No More Learning

Thus what he gives us is something very different from a
photograph. But it is just here that we touch upon what is perhaps
one of the finest qualities of his work,- a quality not to be separated
from his tendency towards idealization. Rarely falling into the didac-
tic, and dwelling habitually upon life's unexplained and inexplicable
tragic complexities, he nevertheless suffuses his stories with an atmos-
phere of charity, eminently clear, sweet, and wholesome. His char-
acteristic men and women, products of rude conditions, are generally
rough and often positively vicious; but he succeeds in convincing his
readers of their common humanity, and in showing the keen respon-
siveness to nobler influences still possessed by hearts which, super-
ficially considered, might well seem hopelessly callous and dead. And
he does this simply and naturally, without maudlin sentiment or
forced rhetoric-without, in a word, playing to the gallery.
The weakness of Mr. Harte's writing is closely connected with
some of its main elements of strength. A master of condensed and
rapid narration, he has produced many stories which are too episodi-
cal in character and sketchy in method to be completely satisfac-
tory from the artistic point of view; while in his desire to achieve
terseness, he occasionally sacrifices clearness of plot.
This is par-
ticularly the case with his more ambitious efforts, especially with his
long novel 'Gabriel Conroy,' an elaborate study of the culture condi-
tions of early California civilization. The book has many admirable
points. It abounds in memorable descriptions, vivid and humorous
character sketches, and separate scenes of remarkable power. But it
lacks wholeness, proportion, lucidity. It is a bundle of episodes, and


## p. 6988 (#380) ###########################################

6988
BRET HARTE
these episodes do not hang together; its plot is unduly intricate;
while the conduct of the story everywhere shows the author's inabil-
ity to hold in hand and weave into definite pattern the multitudinous
threads indispensable to his design. Undoubtedly written under the
influence of the huge novels of Dickens, the contrast that it presents
on the structural side with such an orderly and well-sustained work
as 'Bleak House is almost painful.
As a writer of verse Mr. Harte is unequal. Some of his humorous
poetry is too racy and original to be lost; much on the other hand is
too temporary and extravagant to find an abiding place in literature.
His best verse, artistically considered, is perhaps to be sought in his
wonderfully dramatic monologues in dialect. Jim' and 'In the Tun-
nel' are masterpieces of this kind; while Plain Language from
Truthful James' (currently known as The Heathen Chinee'), though
it owed much of its original vogue to local and accidental circum-
stances, must remain secure of a distinct place in American verse.
Пешу
William Henry Hudson
The following poems are all taken from The Poetical Works of Bret Harte,'
copyright 1882 by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , Boston, and are reprinted
by special arrangement with the publishers.
JIM
AY there! P'r'aps
Some on you chaps
SA
Might know Jim Wild?
-
no offense:
Well,-
Thar ain't no sense
In gittin' riled!
Jim was my chum
Up on the Bar:
That's why I come
Down from up yar,
Lookin' for Jim.
Thank ye, sir! You
Ain't of that crew,
Blest if you are!
Money? Not much:
That ain't my kind:


## p. 6989 (#381) ###########################################

BRET HARTE
6989
I ain't no such.
Rum? I don't mind,
Seein' it's you.
Well, this yer Jim,
Did you know him?
Jess 'bout your size;
Same kind of eyes;
Well, that is strange:
Why, it's two year
Since he came here,
Sick, for a change.
Well, here's to us:
Eh?
The h you say!
Dead?
That little cuss?
What makes you star',
You over thar?
Can't a man drop
'S glass in yer shop
But you must rar'?
It wouldn't take
D- much to break
You and your bar.
Dead!
Poor-little- Jim!
Why, thar was me,
Jones, and Bob Lee,
Harry and Ben,-
No-account men:
Then to take him!
Well, thar, good-by-
No more, sir—I—
Eh?
What's that you say?
Why, dern it! -sho! -
No? Yes! By Joe!
Sold!
Sold! Why, you limb,
You ornery,
Derned old
Long-legged Jim!
-


## p. 6990 (#382) ###########################################

6990
BRET HARTE
DOW'S FLAT
(1856)
Dow's
ow's FLAT. That's its name;
And I reckon that you
Are a stranger? The same?
Well, I thought it was true,-
For thar isn't a man on the river as can't spot the place at first view.
It was called after Dow,
Which the same was an ass;
And as to the how
Thet the thing kem to pass,—
Jest tie up your hoss to that buckeye, and sit ye down here in the
grass.
You see this yer Dow
Hed the worst kind of luck;
He slipped up somehow
On each thing thet he struck.
Why, ef he'd a-straddled thet fence-rail, the derned thing 'ud get up
and buck.
He mined on the bar
Till he couldn't pay rates;
He was smashed by a car
When he tunneled with Bates;
And right on the top of his trouble kem his wife and five kids from
the States.
It was rough, mighty rough;
But the boys they stood by,
And they brought him the stuff
For a house, on the sly;
And the old woman,- well, she did washing, and took on when no
one was nigh.
But this yer luck of Dow's
Was so powerful mean
That the spring near his house
Dried right up on the green;
And he sunk forty feet down for water, but nary a drop to be seen.
Then the bar petered out,
And the boys wouldn't stay;


## p. 6991 (#383) ###########################################

BRET HARTE
6991
And the chills got about,
And his wife fell away;
But Dow in his well kept a-peggin' in his usual ridikilous way.
One day it was June,
And a year ago, jest
This Dow kem at noon
To his work like the rest,
With a shovel and pick on his shoulder, and a derringer hid in his
breast.
Let's see,
well,
And he stands on the brink,
He goes to th
And stops for a spell
Jest to listen and think:
For the sun in his eyes (jest like this, sir! ), you see, kinder made the
cuss blink.
His two ragged gals
In the gulch were at play,
And a gownd that was Sal's
Kinder flapped on a bay:
Not much for a man to be leavin', but his all,-
folks say.
And- That's a peart hoss
Thet you've got, ain't it now?
What might be her cost?
Eh? Oh! -
-
Well, then, Dow-
-
- well, that forty-foot grave wasn't his, sir, that day, anyhow.
For a blow of his pick
It was gold,-in the quartz,
And it ran all alike;
And I reckon five oughts
as I've heer'd the
Sorter caved in the side,
And he looked and turned sick,
Then he trembled and cried.
For you see the dern cuss had struck - "Water? " Beg your parding,
young man,-there you lied!
Thet's why it's Dow's Flat;
And the thing of it is
Was the worth of that strike;
And that house with the coopilow's his'n,- which the same isn't bad
for a Pike.


## p. 6992 (#384) ###########################################

6992
BRET HARTE
.
"
That he kinder got that
Through sheer contrairiness:
For 'twas water the derned cuss was seekin', and his luck made him
certain to miss.
Thet's so! Thar's your way,
To the left of yon tree;
But-a-look h'yur, say?
Won't you come up to tea?
No? Well then, the next time you're passin'; and ask after Dow-
and thet's me.
IN THE TUNNEL
IDN'T know Flynn,-
Flynn of Virginia,-
Long as he's been yar?
Look'ee here, stranger,
Whar hev you been?
-
Here in this tunnel
He was my pardner,
That same Tom Flynn,-
Working together,
In wind and weather,
Day out and in.
Didn't know Flynn!
Well, that is queer;
Why, it's a sin
To think of Tom Flynn,-
Tom with his cheer,
Tom without fear,-
Stranger, look yar!
Thar in the drift,
Back to the wall,
He held the timbers
Ready to fall;
Then in the darkness
I heard him call:
"Run for your life, Jake!
Run for your wife's sake!
Don't wait for me. "


## p. 6993 (#385) ###########################################

BRET HARTE
6993
And that was all
Heard in the din,
Heard of Tom Flynn,-
Flynn of Virginia.
That's all about
Flynn of Virginia.
That lets me out.
Here in the damp,
Out of the sun,
That 'ar derned lamp
Makes my eyes run.
Well, there, I'm done!
―
But, sir, when you'll
Hear the next fool
Asking of Flynn,
Flynn of Virginia,
Just you chip in,
Say you knew Flynn;
Say that you've been yar.
THE SOCIETY UPON THE STANISLAUS
RESIDE at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James;
I am not up to small deceit or any sinful games;
And I'll tell in simple language what I know about the row
That broke up our Society upon the Stanislow.
But first I would remark that it is not a proper plan
For any scientific gent to whale his fellow-man,
And if a member don't agree with his peculiar whim,
To lay for that same member for to "put a head" on him.
Now, nothing could be finer or more beautiful to see
Than the first six months' proceedings of that same Society,
Till Brown of Calaveras brought a lot of fossil bones
That he found within a tunnel near the tenement of Jones.
Then Brown he read a paper, and he reconstructed there,
From those same bones, an animal that was extremely rare;
And Jones then asked the Chair for a suspension of the rules,
Till he could prove that those same bones was one of his lost mules.
XII-438


## p. 6994 (#386) ###########################################

6994
BRET HARTE
#4
Then Brown he smiled a bitter smile, and said he was at fault. -
It seemed he had been trespassing on Jones's family vault.
He was a most sarcastic man, this quiet Mr. Brown,
And on several occasions he had cleaned out the town.
Now, I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent
To say another is an ass, at least, to all intent;
Nor should the individual who happens to be meant
Reply by heaving rocks at him, to any great extent.
-
Then Abner Dean of Angel's raised a point of order, when
A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen,
And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor,
And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.
For in less time than I write it, every member did engage
In a warfare with the remnants of a paleozoic age;
And the way they heaved those fossils in their anger was a sin,
Till the skull of an old mammoth caved the head of Thompson in.
And this is all I have to say of these improper games,
For I live at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James;
And I've told in simple language what I knew about the row
That broke up our Society upon the Stanislow.
THOMPSON OF ANGEL'S
T IS the story of Thompson-of Thompson, the hero of Angel's.
Frequently drunk was Thompson, but always polite to the stran-
ger;
Light and free was the touch of Thompson upon his revolver;
Great the mortality incident on that lightness and freedom.
Yet not happy or gay was Thompson, the hero of Angel's;
Often spoke to himself in accents of anguish and sorrow:—
"Why do I make the graves of the frivolous youth who in folly
Thoughtlessly pass my revolver, forgetting its lightness and freedom?
"Why in my daily walks does the surgeon drop his left eyelid,
The undertaker smile, and the sculptor of gravestone marbles
Lean on his chisel and gaze? I care not o'ermuch for attention;
Simple am I in my ways, save for this lightness and freedom. "
So spake that pensive man- this Thompson, the hero of Angel's;
Bitterly smiled to himself, as he strode through the chapparal mus-
ing.


## p. 6995 (#387) ###########################################

BRET HARTE
6995
"Why, O why? " echoed the pines in the dark-olive depth far re-
sounding.
"Why, indeed? " whispered the sage-brush that bent 'neath his feet
non-elastic.
Pleasant indeed was that morn that dawned o'er the bar-room at An-
gel's,
Where in their manhood's prime was gathered the pride of the ham-
let.
Six "took sugar in theirs," and nine to the barkeeper lightly
Smiled as they said, "Well, Jim, you can give us our regular fusil. »
Suddenly as the gray hawk swoops down on the barn-yard, alighting
Where, pensively picking their corn, the favorite pullets are gathered,
So in that festive bar-room dropped Thompson, the hero of Angel's,
Grasping his weapon dread with his pristine lightness and freedom.
Never a word he spoke; divesting himself of his garments,
Danced the war-dance of the playful yet truculent Modoc,
Uttered a single whoop, and then in the accents of challenge
Spake, "Oh, behold in me a Crested Jay Hawk of the mountain. "
Then rose a pallid man a man sick with fever and ague;
Small was he, and his step was tremulous, weak, and uncertain;
Slowly a Derringer drew, and covered the person of Thompson;
Said in his feeblest pipe, "I'm a Bald-headed Snipe of the Valley. "
As on its native plains the kangaroo, startled by hunters,
Leaps with successive bounds, and hurries away to the thickets,
So leaped the Crested Hawk, and quietly hopping behind him
Ran, and occasionally shot, that Bald-headed Snipe of the Valley.
Vain at the festive bar still lingered the people of Angel's,
Hearing afar in the woods the petulant pop of the pistol;
Never again returned the Crested Jay Hawk of the mountains,
Never again was seen the Bald-headed Snipe of the Valley.
Yet in the hamlet of Angel's, when truculent speeches are uttered,
When bloodshed and life alone will atone for some trifling misstate-
ment,
Maidens and men in their prime recall the last hero of Angel's,
Think of and vainly regret the Bald-headed Snipe of the Valley!


## p. 6996 (#388) ###########################################

6996
BRET HARTE
PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES
TABLE MOUNTAIN
WHIC
HICH I wish to remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark,
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I would rise to explain.
Ah Sin was his name;
And I shall not deny,
In regard to the same,
What that name might imply;
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.
It was August the third,
And quite soft was the skies;
Which it might be inferred
That Ah Sin was likewise;
Yet he played it that day upon William
And me in a way I despise.
Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand;
was euchre: the same
He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat by the table
With a smile that was childlike and bland.
Yet the cards they were stocked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye's sleeve,
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.
But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made,
Were quite frightful to see
Till at last he put down a right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.
-


## p. 6997 (#389) ###########################################

BRET HARTE
6997
Then I looked up at Nye,
And he gazed upon me;
And he rose with a sigh,
And said, "Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor- »
And he went for that heathen Chinee.
In the scene that ensued
I did not take a hand,
But the floor it was strewed
Like the leaves on the strand
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding,
In the game "he did not understand. ”
B
In his sleeves, which were long,
He had twenty-four packs,—
Which was coming it strong,
Yet I state but the facts;
And we found on his nails, which were taper,
What is frequent in tapers- that's wax.
Which is why I remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar -
Which the same I am free to maintain.
From the Atlantic Monthly.
ON A CONE OF THE BIG TREES
(SEQUOIA GIGANTEA)
ROWN foundling of the Western wood,
Babe of primeval wildernesses!
Long on my table thou hast stood
Encounters strange and rude caresses;
Perchance contented with thy lot,
Surroundings new and curious faces,
As though ten centuries were not
Imprisoned in thy shining cases.
Thou bring'st me back the halcyon days
Of grateful rest, the week of leisure,


## p. 6998 (#390) ###########################################

6998
BRET HARTE
The journey lapped in autumn haze,
The sweet fatigue that seemed a pleasure,
The morning ride, the noonday halt,
The blazing slopes, the red dust rising,
And then the dim, brown, columned vault,
With its cool, damp, sepulchral spicing.
Once more I see the rocking masts
That scrape the sky, their only tenant
The jay-bird, that in frolic casts
From some high yard his broad blue pennant.
I see the Indian files that keep
Their places in the dusty heather,
Their red trunks standing ankle-deep
In moccasins of rusty leather.
I see all this, and marvel much
That thou, sweet woodland waif, art able
To keep the company of such
As throng thy friend's the poet's table:
The latest spawn the press hath cast,-
The "modern Popes," "the later Byrons,"
Why, e'en the best may not outlast
Thy poor relation Sempervirens !
Thy sire saw the light that shone
On Mohammed's uplifted crescent,
On many a royal gilded throne
And deed forgotten in the present;
He saw the age of sacred trees
And Druid groves and mystic larches;
And saw from forest domes like these
The builder bring his Gothic arches.
And must thou, foundling, still forego
Thy heritage and high ambition,
To lie full lowly and full low,
Adjusted to thy new condition?
Not hidden in the drifted snows,
But under ink-drops idly spattered,
And leaves ephemeral as those
That on thy woodland tomb were scattered?


## p. 6999 (#391) ###########################################

BRET HARTE
6999
DICKENS IN CAMP
BOVE the pines the moon was slowly drifting,
A The river sang below;
The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting
Their minarets of snow.
The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted
The ruddy tints of health
On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted
In the fierce race for wealth;
Till one arose, and from his pack's scant treasure
A hoarded volume drew,
And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure
To hear the tale anew.
And then, while round them shadows gathered faster,
And as the firelight fell,
He read aloud the book wherein the Master
Had writ of "Little Nell. "
Perhaps 'twas boyish fancy,- for the reader
Was youngest of them all,-
But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar
A silence seemed to fall;
The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows,
Listened in every spray,
While the whole camp, with "Nell" on English meadows
Wandered and lost their way.
And so in mountain solitudes, o'ertaken
As by some spell divine,
Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken
From out the gusty pine.
Lost is that camp and wasted all its fire:
And he who wrought that spell?
Ah! towering pine and stately Kentish spire,
Ye have one tale to tell!
Lost is that camp; but let its fragrant story
Blend with the breath that thrills
With hop-vine's incense all the pensive glory
That fills the Kentish hills.


## p. 7000 (#392) ###########################################

7000
BRET HARTE
And on that grave where English oak and holly
And laurel wreaths entwine,
Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,—
This spray of Western pine!
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG
From The Twins of Table Mountain, and Other Stories. Copyright 1879, by
Houghton, Osgood & Co. , Boston. Reprinted by special arrangement
with the publishers.
THE
HE first intimation given of the eccentricity of the testator
was, I think, in the spring of 1854. He was at that time.
in possession of a considerable property, heavily mortgaged
to one friend, and a wife of some attraction, on whose affections
another friend held an incumbering lien. One day it was found
that he had secretly dug, or caused to be dug, a deep trap before
the front door of his dwelling, into which a few friends in the
course of the evening casually and familiarly dropped. This cir-
cumstance, slight in itself, seemed to point to the existence of a
certain humor in the man, which might eventually get into liter-
ature; although his wife's lover-a man of quick discernment,
whose leg was broken by the fall-took other views. It was
some weeks later that while dining with certain other friends of
his wife, he excused himself from the table, to quietly reappear
at the front window with a three-quarter-inch hydraulic pipe,
and a stream of water projected at the assembled company. An
attempt was made to take public cognizance of this; but a major-
ity of the citizens of Red Dog who were not at dinner decided
that a man had a right to choose his own methods of diverting
his company. Nevertheless, there were some hints of his insan-
ity: his wife recalled other acts clearly attributable to dementia;
the crippled lover argued from his own experience that the integ-
rity of her limbs could only be secured by leaving her husband's
house; and the mortgagee, fearing a further damage to his prop
erty, foreclosed. But here the cause of all this anxiety took
matters into his own hands and disappeared.
When we next heard from him, he had in some mysterious
way been relieved alike of his wife and property and was living
alone at Rockville, fifty miles away, and editing a newspaper.
But that originality he had displayed when dealing with the


## p. 7001 (#393) ###########################################

BRET HARTE
7001
problems of his own private life, when applied to politics in the
columns of The Rockville Vanguard was singularly unsuccessful.
An amusing exaggeration, purporting to be an exact account of
the manner in which the opposing candidate had murdered his
Chinese laundryman, was, I regret to say, answered only by
assault and battery. A gratuitous and purely imaginative de-
scription of a great religious revival in Calaveras, in which the
sheriff of the county-a notoriously profane skeptic-was alleged
to have been the chief exhorter, resulted only in the withdrawal
of the county advertising from the paper. In the midst of this
practical confusion he suddenly died. It was then discovered, as
a crowning proof of his absurdity, that he had left a will, be-
queathing his entire effects to a freckle-faced maid-servant at the
Rockville Hotel. But that absurdity became serious when it was
also discovered that among these effects were a thousand shares
in the Rising Sun Mining Company, which a day or two after
his demise, and while people were still laughing at his grotesque
benefaction, suddenly sprang into opulence and celebrity. Three
millions of dollars was roughly estimated as the value of the
estate thus wantonly sacrificed. For it is only fair to state, as a
just tribute to the enterprise and energy of that young and thriv
ing settlement, that there was not probably a single citizen who
did not feel himself better able to control the deceased humor-
ist's property. Some had expressed a doubt of their ability to
support a family; others had felt perhaps too keenly the deep
responsibility resting upon them when chosen from the panel as
jurors, and had evaded their public duties; a few had declined
office and a low salary: but no one shrank from the possibility
of having been called upon to assume the functions of Peggy
Moffat the heiress.
The will was contested,- first by the widow, who it now
appeared had never been legally divorced from the deceased;
next by four of his cousins, who awoke, only too late, to a con-
sciousness of his moral and pecuniary worth. But the humble
legatee a singularly plain, unpretending, uneducated Western.
girl-exhibited a dogged pertinacity in claiming her rights. She
rejected all compromises.
A rough sense of justice in the com-
munity, while doubting her ability to take care of the whole
fortune, suggested that she ought to be content with three hun-
dred thousand dollars. "She's bound to throw even that away on
some derned skunk of a man, natoorally; but three millions is
――


## p. 7002 (#394) ###########################################

BRET HARTE
7002
<<
too much to give a chap for makin' her onhappy. It's offerin' a
temptation to cussedness. " The only opposing voice to this coun-
sel came from the sardonic lips of Mr. Jack Hamlin. Suppose,"
suggested that gentleman, turning abruptly on the speaker,
<< suppose, when you won twenty thousand dollars of me last Fri-
day night—suppose that instead of handing you over the money
as I did.
suppose I'd got up on my hind legs and said, 'Look
yer, Bill Wethersbee, you're a d-d fool. If I give ye that
twenty thousand you'll throw it away in the first skin game in
'Frisco, and hand it over to the first short card-sharp you'll meet.
There's a thousand,- enough for you to fling away,- take it and
get! Suppose what I'd said to you was the frozen truth, and
you knowed it, would that have been the square thing to play on
you? " But here Wethersbee quickly pointed out the inefficiency
of the comparison by stating that he had won the money fairly
with a stake. "And how do you know," demanded Hamlin
savagely, bending his black eyes on the astonished casuist, "how
do you know that the gal hezn't put down a stake? " The man
stammered an unintelligible reply. The gambler laid his white
hand on Wetherbee's shoulder. "Look yer, old man," he said,
"every gal stakes her whole pile,- you can bet your life on
that, whatever's her little game. If she took to keerds in-
stead of her feelings, if she'd put up chips instead o' body
and soul, she'd burst every bank 'twixt this and 'Frisco!
hear me? "
You
-
―――――
Somewhat of this idea was conveyed, I fear not quite as sen-
timentally, to Peggy Moffat herself. The best legal wisdom of
San Francisco, retained by the widow and relatives, took occas-
ion, in a private interview with Peggy, to point out that she
stood in the quasi-criminal attitude of having unlawfully practiced
upon the affections of an insane elderly gentleman, with a view
of getting possession of his property; and suggested to her that
no vestige of her moral character would remain after the trial, if
she persisted in forcing her claims to that issue. It is said that
Peggy, on hearing this, stopped washing the plate she had in her
hands, and twisting the towel around her fingers, fixed her small
pale blue eyes at the lawyer.
"And ez that the kind o' chirpin' these critters keep up? "
"I regret to say, my dear young lady," responded the lawyer,
"that the world is censorious. I must add," he continued, with
engaging frankness, "that we professional lawyers are apt to


## p. 7003 (#395) ###########################################

BRET HARTE
7003
study the opinion of the world, and that such will be the theory
of our side. "
-
"Then," said Peggy stoutly, "ez I allow I've got to go into
court to defend my character, I might as well pack in them three.
millions too. "
There is hearsay evidence that Peg added to this speech a
wish and desire to "bust the crust" of her traducers, and re-
marking that "that was the kind of hair-pin" she was, closed
the conversation with an unfortunate accident to the plate, that
left a severe contusion on the legal brow of her companion. But
this story, popular in the bar-rooms and gulches, lacked con-
firmation in higher circles. Better authenticated was the legend
related of an interview with her own lawyer. That gentleman
had pointed out to her the advantage of being able to show
some reasonable cause for the singular generosity of the testator.
"Although," he continued, "the law does not go back of the
will for reason or cause for its provisions, it would be a strong
point with the judge and jury, particularly if the theory of
insanity were set up, for us to show that the act was logical
and natural. Of course you have-I speak confidently, Miss
Moffat — certain ideas of your own why the late Mr. Byways was
so singularly generous to you? "
-
"No, I haven't," said Peg decidedly.
"Think again. Had he not expressed to you—you under-
stand that this is confidential between us, although I protest, my
dear young lady, that I see no reason why it should not be
made public-had he not given utterance to sentiments of a
nature consistent with some future matrimonial relations? " But
here Miss Peg's large mouth, which had been slowly relaxing
over her irregular teeth, stopped him.
1
"If you mean he wanted to marry me - no! "
<< I see.
But were there any conditions- of course you know
the law takes no cognizance of any not expressed in the will;
but still, for the sake of mere corroboration of the bequest, do
you know of any conditions on which he gave you the prop-
erty? »
"You mean did he want anything in return ? »
"Exactly, my dear young lady. "
Peg's face on one side turned a deep magenta color, on the
other a lighter cherry, while her nose was purple and her fore-
head an Indian red. To add to the effect of this awkward and


## p. 7004 (#396) ###########################################

BRET HARTE
7004
discomposing dramatic exhibition of embarrassment, she began to
wipe her hands on her dress, and sat silent.
"I understand," said the lawyer hastily. "No matter; the
conditions were fulfilled — »
"How could they be until he was
"No! " said Peg amazedly.
dead? »
It was the lawyer's turn to color and grow embarrassed.
"He did say something, and make some conditions," continued
Peg, with a certain firmness through her awkwardness; "but
that's nobody's business but mine and his'n. And it's no call o'
yours or theirs. »
"But, my dear Miss Moffat, if these very conditions were
proofs of his right mind, you surely would not object to make
them known, if only to enable you to put yourself in a condition
to carry them out. "
"But," said Peg cunningly, "s'pose you and the court didn't
think 'em satisfactory? S'pose you thought 'em queer? Eh? "
With this helpless limitation on the part of the defense, the
case came to trial. Everybody remembers it,-how for six weeks
it was the daily food of Calaveras County; how for six weeks the
intellectual and moral and spiritual competency of Mr. James
Byways to dispose of his property was discussed with learned
and formal obscurity in the court, and with unlettered and inde-
pendent prejudice by camp-fires and in bar-rooms. At the end
of that time, when it was logically established that at least nine-
tenths of the population of Calaveras were harmless lunatics, and
everybody else's reason seemed to totter on its throne, an ex-
hausted jury succumbed one day to the presence of Peg in the
court-room. It was not a prepossessing presence at any time;
but the excitement, and an injudicious attempt to ornament her-
self, brought her defects into a glaring relief that was almost
unreal. Every freckle on her face stood out and asserted itself
singly; her pale blue eyes, that gave no indication of her force
of character, were weak and wandering, or stared blankly at the
judge; her over-sized head, broad at the base, terminating in the
scantiest possible light-colored braid in the middle of her narrow
shoulders, was as hard and uninteresting as the wooden spheres
that topped the railing against which she sat. The jury, who for
six weeks had had her described to them by the plaintiffs as an
arch, wily enchantress, who had sapped the failing reason of Jim
Byways, revolted to a man. There was something so appallingly


## p. 7005 (#397) ###########################################

BRET HARTE
7005
gratuitous in her plainness, that it was felt that three millions
was scarcely a compensation for it. "Ef that money was give
to her, she earned it sure, boys; it wasn't no softness of the old
man," said the foreman. When the jury retired, it was felt that
she had cleared her character; when they re-entered the room
with their verdict, it was known that she had been awarded
three millions damages for its defamation.
She got the money. But those who had confidently expected
to see her squander it were disappointed: on the contrary, it was
presently whispered that she was exceeding penurious. That ad-
mirable woman Mrs. Stiver of Red Dog, who accompanied her
to San Francisco to assist her in making purchases, was loud in
her indignation. "She cares more for two bits* than I do for
five dollars. She wouldn't buy anything at the City of Paris'
because it was too expensive,' and at last rigged herself out a
perfect guy at some cheap slop-shops in Market Street. And
after all the care Jane and me took of her, giving up our time
and experience to her, she never so much as made Jane a single
present. " Popular opinion, which regarded Mrs. Stiver's atten-
tion as purely speculative, was not shocked at this unprofitable
denouement; but when Peg refused to give anything to clear the
mortgage off the new Presbyterian church, and even declined to
take shares in the Union Ditch, considered by many as an equally
sacred and safe investment, she began to lose favor. Neverthe-
less, she seemed to be as regardless of public opinion as she had
been before the trial; took a small house, in which she lived
with an old woman who had once been a fellow-servant, on
apparently terms of perfect equality, and looked after her money.
I wish I could say that she did this discreetly; but the fact is,
she blundered. The same dogged persistency she had displayed
in claiming her rights was visible in her unsuccessful ventures.
She sunk two hundred thousand dollars in a worn-out shaft origi-
nally projected by the deceased testator; she prolonged the mis-
erable existence of The Rockville Vanguard long after it had
ceased to interest even its enemies; she kept the doors of the
Rockville Hotel open when its custom had departed; she lost the
co-operation and favor of a fellow capitalist through a trifling
misunderstanding in which she was derelict and impenitent; she
had three lawsuits on her hands that could have been settled for
*Twenty-five cents.


## p. 7006 (#398) ###########################################

7006
BRET HARTE
a trifle. I note these defects to show that she was by no means
a heroine. I quote her affair with Jack Folinsbee to show she
was scarcely the average woman.
That handsome, graceless vagabond had struck the outskirts
of Red Dog in a cyclone of dissipation, which left him a stranded
but still rather interesting wreck in a ruinous cabin not far from
Peg Moffat's virgin bower. Pale, crippled from excesses, with a
voice quite tremulous from sympathetic emotion more or less
developed by stimulants, he lingered languidly, with much time.
on his hands and only a few neighbors. In this fascinating kind
of general déshabille of morals, dress, and the emotions, he ap-
peared before Peg Moffat. More than that, he occasionally limped
with her through the settlement. The critical eye of Red Dog
took in the singular pair,- Jack voluble, suffering, apparently
overcome by remorse, conscience, vituperation, and disease, and
Peg open-mouthed, high-colored, awkward, yet delighted; and
the critical eye of Red Dog, seeing this, winked meaningly at
Rockville. No one knew what passed between them; but all
observed that one summer day Jack drove down the main street
of Red Dog in an open buggy, with the heiress of that town
beside him. Jack, albeit a trifle shaky, held the reins with some-
thing of his old dash; and Mistress Peggy, in an enormous bonnet
with pearl-colored ribbons a shade darker than her hair, holding
in her short, pink-gloved fingers a bouquet of yellow roses, abso-
lutely glowed crimson in distressful gratification over the dash-
board. So these two fared on, out of the busy settlement, into
the woods, against the rosy sunset. Possibly it was not a pretty
picture: nevertheless, as the dim aisles of the solemn pines
opened to receive them, miners leaned upon their spades, and
mechanics stopped in their toil to look after them. The critical
eye of Red Dog, perhaps from the sun, perhaps from the fact
that it had itself once been young and dissipated, took on a
kindly moisture as it gazed.
The moon was high when they returned. Those who had
waited to congratulate Jack on this near prospect of a favorable
change in his fortunes were chagrined to find that having seen
the lady safe home, he had himself departed from Red Dog.
Nothing was to be gained from Peg, who on the next day and
ensuing days kept the even tenor of her way, sunk a thousand
or two more in unsuccessful speculation, and made no change
in her habits of personal economy. Weeks passed without any


## p. 7007 (#399) ###########################################

BRET HARTE
7007
apparent sequel to this romantic idyl. Nothing was known defi-
nitely until Jack a month later turned up in Sacramento, with a
billiard cue in his hand, and a heart overcharged with indignant
emotion.
"I don't mind saying to you gentlemen in confidence," said
Jack to a circle of sympathizing players,-"I don't mind telling
you regarding this thing, that I was as soft on that freckle-
faced, red-eyed, tallow-haired gal as if she'd been-a-a-
an actress. And I don't mind saying, gentlemen, that as far
as I understand women, she was just as soft on me. You kin
laugh; but it's so. One day I took her out buggy-riding,—
in style too,—and out on the road I offered to do the square
thing, just as if she'd been a lady,— offered to marry her then
and there. And what did she do? " said Jack with a hysterical
laugh. "Why, blank it all! offered me twenty-five dollars a week
allowance-pay to be stopped when I wasn't at home! " The roar
of laughter that greeted this frank confession was broken by
a quiet voice asking, "And what did you say? " "Say? "
screamed Jack, "I just told her to go to with her money.
"They say," continued the quiet voice, "that you asked her
for the loan of two hundred and fifty dollars to get you to Sac-
ramento — and that you got it. " "Who says so? " roared Jack.
"Show me the blank liar. >>> There was a dead silence. Then the
possessor of the quiet voice, Mr. Jack Hamlin, languidly reached.
under the table, took the chalk, and rubbing the end of his
billiard cue began with gentle gravity: "It was an old friend of
mine in Sacramento, a man with a wooden leg, a game eye,
three fingers on his right hand, and a consumptive cough. Being
unable, naturally, to back himself, he leaves things to me. So,
for the sake of argument," continued Hamlin, suddenly laying
down his cue and fixing his wicked black eyes on the speaker,
say it's me! »
«<
>>
I am afraid that this story, whether truthful or not, did not
tend to increase Peg's popularity in a community where reckless-
ness and generosity condoned for the absence of all the other
virtues; and it is possible also that Red Dog was no more free
from prejudice than other more civilized but equally disappointed
match-makers. Likewise, during the following year she made
several more foolish ventures and lost heavily. In fact, a fever-
ish desire to increase her store at almost any risk seemed to pos-
sess her.
At last it was announced that she intended to reopen


## p. 7008 (#400) ###########################################

7008
BRET HARTE
the infelix Rockville Hotel, and keep it herself. Wild as this
scheme appeared in theory, when put into practical operation
there seemed to be some chance of success. Much doubtless
was owing to her practical knowledge of hotel-keeping, but more
to her rigid economy and untiring industry. The mistress of
millions, she cooked, washed, waited on table, made the beds,
and labored like a common menial. Visitors were attracted by
this novel spectacle. The income of the house increased as their
respect for the hostess lessened. No anecdote of her avarice was
too extravagant for current belief. It was even alleged that she
had been known to carry the luggage of guests to their rooms,
that she might anticipate the usual porter's gratuity. She denied
herself the ordinary necessaries of life. She was poorly clad, she
was ill-fed-but the hotel was making money.
A few hinted of insanity; others shook their heads, and said.
a curse was entailed on the property. It was believed also
from her appearance that she could not long survive this tax on
her energies, and already there was discussion as to the probable
final disposition of her property.
It was the particular fortune of Mr. Jack Hamlin to be able
to set the world right on this and other questions regarding her.
A stormy December evening had set in when he chanced to
be a guest of the Rockville Hotel. He had during the past
week been engaged in the prosecution of his noble profession at
Red Dog, and had in the graphic language of a coadjutor
"cleared out the town, except his fare in the pockets of the stage-
driver. " The Red Dog Standard had bewailed his departure in
playful obituary verse, beginning, "Dearest Johnny, thou hast
left us," wherein the rhymes "bereft us" and "deplore" carried
a vague allusion to "a thousand dollars more. " A quiet content-
ment naturally suffused his personality, and he was more than
usually lazy and deliberate in his speech. At midnight, when he
was about to retire, he was a little surprised however by a tap
on his door, followed by the presence of Mistress Peg Moffat,
heiress, and landlady of Rockville Hotel.
Mr. Hamlin, despite his previous defense of Peg, had no lik-
ing for her. His fastidious taste rejected her uncomeliness; his
habits of thought and life were all antagonistic to what he had
heard of her niggardliness and greed. As she stood there in at
dirty calico wrapper, still redolent with the day's cuisine, crimson
with embarrassment and the recent heat of the kitchen range,


## p. 7009 (#401) ###########################################

BRET HARTE
7009
she certainly was not an alluring apparition. Happily for the
lateness of the hour, her loneliness, and the infelix reputation of
the man before her, she was at least a safe one. And I fear the
very consciousness of this scarcely relieved her embarrassment.
"I wanted to say a few words to ye alone, Mr. Hamlin," she
began, taking an unoffered seat on the end of his portmanteau,
"or I shouldn't hev intruded. But it's the only time I can ketch
you, or you me; for I'm down in the kitchen from sun-up till
now. "
She stopped awkwardly, as if to listen to the wind, which was
rattling the windows and spreading a film of rain against the
opaque darkness without. Then, smoothing her wrapper over
her knees she remarked, as if opening a desultory conversation,
"Thar's a power of rain outside. "
Mr. Hamlin's only response to this meteorological observation
was a yawn, and a preliminary tug at his coat as he began to
remove it.
"I thought ye couldn't mind doin' me a favor," continued
Peg, with a hard, awkward laugh, "partik'ly seein' ez folks
allowed you'd sorter bin a friend o' mine, and hed stood up for
me at times when you hedn't any partikler call to do it. I
hevn't," she continued, looking down at her lap and following
with her finger and thumb a seam of her gown,-"I hevn't so
many friends ez slings a kind word for me these times that I
disremember them. " Her under lip quivered a little here; and
after vainly hunting for a forgotten handkerchief, she finally
lifted the hem of her gown, wiped her snub nose upon it, but
left the tears still in her eyes as she raised them to the man.
Mr. Hamlin, who had by this time divested himself of his
coat, stopped unbuttoning his waistcoat and looked at her.
"Like ez not thar'll be high water on the North Fork, ef
this rain keeps on," said Peg, as if apologetically, looking toward
the window.
The other rain having ceased, Mr. Hamlin began to unbutton
his waistcoat again.
"I wanted to ask ye a favor about Mr. -about - Jack Folins-
bee," began Peg again hurriedly. "He's ailin' agin, and is
mighty low. And he's losin' a heap o' money here and thar,
and mostly to you. You cleaned him out of two thousand dol-
lars last night—all he had. "
"Well? " said the gambler coldly.
XII-439


## p. 7010 (#402) ###########################################

BRET HARTE
7010
"Well, I thought as you woz a friend o' mine, I'd ask ye to
let up a little on him," said Peg with an affected laugh.
kin do it. Don't let him play with ye. "
« You
"Mistress Margaret Moffat," said Jack with lazy deliberation,
taking off his watch and beginning to wind it up, "ef you're
that much stuck after Jack Folinsbee, you kin keep him off of
me much easier than I kin. You're a rich woman. Give him
enough money to break my bank, or break himself for good and
all; but don't keep him forlin' round me in hopes to make a
raise. It don't pay, Mistress Moffat it don't pay! "
A finer nature than Peg's would have misunderstood or re-
sented the gambler's slang, and the miserable truths that under-
lay it.
But she comprehended him instantly, and sat hopelessly
silent.
-
"Ef you'll take my advice," continued Jack, placing his watch
and chain under his pillow and quietly unloosing his cravat,
"you'll quit this yer forlin', marry that chap, and hand over to
him the money and the money-makin' that's killin' you. He'll
get rid of it soon enough. I don't say this because I expect
to git it; for when he's got that much of a raise, he'll make a
break for 'Frisco, and lose it to some first-class sport there. I
don't say, neither, that you mayn't be in luck enough to reform
him. I don't say neither-and it's a derned sight more likely!
- that you mayn't be luckier yet, and he'll up and die afore he
gits rid of your money. But I do say you'll make him happy
now; and ez I reckon you're about ez badly stuck after that
chap ez I ever saw any woman, you won't be hurtin' your own
feelin's either. "
"No. "
The blood left Peg's face as she looked up. "But that's why
I can't give him the money; and he won't marry me with-
out it. "
Mr. Hamlin's hand dropped from the last button of his waist-
coat. "Can't
him-the-money? " he repeated slowly.
give
Why?