some don't stay; you couldn't expect the whole fifty-seven
to be steady; but he starts 'em all fair. We have six in Tucson now, or
five, maybe. Old man's a good father."

"They're not all boys?"

"Certainly not; but more than half are."

"And you say he can't write?"

"Or read, except print, and he has to spell out that."

"But, my goodness, he's postmaster!"

"What's that got to do with it? Young Meakums all read like anything. He
don't do any drudgery."

"Well, you wouldn't catch me signing any contracts I couldn't read."

"Do you think you'd catch anybody reading a contract wrong to old
Meakum? Oh, momma! Why, he's king round here. Fixes the county elections
and the price of tomatoes. Do you suppose any Tucson jury'll convict any
of his Mormons if he says nay? No, sir! It's been tried. Why, that man
ought to be in Congress."

"If he's like that I don't consider him desirable," said I.

"Yes, he is desirable," said my friend, roughly. "Smart, can't be
fooled, and looks after his people's interests. I'd like to know if that
don't fill the bill?"

"If he defeats justice--"

"Oh, rats!" This interruption made me regret his earlier manner, and I
was sorry the polish had rubbed through so quickly and brought us to a
too precipitate familiarity. "We're Western out here," he continued,
"and we're practical. When we want a thing, we go after it. Bishop
Meakum worked his way down here from Utah through desert and starvation,
mostly afoot, for a thousand miles, and his f