**CLPRA scripts are working drafts for recording sessions. Recorded performances may vary due to editing for broadcast.** Links key: CLP Atlas Informational (with hover) Online Books CLP Author page CLP Intern

John R. Spears (1850-1936) http://tinyurl.com/JSpears

Click the below to hear radio segment.

Customary Emphasis

From Illustrated Sketches of Death Valley, 1892. Read Online Download PDF

Reader: Kevin Hearle

Drawing a wagon laden with ten tons of borax across arid Death Valley terrain took a hearty team of twenty mules. It also took the artful direction of a mule-skinner with real panache.

During an 1891 visit to Death Valley, travel writer John R. Spears found out just what it takes to drive a twenty-mule-team, mutual understanding.

It is a matter of record that the mules understood him, nevertheless—that, in fact, these long-eared, brush-tailed tugs of the desert never did but once fail to understand the driver, no matter what his condition. On that occasion the driver, instead of getting drunk, had gone to hear an evangelist preach and had been converted. Next morning, it is said, when he mounted the wagon and invited the team to go on, the mules, with one accord, turned their heads over their shoulders, cocked forward their ears and stared at him. He had omitted the customary emphasis from his command. . . .

John R. Spears traveled the world for the New York Sun. Illustrated Sketches of Death Valley appeared in 1892.