Show ECHOES FROM THE PAST more excerpts from the book ranger trails which describe this section of southeastern utah so well that we know they will be of interest to local and distant readers the following fol lowin is taken from chapter five of this book always the wind blows at monticello round and round the mountain like a rollicking T dog chasing its tail Pi laying an endless tune on the single telephone wire strung along wain main street andl andi slapping clapping tin roofs with a noisy gusto does the wind always blow this way I 1 asked a lanky rider who stopped long enough to exchange the courtesies of the road no stranger he drawled sometimes araps once or twice a year she turns around and blows the other way iway adios not even the sign of a grin crossed his leather face as he rode away eventually some writer tra velling thru the west will find monticello it lies at the end of the sandrock sand rock trail a hundred dusty miles below the glittering tracks of the denver and rio grande railroad southward you ride crossing the grand r river ver where sleepy moab nestles deep between red cliffs still south over the sun scorched miles of dry valley then up the long pull between the pinions and cedars till you climb out on the plateau and on to monticello this is a splendid description of what one must experience in driving from the nearest railroad station at thompson to monticello monticello clings to the sky a little cluster of weather beaten houses perched on the mountain side seven thousand feet or more above sea level eastward into colorado rolls the great desert the winter range of uncounted stock to the west the blunt peaks of the blue mountains hover close over the little town cowna a protecting rampart of green lbrown brown slopes of bunch grass and 1 pine the old mormon settlers trekking from salt lake stopped here to rest they turned to the grass lands for their living bor or sought for the gold that lay hidden in the hills brigham young would have none of the mines he knew that the future of his people lay in the soil and not in the uncertain wealth of toe hills A few references to the ben perkins family life describe what was likely the custom in other of the mormon homes at the lime this story was written j ben perkins household gave me a comfortable tout but rather trudging grudging welcome that spring in monticello edth the first rays f the sun we were at breakfast and shortly after I 1 was mounted and away to the hills at night I 1 sat at the edge of the family circle cirale gathered around the open fireplace with its hearthstone whitewashed afresh each morning there was mrs perkins a gentle little woman whose voice was hardly ever heard busy at her sewing two daughters hovering over their books and ben himself sitting shoeless before the fire humming in a rich bass wild tunes from his welsh homeland promptly at nine his voice would boom out it was the signal for bedtime bed time bens legs were bowed from straddling irrigation ditches A fringe of ragged whiskers ringed his face and his one inseparable companion was a long handled pit pitchfork chlorIn it was always with him even on his trips to the post office for the evening mail his boast was his family scattered far and wide over the tate state if ben and his sons worked hard on the range and in the ields the women toiled twice as hard at home to them fell all the chores even to milking the cows and cutting the firewood every evening just before sunset the men and women gathered at the little post off office ice to exchange the gossip of the day while they waited for the mail carrier to come down the road six days a week the mail came by stage from railroad to moab then ihen by rider to kane springs where a fresh horse and rider carried it on to monticello just below bens house house stood a long log cabin surmounted vy uy a steeple with the bell in it this was church and dance hall only with the bishops permission could a dance be given and then he appointed two of the elders to preside over the affair as official chaperons chaperones chape rons the me two elders would come in nn at eight and one of them open the dance with a short prayer asking blessing on the festivities an industrious simple folk are these mountain mormons cormons Mor mons as unshakable in their religious faith as the hard shelled baptists of the south to toe be continued VA |