A Community of Humorists

A Community of Humorists by Samuel M. Crothers

Samuel M. Crothers portrays a Nevada mining town in which humor becomes a public habit and a form of social wisdom. Though dusty, barren, smoky, and improvised, the town’s citizens cherish it with an acquired and whimsical affection. They treat its smelter fumes as healthful, its oversized civic institutions as an entertaining game, and its temporary character as if it were permanence. Churches, saloons, gambling houses, newspapers, railroads, offices, and civic dignities all become material for cooperative make-believe. The community’s central figure is “The Honest Miner,” a nomadic pioneer accustomed to booms, failures, deserted camps, sudden wealth, and fresh excitements. He regards Experience not as a teacher but as a chum who plays practical jokes. His losses are not tragic and his successes are not enduring; after fortune deserts him, he simply returns to his pick and shovel, confident that he may yet outwit her. Mining-country names such as Last Chance Gulch, Tombstone, and the Total Wreck Mine express this habit of ironic acceptance. In this society, the removal of conventional restraint lets every sort of person become a character. Old Multitude, the bull-whacker, gains public attention when he ceremonially leads his enormous team away, directing magnificent curses at each ox. Old Tansy, perpetually poised between sobriety and drunkenness, is valued for his steadfast church attendance and responds approvingly to a terrifying sermon on damnation. Four-Eyed Nick, a solitary miner in goggles, becomes the town’s leading citizen when he strikes pay ore and decides to marry. He invites everyone, and the whole town—officials, clergy, lawyers, gamblers, miners, and saloon-keepers—travels over the mountain road to honor him. The citizens especially enjoy elevating unexpected persons to public importance. An elderly Pennsylvania farmer becomes “Honest John” and then the “Grand Old Man.” Elected to office, he imposes strict economy and becomes unwelcome to politicians. He then wins the neglected office of Superintendent of Streets and Sidewalks by one vote, discovers streets and sidewalks where none had seemed to exist, and asserts sweeping authority by arresting citizens for obstructing them. The town’s amusement lies in watching his office grow into an absurd grandeur. Crothers distinguishes the Honest Miner’s humor from crude frontier swagger. It is marked by euphemism, courtesy, understatement, and a refusal to condemn people simply. A warning beside an open shaft politely asks gentlemen not to fall in because men are working below. A minister who preaches under threat is praised chiefly for preaching extempore after placing his revolver on the Bible. A drunk and violent church member is described as having given his young minister “several rebuffs.” This democratic humor permits virtues and faults to stand together without forced moral sorting. The Honest Miner sees people as they are, allowing moral inconsequence to become wit: a man may be frequently drunk yet always polite to strangers. The mining camp, though not designed as an educational institution, teaches that human nature is complex, filled with “dips, spurs, and angles.”

By Samuel M. Crothers · First published 1912 · Genre: Humorous Essay, Literary Nonfiction, Social Commentary · 5,103 words

First lines

Humor is not usually looked upon as a civic virtue. It is for the most part confined to a modest sphere of usefulness, and is accepted as an alleviation to the lot of the private man. He learns to find pleasure in his small misadventures and to smile amiably at his discomfitures. The most ancient pleasantries have almost always an element of domesticity. They form the silver lining to the clouds that sometimes gather over the most peaceful homes. What comfort an ancient Hebrew must have taken in the text from Ecclesiasticus: "As climbing up a sandy way is to the feet of the aged, so is a wife full of words to a quiet man. " The quiet man would murmur to himself, "How true! " He would seize the simile as a dog snatches a bone, and would carry it off to enjoy it by himself.

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Nevada mining town · American West · late nineteenth-century frontier · mining camp life · silver and gold prospecting · boom-and-bust economy · civic humor · social satire · community identity · frontier democracy · Western pioneers · the Honest Miner

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A Community of Humorists is listed on Textopian as a short story by Samuel M. Crothers, dated 1912 CE.

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