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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4674-8.txt b/4674-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3e27a18 --- /dev/null +++ b/4674-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,920 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tennessee's Partner, by Bret Harte + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Tennessee's Partner + +Author: Bret Harte + +Posting Date: August 24, 2009 [EBook #4674] +Release Date: November, 2003 +First Posted: February 26, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TENNESSEE'S PARTNER *** + + + + +Produced by David Schwan + + + + + + + + +Western Classics No. Three + + + +Tennessee's Partner + + + +"Both were fearless types of a civilization that in the seventeenth +century would have been called heroic, but in the nineteenth simply +'reckless.'" + + + +Tennessee's Partner + + +By + +Bret Harte, + + +Including An Introduction By William Dallam Armes. + + + + +The Introduction + + +When Marshall's discovery caused a sudden influx of thousands of +adventurers from all classes and almost all countries, the conditions of +government in California were almost the worst possible. Though the +Mexican system was unpopular and the Mexican law practically unknown, +until other provision was made by congress, they had to continue in +force. But the free and slave states were equal in number; California +would turn the scale; there was a battle royal as to which pan should +descend, a battle that the congresses of 1848 and 1849 left unsettled on +adjourning. + +Under these circumstances, it might be supposed that the worst elements +would get the upper hand, crime become common, and anarchy result. +Precisely the opposite happened. The de facto government was accepted as +a necessity, and under its direction "alcaldes" and "ayuntamientos" were +elected. But the mining-camps, which were in a part of the country that +had not been settled by the Mexicans and were occupied by men who knew +nothing of their system or laws, were left to work out their own +salvation. The preponderating element was the Anglo-Saxon, and its +genius for law and order asserted itself. Each camp elected its own +officers, recognized the customary laws and adopted special ones, and +punished lawbreakers. Naturally theft was considered a more serious +crime than it is in ordinary communities. As there were no jails or +jailors, flogging and expulsion were the usual punishment, but in +aggravated cases it was death. Even after the state government had been +organized, indeed, the law for a short while permitted a jury to +prescribe the death penalty for grand larceny, and, in fact, several +notorious thieves were legally executed. + +The testimony of all observers is that the camps were surprisingly +orderly, that crime was infrequent, and that its punishment, though +swift and certain, leaned to mercy rather than rigor. Bayard Taylor, for +example, who was in the mines in '50 and '51, writes: "In a region five +hundred miles long, inhabited by a hundred thousand people, who had +neither locks, bolts, regular laws of government, military or civil +protection, there was as much security to life and property as in any +state of the Union." + +As these "miners' courts" were allowed after the organization of the +state to retain jurisdiction in all questions that concerned the +appropriation of claims, the miners but slowly appreciated that they had +been shorn of their criminal jurisdiction. But that they did come to +recognize that "the old order changeth, yielding place to new," is, in +fact, shown by the very incident on which Harte based his of a lynching. + +Spite of the autobiographic method that leads the casual reader to think +that Harte was intimately connected with this early pioneer life and +derived the material for his sketches from personal observation and +experience, his is, in truth, only hearsay evidence. The heroic age was +with Iram and all his rose ere he landed in 1854, a lad of eighteen. +With no especial equipment for battling with the world, he had to turn +his hand to many things, and naturally tried mining. But finding the +returns incommensurate with the labor, he soon gave it up and sought +more congenial occupations, mainly in the towns of the valleys and the +seacoast. Before he was twenty-three, he had been school-teacher, +express-messenger, deputy tax-collector, and druggist's assistant; and +had risen from "printer's devil" to assistant editor of a country +newspaper. In 1859 he was back in San Francisco, utilizing the trade he +had picked up, as a compositor on The Golden Era. To this he contributed +poems and local sketches that soon led to his appointment as assistant +editor. His writings made him friends, one of whom, Thomas Starr King, +in 1864, obtained for him the position of secretary to the +superintendent of the Mint. His duties were not arduous, and his rooms +became the resort of his literary associates and of men from "the +diggings," whose mines, like the meadows of Concord, yielded a two-fold +crop: gold-dust for the superintendent to turn into bullion, and stories +for his young secretary later to turn into literature. By 1868 his +reputation was so great that when Mr. A. Roman established The Overland +Monthly, he was made its first editor. + +Mr. Roman impressed upon him the literary possibilities of the life of +the miners, and furnished him with incidents, tales, and pictures. "The +Luck of Roaring Camp," his first venture in this hitherto almost +untouched field, proved that Bret Harte had come into his own. His local +sketches and Mexican legends had been imitative of Irving, his stories +of Dickens; but for this he had evolved a method and a style distinctly +personal. His first success was followed up by "The Outcasts of Poker +Flat" and (in October, 1869) by the tale here reprinted; and when, in +1870, an Eastern house published his sketches in book form, his fame was +secure. In 1871 he left California, and after a few years in the East +that added little to his reputation as a writer, or as a man, secured a +consulate in Germany. In 1878 he left America forever. Till his death in +1902 he wrote on, frequently recurring to the claim where he first "got +the color," but never equaling his work during the year and a half that +he was editor of the Overland. + +In 1866 Harte heard, from one who had been present, the incident that +inspired "Tennessee's Partner." Eleven years before, at Second Garrote, +a newcomer had committed a capital crime. The miners organized a court, +appointed counsel, and gave the miscreant a trial. He confessed his +guilt, and the cry arose, "Hang him!"' But "Old Man Chaffee" stepped +forward, drew a bag of gold-dust from his bosom, and said that he would +give his "pile" rather than have a lynching occur in a camp that, spite +its name, had never been so disgraced. He begged the crowd to turn the +prisoner over to the authorities and let the law take its course. Such +was the fervor of his appeal and so great were the respect and affection +for the old man that his proposal was adopted with a cheer for the +advocate of law and order, and the culprit taken to the jail at +Columbia. + +Chaffee's partner, Chamberlain, seems to have had no part in this +affair; but the two were united by a love like that of his partner for +Tennessee. And long after the Second Garrote had become but a memory, +the two octogenarians lived on in their little cabin, Chaffee seeking +with primitive pick, shovel, and pan the more and more elusive gold, and +Chamberlain contributing to the common purse by cultivating a small +"ranch," the best crop of which was the campers who came to chat of +bygone days with "the original of Tennessee's Partner." At last, in +1903, their partnership of fifty-four years was ended by the death of +Chaffee. Within eight weeks he was followed by Chamberlain. Their last +days were made easy by the bounty of Professor W. E. Magee, of the State +University, to whom I am indebted for the authority for some of these +statements,--Chamberlain's journal. + +From this simple material the imagination of Bret Harte spun the +characters, incidents, and motives that his genius wove into an +exquisite fabric, an idyl of blind, unreasoning love of man for man. He +was not writing history; and the complaint of those who were part of the +life he depicted, that he misstated the facts, rests on the same failure +to appreciate his purpose and method that leads Eastern and English +critics to consider his realism reality and to mistake his +verisimilitude for the truth itself. The fact is that Bret Harte was a +consummate literary artist, who used facts with all an artist's freedom. +His genius "imbalm'd and treasur'd up on purpose to a life beyond life," +however, many an actual incident that otherwise would lie buried 'neath +the poppy that the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth. + +William Dallam Armes. + + + + +Tennessee's Partner + + +I do not think that we ever knew his real name. Our ignorance of it +certainly never gave us any social inconvenience, for at Sandy Bar in +1854 most men were christened anew. Sometimes these appellatives were +derived from some distinctiveness of dress, as in the case of "Dungaree +Jack"; or from some peculiarity of habit, as shown in "Saleratus Bill," +so called from an undue proportion of that chemical in his daily bread; +or from some unlucky slip, as exhibited in "The Iron Pirate," a mild, +inoffensive man, who earned that baleful title by his unfortunate +mispronunciation of the term "iron pyrites." Perhaps this may have been +the beginning of a rude heraldry; but I am constrained to think that it +was because a man's real name in that day rested solely upon his own +unsupported statement. "Call yourself Clifford, do you?" said Boston, +addressing a timid newcomer with infinite scorn; "hell is full of such +Cliffords!" He then introduced the unfortunate man, whose name happened +to be really Clifford, as "Jaybird Charley,"--an unhallowed inspiration +of the moment that clung to him ever after. + +But to return to Tennessee's Partner, whom we never knew by any other +than this relative title; that he had ever existed as a separate and +distinct individuality we only learned later. It seems that in 1853 he +left Poker Flat to go to San Francisco, ostensibly to procure a wife. He +never got any farther than Stockton. At that place he was attracted by a +young person who waited upon the table at the hotel where he took his +meals. One morning he said something to her which caused her to smile +not unkindly, to somewhat coquettishly break a plate of toast over his +upturned, serious, simple face, and to retreat to the kitchen. He +followed her, and emerged a few moments later, covered with more toast +and victory. That day week they were married by a Justice of the Peace, +and returned to Poker Flat. I am aware that something more might be made +of this episode, but I prefer to tell it as it was current at Sandy +Bar,--in the gulches and barrooms,--where all sentiment was modified by a +strong sense of humor. + +Of their married felicity but little is known, perhaps for the reason +that Tennessee, then living with his partner, one day took occasion to +say something to the bride on his own account, at which, it is said, she +smiled not unkindly, and chastely retreated, this time as far as +Marysville, where Tennessee followed her, and where they went to +housekeeping without the aid of a Justice of the Peace. Tennessee's +Partner took the loss of his wife simply and seriously, as was his +fashion. But to everybody's surprise, when Tennessee one day returned +from Marysville, without his partner's wife,--she having smiled and +retreated with somebody else,--Tennessee's Partner was the first man to +shake his hand and greet him with affection. The boys who had gathered +in the cañon to see the shooting were naturally indignant. Their +indignation might have found vent in sarcasm but for a certain look in +Tennessee's Partner's eye that indicated a lack of humorous +appreciation. In fact, he was a grave man, with a steady application to +practical detail which was unpleasant in a difficulty. + +Meanwhile a popular feeling against Tennessee had grown up on the Bar. +He was known to be a gambler; he was suspected to be a thief. In these +suspicions Tennessee's Partner was equally compromised; his continued +intimacy with Tennessee after the affair above quoted could only be +accounted for on the hypothesis of a copartnership of crime. At last +Tennessee's guilt became flagrant. One day he overtook a stranger on his +way to Red Dog. The stranger afterward related that Tennessee beguiled +the time with interesting anecdote and reminiscence, but illogically +concluded the interview in the following words: "And now, young man, +I'll trouble you for your knife, your pistols, and your money. You see +your weppings might get you into trouble at Red Dog, and your money's a +temptation to the evilly disposed. I think you said your address was San +Francisco. I shall endeavor to call." It may be stated here that +Tennessee had a fine flow of humor, which no business preoccupation +could wholly subdue. + +This exploit was his last. Red Dog and Sandy Bar made common cause +against the highwayman. Tennessee was hunted in very much the same +fashion as his prototype, the grizzly. As the toils closed around him, +he made a desperate dash through the Bar, emptying his revolver at the +crowd before the Arcade Saloon, and so on up Grizzly Cañon; but at its +farther extremity he was stopped by a small man on a gray horse. The men +looked at each other a moment in silence. Both were fearless, both +self-possessed and independent, and both types of a civilization that in +the seventeenth century would have been called heroic, but in the +nineteenth simply "reckless." "What have you got there?--I call," said +Tennessee see, quietly. "Two bowers and an ace," said the stranger, as +quietly, showing two revolvers and a bowie-knife. "That takes me," +returned Tennessee; and, with this gambler's epigram, he threw away his +useless pistol, and rode back with his captor. + +It was a warm night. The cool breeze which usually sprang up with the +going down of the sun behind the chaparral-crested mountain was that +evening withheld from Sandy Bar. The little cañon was stifling with +heated resinous odors, and the decaying driftwood on the Bar sent forth +faint, sickening exhalations. The feverishness of day and its fierce +passions still filled the camp. Lights moved restlessly along the bank +of the river, striking no answering reflection from its tawny current. +Against the blackness of the pines the windows of the old loft above the +express-office stood out staringly bright; and through their curtainless +panes, the loungers below could see the forms of those who were even +then deciding the fate of Tennessee. And above all this, etched on the +dark firmament, rose the Sierra, remote and passionless, crowned with +remoter passionless stars. + +The trial of Tennessee was conducted as fairly as was consistent with a +judge and jury who felt themselves to some extent obliged to justify, in +their verdict, the previous irregularities of arrest and indictment. The +law of Sandy Bar was implacable, but not vengeful. The excitement and +personal feeling of the chase were over; with Tennessee safe in their +hands they were ready to listen patiently to any defense, which they +were already satisfied was insufficient. There being no doubt in their +own minds, they were willing to give the prisoner the benefit of any +that might exist. Secure in the hypothesis that he ought to be hanged, +on general principles, they indulged him with more latitude of defense +than his reckless hardihood seemed to ask. The Judge appeared to be more +anxious than the prisoner, who, otherwise unconcerned, evidently took a +grim pleasure in the responsibility he had created. "I don't take any +hand in this yer game," had been his invariable but good-humored reply +to all questions. The Judge--who was also his captor--for a moment +vaguely regretted that he had not shot him "on sight," that morning, but +presently dismissed this human weakness as unworthy of the judicial +mind. Nevertheless, when there was a tap at the door, and it was said +that Tennessee's Partner was there on behalf of the prisoner, he was +admitted at once without question. Perhaps the younger members of the +jury, to whom the proceedings were becoming irksomely thoughtful, hailed +him as a relief. + +For he was not, certainly, an imposing figure. Short and stout, with a +square face, sunburned into a preternatural redness, clad in a loose +duck "jumper" and trousers streaked and splashed with red soil, his +aspect under any circumstances would have been quaint, and was now even +ridiculous. As he stooped to deposit at his feet a heavy carpet-bag he +was carrying, it became obvious, from partially developed legends and +inscriptions, that the material with which his trousers had been patched +had been originally intended for a less ambitious covering. Yet he +advanced with great gravity, and after shaking the hand of each person +in the room with labored cordiality, he wiped his serious, perplexed +face on a red bandanna handkerchief, a shade lighter than his +complexion, laid his powerful hand upon the table to steady himself, and +thus addressed the Judge:--"I was passin' by," he began, by way of +apology, "and I thought I'd just step in and see how things was gittin' +on with Tennessee thar,--my pardner. It's a hot night. I disremember +any sich weather before on the Bar." + +He paused a moment, but nobody volunteering any other meteorological +recollection, he again had recourse to his pocket-handkerchief, and for +some moments mopped his face diligently. + +"Have you anything to say on behalf of the prisoner?"' said the Judge, +finally. + +"Thet's it," said Tennessee's Partner, in a tone of relief. "I come yar +as Tennessee's pardner, knowing him nigh on four year, off and on, wet +and dry, in luck and out o' luck. His ways ain't allers my ways, but +thar ain't any p'ints in that young man, thar ain't any liveliness as +he's been up to, as I don't know. And you sez to me, sez +you,--confidential-like, and between man and man,--sez you, 'Do you know +anything in his behalf?' and I sez to you, sez I,--confidential-like, +as between man and man,--'What should a man know of his pardner?'" + +"Is this all you have to say? asked the Judge impatiently, feeling, +perhaps, that a dangerous sympathy of humor was beginning to humanize +the court. + +"Thet's so," continued Tennessee's Partner. "It ain't for me to say +anything agin' him. And now, what's the case? Here's Tennessee wants +money, wants it bad, and doesn't like to ask it of his old pardner. +Well, what does Tennessee do? He lays for a stranger, and he fetches +that stranger; and you lays for him, and you fetches him; and the honors +is easy. And I put it to you, bein' a far-minded man, and to you, +gentlemen all, as far-minded men, ef this is isn't so." + +"Prisoner," said the Judge, interrupting, "have you any questions to ask +this man?" + +"No! no!" continued Tennessee's Partner hastily. "I play this yer hand +alone. To come down to the bedrock, it's just this: Tennessee, thar, has +played it pretty rough and expensive-like on a stranger, and on this yer +camp. And now, what's the fair thing? Some would say more; some would +say less. Here's seventeen hundred dollars in coarse gold and a +watch,--it's about all my pile,--and call it square!" And before a hand +could be raised to prevent him, he had emptied the contents of the +carpet-bag upon the table. + +For a moment his life was in jeopardy. One or two men sprang to their +feet, several hands groped for hidden weapons, and a suggestion to +"throw him from the window," was only overridden by a gesture from the +Judge. Tennessee laughed. And apparently oblivious of the excitement, +Tennessee's Partner improved the opportunity to mop his face again with +his handkerchief. + +When order was restored, and the man was made to understand, by the use +of forcible figures and rhetoric, that Tennessee's offense could not be +condoned by money, his face took a more serious and sanguinary hue, and +those who were nearest to him noticed that his rough hand trembled +slightly on the table. He hesitated a moment as he slowly returned the +gold to the carpetbag, as if he had not yet entirely caught the elevated +sense of justice which swayed the tribunal, and was perplexed with the +belief that he had not offered enough. Then he turned to the Judge, and +saying, "This yer is a lone hand, played alone, and without my pardner," +he bowed to the jury and was about to withdraw, when the Judge called +him back. "If you have anything to say to Tennessee, you had better say +it now." For the first time that evening the eyes of the prisoner and +his strange advocate met. Tennessee smiled, showed his white teeth, and +saying, "Euchred, old man!" held out his hand. Tennessee's Partner took +it in his own, and saying, "I just dropped in as I was passin' to see +how things was gettin' on," let the hand passively fall, and adding that +"it was a warm night," I again mopped his face with his handkerchief, +and without another word withdrew. + +The two men never again met each other alive. For the unparalleled +insult of a bribe offered to Judge Lynch--who, whether bigoted, weak, +or narrow, was at least incorruptible--firmly fixed in the mind of that +mythical personage any wavering determination of Tennessee's fate; and +at the break of day he was marched, closely guarded, to meet it at the +top of Marley's Hill. + +How he met it, how cool he was, how he refused to say anything, how +perfect were the arrangements of the committee, were all duly reported, +with the addition of a warning moral and example to all future +evil-doers, in the Red Dog Clarion, by its editor, who was present, and +to whose vigorous English I cheerfully refer the reader. But the beauty +of that midsummer morning, the blessed amity of earth and air and sky, +the awakened life of the free woods and hills, the joyous renewal and +promise of Nature, and, above all, the infinite serenity that thrilled +through each, was not reported, as not being a part of the social +lesson. And yet, when the weak and foolish deed was done, and a life, +with its possibilities and responsibilities, had passed out of the +misshapen thing that dangled between earth and sky, the birds sang, the +flowers bloomed, the sun shone, as cheerily as before; and possibly the +Red Dog Clarion was right. + +Tennessee's Partner was not in the group that surrounded the ominous +tree. But as they turned to disperse, attention was drawn to the +singular appearance of a motionless donkey-cart halted at the side of +the road. As they approached, they at once recognized the venerable +Jenny and the two-wheeled cart as the property of Tennessee's +Partner,--used by him in carrying dirt from his claim; and a few paces +distant, the owner of the equipage himself, sitting under a buckeye tree, +wiping the perspiration from his glowing face. In answer to an inquiry, +he said he had come for the body of the "diseased," "if it was all the +same to the committee." He didn't wish to "hurry anything"; he could +wait. He was not working that day; and when the gentlemen were done with +the "diseased" he would take him. "Ef thar is any present," he added, in +his simple, serious way, "as would care to jine in the fun'l, they kin +come." Perhaps it was from a sense of humor, which I have already +intimated was a feature of Sandy Bar,--perhaps it was from something +even better than that; but two-thirds of the loungers accepted the +invitation at once. + +It was noon when the body of Tennessee was delivered into the hands of +his partner. As the cart drew up to the fatal tree, we noticed that it +contained a rough oblong box,--apparently made from a section of +sluicing,--and half filled with bark and the tassels of pine. The cart +was further decorated with slips of willow, and made fragrant with +buckeye-blossoms. When the body was deposited in the box, Tennessee's +Partner drew over it a piece of tarred canvas, and gravely mounting the +narrow seat in front, with his feet upon the shafts, urged the little +donkey forward. The equipage moved slowly on, at that decorous pace +which was habitual with Jenny even under less solemn circumstances. The +men--half curiously, have jestingly, but all good-humoredly--strolled +along beside the cart; some in advance, some a little in the rear, of +the homely catafalque. But, whether from the narrowing of the road or +some present sense of decorum, as the cart passed on, the company fell +to the rear in couples, keeping step, and otherwise assuming the +external show of a formal procession. Jack Folinsbee, who had at the +outset played a funeral march in dumb show upon an imaginary trombone, +desisted, from a lack of sympathy and appreciation,--not having, +perhaps, your true humorist's capacity to be content with the enjoyment +of his own fun. + +The way led through Grizzly Cañon, by this time clothed in funereal +drapery and shadows. The redwoods, burying their moccasined feet in the +red soil, stood in Indian-file along the track, trailing an uncouth +benediction from their bending boughs upon the passing bier. A hare, +surprised into helpless inactivity, sat upright and pulsating in the +ferns by the roadside, as the cortège went by. Squirrels hastened to +gain a secure outlook from higher boughs; and the blue-jays, spreading +their wings, fluttered before them like outriders, until the outskirts +of Sandy Bar were reached, and the solitary cabin of Tennessee's +Partner. + +Viewed under more favorable circumstances, it would not have been a +cheerful place. The unpicturesque site, the rude and unlovely outlines, +the unsavory details, which distinguish the nest-building of the +California miner, were all here, with the dreariness of decay +superadded. A few paces from the cabin there was a rough enclosure, +which, in the brief days of Tennessee's Partner's matrimonial felicity, +had been used as a garden, but was now overgrown with fern. As we +approached it we were surprised to find that what we had taken for a +recent attempt at cultivation was the broken soil about an open grave. + +The cart was halted before the enclosure; and rejecting the offers of +assistance with the same air of simple self-reliance he had displayed +throughout, Tennessee's Partner lifted the rough coffin on his back, and +deposited it, unaided, within the shallow grave. He then nailed down the +board which served as a lid, and, mounting the little mound of earth +beside it, took off his hat, and slowly mopped his face with his +handkerchief. This the crowd felt was a preliminary to speech; and they +disposed themselves variously on stumps and boulders, and sat expectant. + +"When a man," began Tennessee's Partner slowly, "has been running free +all day, what's the natural thing for him to do? Why, to come home. And +if he ain't in a condition to go home, what can his best friend do? Why, +bring him home! And here's Tennessee has been running free, and we +brings him home from his wandering." He paused, and picked up a fragment +of quartz, rubbed it thoughtfully on his sleeve, and went on: "It ain't +the first time that I've packed him on my back, as you see'd me now. It +ain't the first time that I brought him to this yer cabin when he +couldn't help himself; it ain't the first time that I and Jinny have +waited for him on yon hill, and picked him up and so fetched him home, +when he couldn't speak, and didn't know me. And now that it's the last +time, why"--he paused, and rubbed the quartz gently on his sleeve--"you +see it's sort of rough on his pardner. And now, gentlemen," he added +abruptly, picking up his long handled shovel, "the fun'l's over; and my +thanks, and Tennessee's thanks, to you for your trouble." + +Resisting any proffers of assistance, he began to fill in the grave, +turning his back upon the crowd, that, after a few moments' hesitation, +gradually withdrew. As they crossed the little ridge that hid Sandy Bar +from view, some, looking back, thought they could see Tennessee's +Partner, his work done, sitting upon the grave, his shovel between his +knees, and his face buried in his red bandanna handkerchief. But it was +argued by others that you couldn't tell his face from his handkerchief +at that distance; and this point remained undecided. + +In the reaction that followed the feverish excitement of that day, +Tennessee's Partner was not forgotten. A secret investigation had +cleared him of any complicity in Tennessee's guilt, and left only a +suspicion of his general sanity. Sandy Bar made a point of calling on +him, and proffering various uncouth but well-meant kindnesses. But from +that day his rude health and great strength seemed visibly to decline; +and when the rainy season fairly set in, and the tiny grass-blades were +beginning to peep from the rocky mound above Tennessee's grave, he took +to his bed. + +One night, when the pines beside the cabin were swaying in the storm, +and trailing their slender fingers over the roof, and the roar and rush +of the swollen river were heard below, Tennessee's Partner lifted his +head from the Pillow, saying, "It is time to go for Tennessee; I must +put Jinny in the cart;" and would have risen from his bed but for the +restraint of his attendant. Struggling, he still pursued his singular +fancy: "There, now, steady, Jinny,--steady, old girl. How dark it is! +Look out for the ruts,--and look out for him, too, old gal. Sometimes, +you know, when he's blind drunk, he drops down right in the trail. Keep +on straight up to the pine on the top of the hill. Thar! I told you +so!--thar he is,--coming this way, too,--all by himself, sober, and his +face a-shining. Tennessee! Pardner!" + +And so they met. + + + +Here ends No. Three of the western classics, Being Tennessee's Partner +by Bret Harte, the introduction by William Dallam Armes. The +photogravure frontispiece by Albertine Randall Wheelan. Of this First +Edition One Thousand Copies have been issued, printed upon Fabriano +handmade paper. The typography designed by J. H. Nash. Published by Paul +Elder and Company, and done into a book for them at the Tomoye Press, +New York City, in the year Nineteen Hundred and Seven. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tennessee's Partner, by Bret Harte + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TENNESSEE'S PARTNER *** + +***** This file should be named 4674-8.txt or 4674-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/6/7/4674/ + +Produced by David Schwan + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Tennessee's Partner + +Author: Bret Harte + +Posting Date: August 24, 2009 [EBook #4674] +Release Date: November, 2003 +First Posted: February 26, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TENNESSEE'S PARTNER *** + + + + +Produced by David Schwan + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Western Classics No. Three +</H3> + +<BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +Tennessee's Partner +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +"Both were fearless types of a civilization that in the seventeenth +century would have been called heroic, but in the nineteenth simply +'reckless.'" +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +Tennessee's Partner +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +By +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +Bret Harte, +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +Including An Introduction By William Dallam Armes. +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The Introduction +</H3> + +<P> +When Marshall's discovery caused a sudden influx of thousands of +adventurers from all classes and almost all countries, the conditions of +government in California were almost the worst possible. Though the +Mexican system was unpopular and the Mexican law practically unknown, +until other provision was made by congress, they had to continue in +force. But the free and slave states were equal in number; California +would turn the scale; there was a battle royal as to which pan should +descend, a battle that the congresses of 1848 and 1849 left unsettled on +adjourning. +</P> + +<P> +Under these circumstances, it might be supposed that the worst elements +would get the upper hand, crime become common, and anarchy result. +Precisely the opposite happened. The de facto government was accepted as +a necessity, and under its direction "alcaldes" and "ayuntamientos" were +elected. But the mining-camps, which were in a part of the country that +had not been settled by the Mexicans and were occupied by men who knew +nothing of their system or laws, were left to work out their own +salvation. The preponderating element was the Anglo-Saxon, and its +genius for law and order asserted itself. Each camp elected its own +officers, recognized the customary laws and adopted special ones, and +punished lawbreakers. Naturally theft was considered a more serious +crime than it is in ordinary communities. As there were no jails or +jailors, flogging and expulsion were the usual punishment, but in +aggravated cases it was death. Even after the state government had been +organized, indeed, the law for a short while permitted a jury to +prescribe the death penalty for grand larceny, and, in fact, several +notorious thieves were legally executed. +</P> + +<P> +The testimony of all observers is that the camps were surprisingly +orderly, that crime was infrequent, and that its punishment, though +swift and certain, leaned to mercy rather than rigor. Bayard Taylor, for +example, who was in the mines in '50 and '51, writes: "In a region five +hundred miles long, inhabited by a hundred thousand people, who had +neither locks, bolts, regular laws of government, military or civil +protection, there was as much security to life and property as in any +state of the Union." +</P> + +<P> +As these "miners' courts" were allowed after the organization of the +state to retain jurisdiction in all questions that concerned the +appropriation of claims, the miners but slowly appreciated that they had +been shorn of their criminal jurisdiction. But that they did come to +recognize that "the old order changeth, yielding place to new," is, in +fact, shown by the very incident on which Harte based his of a lynching. +</P> + +<P> +Spite of the autobiographic method that leads the casual reader to think +that Harte was intimately connected with this early pioneer life and +derived the material for his sketches from personal observation and +experience, his is, in truth, only hearsay evidence. The heroic age was +with Iram and all his rose ere he landed in 1854, a lad of eighteen. +With no especial equipment for battling with the world, he had to turn +his hand to many things, and naturally tried mining. But finding the +returns incommensurate with the labor, he soon gave it up and sought +more congenial occupations, mainly in the towns of the valleys and the +seacoast. Before he was twenty-three, he had been school-teacher, +express-messenger, deputy tax-collector, and druggist's assistant; and +had risen from "printer's devil" to assistant editor of a country +newspaper. In 1859 he was back in San Francisco, utilizing the trade he +had picked up, as a compositor on The Golden Era. To this he contributed +poems and local sketches that soon led to his appointment as assistant +editor. His writings made him friends, one of whom, Thomas Starr King, +in 1864, obtained for him the position of secretary to the +superintendent of the Mint. His duties were not arduous, and his rooms +became the resort of his literary associates and of men from "the +diggings," whose mines, like the meadows of Concord, yielded a two-fold +crop: gold-dust for the superintendent to turn into bullion, and stories +for his young secretary later to turn into literature. By 1868 his +reputation was so great that when Mr. A. Roman established The Overland +Monthly, he was made its first editor. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Roman impressed upon him the literary possibilities of the life of +the miners, and furnished him with incidents, tales, and pictures. "The +Luck of Roaring Camp," his first venture in this hitherto almost +untouched field, proved that Bret Harte had come into his own. His local +sketches and Mexican legends had been imitative of Irving, his stories +of Dickens; but for this he had evolved a method and a style distinctly +personal. His first success was followed up by "The Outcasts of Poker +Flat" and (in October, 1869) by the tale here reprinted; and when, in +1870, an Eastern house published his sketches in book form, his fame was +secure. In 1871 he left California, and after a few years in the East +that added little to his reputation as a writer, or as a man, secured a +consulate in Germany. In 1878 he left America forever. Till his death in +1902 he wrote on, frequently recurring to the claim where he first "got +the color," but never equaling his work during the year and a half that +he was editor of the Overland. +</P> + +<P> +In 1866 Harte heard, from one who had been present, the incident that +inspired "Tennessee's Partner." Eleven years before, at Second Garrote, +a newcomer had committed a capital crime. The miners organized a court, +appointed counsel, and gave the miscreant a trial. He confessed his +guilt, and the cry arose, "Hang him!"' But "Old Man Chaffee" stepped +forward, drew a bag of gold-dust from his bosom, and said that he would +give his "pile" rather than have a lynching occur in a camp that, spite +its name, had never been so disgraced. He begged the crowd to turn the +prisoner over to the authorities and let the law take its course. Such +was the fervor of his appeal and so great were the respect and affection +for the old man that his proposal was adopted with a cheer for the +advocate of law and order, and the culprit taken to the jail at +Columbia. +</P> + +<P> +Chaffee's partner, Chamberlain, seems to have had no part in this +affair; but the two were united by a love like that of his partner for +Tennessee. And long after the Second Garrote had become but a memory, +the two octogenarians lived on in their little cabin, Chaffee seeking +with primitive pick, shovel, and pan the more and more elusive gold, and +Chamberlain contributing to the common purse by cultivating a small +"ranch," the best crop of which was the campers who came to chat of +bygone days with "the original of Tennessee's Partner." At last, in +1903, their partnership of fifty-four years was ended by the death of +Chaffee. Within eight weeks he was followed by Chamberlain. Their last +days were made easy by the bounty of Professor W. E. Magee, of the State +University, to whom I am indebted for the authority for some of these +statements,—Chamberlain's journal. +</P> + +<P> +From this simple material the imagination of Bret Harte spun the +characters, incidents, and motives that his genius wove into an +exquisite fabric, an idyl of blind, unreasoning love of man for man. He +was not writing history; and the complaint of those who were part of the +life he depicted, that he misstated the facts, rests on the same failure +to appreciate his purpose and method that leads Eastern and English +critics to consider his realism reality and to mistake his +verisimilitude for the truth itself. The fact is that Bret Harte was a +consummate literary artist, who used facts with all an artist's freedom. +His genius "imbalm'd and treasur'd up on purpose to a life beyond life," +however, many an actual incident that otherwise would lie buried 'neath +the poppy that the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +William Dallam Armes. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +Tennessee's Partner +</H1> + +<P> +I do not think that we ever knew his real name. Our ignorance of it +certainly never gave us any social inconvenience, for at Sandy Bar in +1854 most men were christened anew. Sometimes these appellatives were +derived from some distinctiveness of dress, as in the case of "Dungaree +Jack"; or from some peculiarity of habit, as shown in "Saleratus Bill," +so called from an undue proportion of that chemical in his daily bread; +or from some unlucky slip, as exhibited in "The Iron Pirate," a mild, +inoffensive man, who earned that baleful title by his unfortunate +mispronunciation of the term "iron pyrites." Perhaps this may have been +the beginning of a rude heraldry; but I am constrained to think that it +was because a man's real name in that day rested solely upon his own +unsupported statement. "Call yourself Clifford, do you?" said Boston, +addressing a timid newcomer with infinite scorn; "hell is full of such +Cliffords!" He then introduced the unfortunate man, whose name happened +to be really Clifford, as "Jaybird Charley,"—an unhallowed inspiration +of the moment that clung to him ever after. +</P> + +<P> +But to return to Tennessee's Partner, whom we never knew by any other +than this relative title; that he had ever existed as a separate and +distinct individuality we only learned later. It seems that in 1853 he +left Poker Flat to go to San Francisco, ostensibly to procure a wife. He +never got any farther than Stockton. At that place he was attracted by a +young person who waited upon the table at the hotel where he took his +meals. One morning he said something to her which caused her to smile +not unkindly, to somewhat coquettishly break a plate of toast over his +upturned, serious, simple face, and to retreat to the kitchen. He +followed her, and emerged a few moments later, covered with more toast +and victory. That day week they were married by a Justice of the Peace, +and returned to Poker Flat. I am aware that something more might be made +of this episode, but I prefer to tell it as it was current at Sandy +Bar,—in the gulches and barrooms,—where all sentiment was modified by a +strong sense of humor. +</P> + +<P> +Of their married felicity but little is known, perhaps for the reason +that Tennessee, then living with his partner, one day took occasion to +say something to the bride on his own account, at which, it is said, she +smiled not unkindly, and chastely retreated, this time as far as +Marysville, where Tennessee followed her, and where they went to +housekeeping without the aid of a Justice of the Peace. Tennessee's +Partner took the loss of his wife simply and seriously, as was his +fashion. But to everybody's surprise, when Tennessee one day returned +from Marysville, without his partner's wife,—she having smiled and +retreated with somebody else,—Tennessee's Partner was the first man to +shake his hand and greet him with affection. The boys who had gathered +in the cañon to see the shooting were naturally indignant. Their +indignation might have found vent in sarcasm but for a certain look in +Tennessee's Partner's eye that indicated a lack of humorous +appreciation. In fact, he was a grave man, with a steady application to +practical detail which was unpleasant in a difficulty. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile a popular feeling against Tennessee had grown up on the Bar. +He was known to be a gambler; he was suspected to be a thief. In these +suspicions Tennessee's Partner was equally compromised; his continued +intimacy with Tennessee after the affair above quoted could only be +accounted for on the hypothesis of a copartnership of crime. At last +Tennessee's guilt became flagrant. One day he overtook a stranger on his +way to Red Dog. The stranger afterward related that Tennessee beguiled +the time with interesting anecdote and reminiscence, but illogically +concluded the interview in the following words: "And now, young man, +I'll trouble you for your knife, your pistols, and your money. You see +your weppings might get you into trouble at Red Dog, and your money's a +temptation to the evilly disposed. I think you said your address was San +Francisco. I shall endeavor to call." It may be stated here that +Tennessee had a fine flow of humor, which no business preoccupation +could wholly subdue. +</P> + +<P> +This exploit was his last. Red Dog and Sandy Bar made common cause +against the highwayman. Tennessee was hunted in very much the same +fashion as his prototype, the grizzly. As the toils closed around him, +he made a desperate dash through the Bar, emptying his revolver at the +crowd before the Arcade Saloon, and so on up Grizzly Cañon; but at its +farther extremity he was stopped by a small man on a gray horse. The men +looked at each other a moment in silence. Both were fearless, both +self-possessed and independent, and both types of a civilization that in +the seventeenth century would have been called heroic, but in the +nineteenth simply "reckless." "What have you got there?—I call," said +Tennessee see, quietly. "Two bowers and an ace," said the stranger, as +quietly, showing two revolvers and a bowie-knife. "That takes me," +returned Tennessee; and, with this gambler's epigram, he threw away his +useless pistol, and rode back with his captor. +</P> + +<P> +It was a warm night. The cool breeze which usually sprang up with the +going down of the sun behind the chaparral-crested mountain was that +evening withheld from Sandy Bar. The little cañon was stifling with +heated resinous odors, and the decaying driftwood on the Bar sent forth +faint, sickening exhalations. The feverishness of day and its fierce +passions still filled the camp. Lights moved restlessly along the bank +of the river, striking no answering reflection from its tawny current. +Against the blackness of the pines the windows of the old loft above the +express-office stood out staringly bright; and through their curtainless +panes, the loungers below could see the forms of those who were even +then deciding the fate of Tennessee. And above all this, etched on the +dark firmament, rose the Sierra, remote and passionless, crowned with +remoter passionless stars. +</P> + +<P> +The trial of Tennessee was conducted as fairly as was consistent with a +judge and jury who felt themselves to some extent obliged to justify, in +their verdict, the previous irregularities of arrest and indictment. The +law of Sandy Bar was implacable, but not vengeful. The excitement and +personal feeling of the chase were over; with Tennessee safe in their +hands they were ready to listen patiently to any defense, which they +were already satisfied was insufficient. There being no doubt in their +own minds, they were willing to give the prisoner the benefit of any +that might exist. Secure in the hypothesis that he ought to be hanged, +on general principles, they indulged him with more latitude of defense +than his reckless hardihood seemed to ask. The Judge appeared to be more +anxious than the prisoner, who, otherwise unconcerned, evidently took a +grim pleasure in the responsibility he had created. "I don't take any +hand in this yer game," had been his invariable but good-humored reply +to all questions. The Judge—who was also his captor—for a moment +vaguely regretted that he had not shot him "on sight," that morning, but +presently dismissed this human weakness as unworthy of the judicial +mind. Nevertheless, when there was a tap at the door, and it was said +that Tennessee's Partner was there on behalf of the prisoner, he was +admitted at once without question. Perhaps the younger members of the +jury, to whom the proceedings were becoming irksomely thoughtful, hailed +him as a relief. +</P> + +<P> +For he was not, certainly, an imposing figure. Short and stout, with a +square face, sunburned into a preternatural redness, clad in a loose +duck "jumper" and trousers streaked and splashed with red soil, his +aspect under any circumstances would have been quaint, and was now even +ridiculous. As he stooped to deposit at his feet a heavy carpet-bag he +was carrying, it became obvious, from partially developed legends and +inscriptions, that the material with which his trousers had been patched +had been originally intended for a less ambitious covering. Yet he +advanced with great gravity, and after shaking the hand of each person +in the room with labored cordiality, he wiped his serious, perplexed +face on a red bandanna handkerchief, a shade lighter than his +complexion, laid his powerful hand upon the table to steady himself, and +thus addressed the Judge:—"I was passin' by," he began, by way of +apology, "and I thought I'd just step in and see how things was gittin' +on with Tennessee thar,—my pardner. It's a hot night. I disremember +any sich weather before on the Bar." +</P> + +<P> +He paused a moment, but nobody volunteering any other meteorological +recollection, he again had recourse to his pocket-handkerchief, and for +some moments mopped his face diligently. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you anything to say on behalf of the prisoner?"' said the Judge, +finally. +</P> + +<P> +"Thet's it," said Tennessee's Partner, in a tone of relief. "I come yar +as Tennessee's pardner, knowing him nigh on four year, off and on, wet +and dry, in luck and out o' luck. His ways ain't allers my ways, but +thar ain't any p'ints in that young man, thar ain't any liveliness as +he's been up to, as I don't know. And you sez to me, sez +you,—confidential-like, and between man and man,—sez you, 'Do you know +anything in his behalf?' and I sez to you, sez I,—confidential-like, +as between man and man,—'What should a man know of his pardner?'" +</P> + +<P> +"Is this all you have to say? asked the Judge impatiently, feeling, +perhaps, that a dangerous sympathy of humor was beginning to humanize +the court. +</P> + +<P> +"Thet's so," continued Tennessee's Partner. "It ain't for me to say +anything agin' him. And now, what's the case? Here's Tennessee wants +money, wants it bad, and doesn't like to ask it of his old pardner. +Well, what does Tennessee do? He lays for a stranger, and he fetches +that stranger; and you lays for him, and you fetches him; and the honors +is easy. And I put it to you, bein' a far-minded man, and to you, +gentlemen all, as far-minded men, ef this is isn't so." +</P> + +<P> +"Prisoner," said the Judge, interrupting, "have you any questions to ask +this man?" +</P> + +<P> +"No! no!" continued Tennessee's Partner hastily. "I play this yer hand +alone. To come down to the bedrock, it's just this: Tennessee, thar, has +played it pretty rough and expensive-like on a stranger, and on this yer +camp. And now, what's the fair thing? Some would say more; some would +say less. Here's seventeen hundred dollars in coarse gold and a +watch,—it's about all my pile,—and call it square!" And before a hand +could be raised to prevent him, he had emptied the contents of the +carpet-bag upon the table. +</P> + +<P> +For a moment his life was in jeopardy. One or two men sprang to their +feet, several hands groped for hidden weapons, and a suggestion to +"throw him from the window," was only overridden by a gesture from the +Judge. Tennessee laughed. And apparently oblivious of the excitement, +Tennessee's Partner improved the opportunity to mop his face again with +his handkerchief. +</P> + +<P> +When order was restored, and the man was made to understand, by the use +of forcible figures and rhetoric, that Tennessee's offense could not be +condoned by money, his face took a more serious and sanguinary hue, and +those who were nearest to him noticed that his rough hand trembled +slightly on the table. He hesitated a moment as he slowly returned the +gold to the carpetbag, as if he had not yet entirely caught the elevated +sense of justice which swayed the tribunal, and was perplexed with the +belief that he had not offered enough. Then he turned to the Judge, and +saying, "This yer is a lone hand, played alone, and without my pardner," +he bowed to the jury and was about to withdraw, when the Judge called +him back. "If you have anything to say to Tennessee, you had better say +it now." For the first time that evening the eyes of the prisoner and +his strange advocate met. Tennessee smiled, showed his white teeth, and +saying, "Euchred, old man!" held out his hand. Tennessee's Partner took +it in his own, and saying, "I just dropped in as I was passin' to see +how things was gettin' on," let the hand passively fall, and adding that +"it was a warm night," I again mopped his face with his handkerchief, +and without another word withdrew. +</P> + +<P> +The two men never again met each other alive. For the unparalleled +insult of a bribe offered to Judge Lynch—who, whether bigoted, weak, +or narrow, was at least incorruptible—firmly fixed in the mind of that +mythical personage any wavering determination of Tennessee's fate; and +at the break of day he was marched, closely guarded, to meet it at the +top of Marley's Hill. +</P> + +<P> +How he met it, how cool he was, how he refused to say anything, how +perfect were the arrangements of the committee, were all duly reported, +with the addition of a warning moral and example to all future +evil-doers, in the Red Dog Clarion, by its editor, who was present, and +to whose vigorous English I cheerfully refer the reader. But the beauty +of that midsummer morning, the blessed amity of earth and air and sky, +the awakened life of the free woods and hills, the joyous renewal and +promise of Nature, and, above all, the infinite serenity that thrilled +through each, was not reported, as not being a part of the social +lesson. And yet, when the weak and foolish deed was done, and a life, +with its possibilities and responsibilities, had passed out of the +misshapen thing that dangled between earth and sky, the birds sang, the +flowers bloomed, the sun shone, as cheerily as before; and possibly the +Red Dog Clarion was right. +</P> + +<P> +Tennessee's Partner was not in the group that surrounded the ominous +tree. But as they turned to disperse, attention was drawn to the +singular appearance of a motionless donkey-cart halted at the side of +the road. As they approached, they at once recognized the venerable +Jenny and the two-wheeled cart as the property of Tennessee's +Partner,—used by him in carrying dirt from his claim; and a few paces +distant, the owner of the equipage himself, sitting under a buckeye tree, +wiping the perspiration from his glowing face. In answer to an inquiry, +he said he had come for the body of the "diseased," "if it was all the +same to the committee." He didn't wish to "hurry anything"; he could +wait. He was not working that day; and when the gentlemen were done with +the "diseased" he would take him. "Ef thar is any present," he added, in +his simple, serious way, "as would care to jine in the fun'l, they kin +come." Perhaps it was from a sense of humor, which I have already +intimated was a feature of Sandy Bar,—perhaps it was from something +even better than that; but two-thirds of the loungers accepted the +invitation at once. +</P> + +<P> +It was noon when the body of Tennessee was delivered into the hands of +his partner. As the cart drew up to the fatal tree, we noticed that it +contained a rough oblong box,—apparently made from a section of +sluicing,—and half filled with bark and the tassels of pine. The cart +was further decorated with slips of willow, and made fragrant with +buckeye-blossoms. When the body was deposited in the box, Tennessee's +Partner drew over it a piece of tarred canvas, and gravely mounting the +narrow seat in front, with his feet upon the shafts, urged the little +donkey forward. The equipage moved slowly on, at that decorous pace +which was habitual with Jenny even under less solemn circumstances. The +men—half curiously, have jestingly, but all good-humoredly—strolled +along beside the cart; some in advance, some a little in the rear, of +the homely catafalque. But, whether from the narrowing of the road or +some present sense of decorum, as the cart passed on, the company fell +to the rear in couples, keeping step, and otherwise assuming the +external show of a formal procession. Jack Folinsbee, who had at the +outset played a funeral march in dumb show upon an imaginary trombone, +desisted, from a lack of sympathy and appreciation,—not having, +perhaps, your true humorist's capacity to be content with the enjoyment +of his own fun. +</P> + +<P> +The way led through Grizzly Cañon, by this time clothed in funereal +drapery and shadows. The redwoods, burying their moccasined feet in the +red soil, stood in Indian-file along the track, trailing an uncouth +benediction from their bending boughs upon the passing bier. A hare, +surprised into helpless inactivity, sat upright and pulsating in the +ferns by the roadside, as the cortège went by. Squirrels hastened to +gain a secure outlook from higher boughs; and the blue-jays, spreading +their wings, fluttered before them like outriders, until the outskirts +of Sandy Bar were reached, and the solitary cabin of Tennessee's +Partner. +</P> + +<P> +Viewed under more favorable circumstances, it would not have been a +cheerful place. The unpicturesque site, the rude and unlovely outlines, +the unsavory details, which distinguish the nest-building of the +California miner, were all here, with the dreariness of decay +superadded. A few paces from the cabin there was a rough enclosure, +which, in the brief days of Tennessee's Partner's matrimonial felicity, +had been used as a garden, but was now overgrown with fern. As we +approached it we were surprised to find that what we had taken for a +recent attempt at cultivation was the broken soil about an open grave. +</P> + +<P> +The cart was halted before the enclosure; and rejecting the offers of +assistance with the same air of simple self-reliance he had displayed +throughout, Tennessee's Partner lifted the rough coffin on his back, and +deposited it, unaided, within the shallow grave. He then nailed down the +board which served as a lid, and, mounting the little mound of earth +beside it, took off his hat, and slowly mopped his face with his +handkerchief. This the crowd felt was a preliminary to speech; and they +disposed themselves variously on stumps and boulders, and sat expectant. +</P> + +<P> +"When a man," began Tennessee's Partner slowly, "has been running free +all day, what's the natural thing for him to do? Why, to come home. And +if he ain't in a condition to go home, what can his best friend do? Why, +bring him home! And here's Tennessee has been running free, and we +brings him home from his wandering." He paused, and picked up a fragment +of quartz, rubbed it thoughtfully on his sleeve, and went on: "It ain't +the first time that I've packed him on my back, as you see'd me now. It +ain't the first time that I brought him to this yer cabin when he +couldn't help himself; it ain't the first time that I and Jinny have +waited for him on yon hill, and picked him up and so fetched him home, +when he couldn't speak, and didn't know me. And now that it's the last +time, why"—he paused, and rubbed the quartz gently on his sleeve—"you +see it's sort of rough on his pardner. And now, gentlemen," he added +abruptly, picking up his long handled shovel, "the fun'l's over; and my +thanks, and Tennessee's thanks, to you for your trouble." +</P> + +<P> +Resisting any proffers of assistance, he began to fill in the grave, +turning his back upon the crowd, that, after a few moments' hesitation, +gradually withdrew. As they crossed the little ridge that hid Sandy Bar +from view, some, looking back, thought they could see Tennessee's +Partner, his work done, sitting upon the grave, his shovel between his +knees, and his face buried in his red bandanna handkerchief. But it was +argued by others that you couldn't tell his face from his handkerchief +at that distance; and this point remained undecided. +</P> + +<P> +In the reaction that followed the feverish excitement of that day, +Tennessee's Partner was not forgotten. A secret investigation had +cleared him of any complicity in Tennessee's guilt, and left only a +suspicion of his general sanity. Sandy Bar made a point of calling on +him, and proffering various uncouth but well-meant kindnesses. But from +that day his rude health and great strength seemed visibly to decline; +and when the rainy season fairly set in, and the tiny grass-blades were +beginning to peep from the rocky mound above Tennessee's grave, he took +to his bed. +</P> + +<P> +One night, when the pines beside the cabin were swaying in the storm, +and trailing their slender fingers over the roof, and the roar and rush +of the swollen river were heard below, Tennessee's Partner lifted his +head from the Pillow, saying, "It is time to go for Tennessee; I must +put Jinny in the cart;" and would have risen from his bed but for the +restraint of his attendant. Struggling, he still pursued his singular +fancy: "There, now, steady, Jinny,—steady, old girl. How dark it is! +Look out for the ruts,—and look out for him, too, old gal. Sometimes, +you know, when he's blind drunk, he drops down right in the trail. Keep +on straight up to the pine on the top of the hill. Thar! I told you +so!—thar he is,—coming this way, too,—all by himself, sober, and his +face a-shining. Tennessee! Pardner!" +</P> + +<P> +And so they met. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P> +Here ends No. Three of the western classics, Being Tennessee's Partner +by Bret Harte, the introduction by William Dallam Armes. The +photogravure frontispiece by Albertine Randall Wheelan. Of this First +Edition One Thousand Copies have been issued, printed upon Fabriano +handmade paper. The typography designed by J. H. Nash. Published by Paul +Elder and Company, and done into a book for them at the Tomoye Press, +New York City, in the year Nineteen Hundred and Seven. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tennessee's Partner, by Bret Harte + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TENNESSEE'S PARTNER *** + +***** This file should be named 4674-h.htm or 4674-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/6/7/4674/ + +Produced by David Schwan + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Tennessee's Partner + +Author: Bret Harte + +Posting Date: August 24, 2009 [EBook #4674] +Release Date: November, 2003 +First Posted: February 26, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TENNESSEE'S PARTNER *** + + + + +Produced by David Schwan + + + + + + + + +Western Classics No. Three + + + +Tennessee's Partner + + + +"Both were fearless types of a civilization that in the seventeenth +century would have been called heroic, but in the nineteenth simply +'reckless.'" + + + +Tennessee's Partner + + +By + +Bret Harte, + + +Including An Introduction By William Dallam Armes. + + + + +The Introduction + + +When Marshall's discovery caused a sudden influx of thousands of +adventurers from all classes and almost all countries, the conditions of +government in California were almost the worst possible. Though the +Mexican system was unpopular and the Mexican law practically unknown, +until other provision was made by congress, they had to continue in +force. But the free and slave states were equal in number; California +would turn the scale; there was a battle royal as to which pan should +descend, a battle that the congresses of 1848 and 1849 left unsettled on +adjourning. + +Under these circumstances, it might be supposed that the worst elements +would get the upper hand, crime become common, and anarchy result. +Precisely the opposite happened. The de facto government was accepted as +a necessity, and under its direction "alcaldes" and "ayuntamientos" were +elected. But the mining-camps, which were in a part of the country that +had not been settled by the Mexicans and were occupied by men who knew +nothing of their system or laws, were left to work out their own +salvation. The preponderating element was the Anglo-Saxon, and its +genius for law and order asserted itself. Each camp elected its own +officers, recognized the customary laws and adopted special ones, and +punished lawbreakers. Naturally theft was considered a more serious +crime than it is in ordinary communities. As there were no jails or +jailors, flogging and expulsion were the usual punishment, but in +aggravated cases it was death. Even after the state government had been +organized, indeed, the law for a short while permitted a jury to +prescribe the death penalty for grand larceny, and, in fact, several +notorious thieves were legally executed. + +The testimony of all observers is that the camps were surprisingly +orderly, that crime was infrequent, and that its punishment, though +swift and certain, leaned to mercy rather than rigor. Bayard Taylor, for +example, who was in the mines in '50 and '51, writes: "In a region five +hundred miles long, inhabited by a hundred thousand people, who had +neither locks, bolts, regular laws of government, military or civil +protection, there was as much security to life and property as in any +state of the Union." + +As these "miners' courts" were allowed after the organization of the +state to retain jurisdiction in all questions that concerned the +appropriation of claims, the miners but slowly appreciated that they had +been shorn of their criminal jurisdiction. But that they did come to +recognize that "the old order changeth, yielding place to new," is, in +fact, shown by the very incident on which Harte based his of a lynching. + +Spite of the autobiographic method that leads the casual reader to think +that Harte was intimately connected with this early pioneer life and +derived the material for his sketches from personal observation and +experience, his is, in truth, only hearsay evidence. The heroic age was +with Iram and all his rose ere he landed in 1854, a lad of eighteen. +With no especial equipment for battling with the world, he had to turn +his hand to many things, and naturally tried mining. But finding the +returns incommensurate with the labor, he soon gave it up and sought +more congenial occupations, mainly in the towns of the valleys and the +seacoast. Before he was twenty-three, he had been school-teacher, +express-messenger, deputy tax-collector, and druggist's assistant; and +had risen from "printer's devil" to assistant editor of a country +newspaper. In 1859 he was back in San Francisco, utilizing the trade he +had picked up, as a compositor on The Golden Era. To this he contributed +poems and local sketches that soon led to his appointment as assistant +editor. His writings made him friends, one of whom, Thomas Starr King, +in 1864, obtained for him the position of secretary to the +superintendent of the Mint. His duties were not arduous, and his rooms +became the resort of his literary associates and of men from "the +diggings," whose mines, like the meadows of Concord, yielded a two-fold +crop: gold-dust for the superintendent to turn into bullion, and stories +for his young secretary later to turn into literature. By 1868 his +reputation was so great that when Mr. A. Roman established The Overland +Monthly, he was made its first editor. + +Mr. Roman impressed upon him the literary possibilities of the life of +the miners, and furnished him with incidents, tales, and pictures. "The +Luck of Roaring Camp," his first venture in this hitherto almost +untouched field, proved that Bret Harte had come into his own. His local +sketches and Mexican legends had been imitative of Irving, his stories +of Dickens; but for this he had evolved a method and a style distinctly +personal. His first success was followed up by "The Outcasts of Poker +Flat" and (in October, 1869) by the tale here reprinted; and when, in +1870, an Eastern house published his sketches in book form, his fame was +secure. In 1871 he left California, and after a few years in the East +that added little to his reputation as a writer, or as a man, secured a +consulate in Germany. In 1878 he left America forever. Till his death in +1902 he wrote on, frequently recurring to the claim where he first "got +the color," but never equaling his work during the year and a half that +he was editor of the Overland. + +In 1866 Harte heard, from one who had been present, the incident that +inspired "Tennessee's Partner." Eleven years before, at Second Garrote, +a newcomer had committed a capital crime. The miners organized a court, +appointed counsel, and gave the miscreant a trial. He confessed his +guilt, and the cry arose, "Hang him!"' But "Old Man Chaffee" stepped +forward, drew a bag of gold-dust from his bosom, and said that he would +give his "pile" rather than have a lynching occur in a camp that, spite +its name, had never been so disgraced. He begged the crowd to turn the +prisoner over to the authorities and let the law take its course. Such +was the fervor of his appeal and so great were the respect and affection +for the old man that his proposal was adopted with a cheer for the +advocate of law and order, and the culprit taken to the jail at +Columbia. + +Chaffee's partner, Chamberlain, seems to have had no part in this +affair; but the two were united by a love like that of his partner for +Tennessee. And long after the Second Garrote had become but a memory, +the two octogenarians lived on in their little cabin, Chaffee seeking +with primitive pick, shovel, and pan the more and more elusive gold, and +Chamberlain contributing to the common purse by cultivating a small +"ranch," the best crop of which was the campers who came to chat of +bygone days with "the original of Tennessee's Partner." At last, in +1903, their partnership of fifty-four years was ended by the death of +Chaffee. Within eight weeks he was followed by Chamberlain. Their last +days were made easy by the bounty of Professor W. E. Magee, of the State +University, to whom I am indebted for the authority for some of these +statements,--Chamberlain's journal. + +From this simple material the imagination of Bret Harte spun the +characters, incidents, and motives that his genius wove into an +exquisite fabric, an idyl of blind, unreasoning love of man for man. He +was not writing history; and the complaint of those who were part of the +life he depicted, that he misstated the facts, rests on the same failure +to appreciate his purpose and method that leads Eastern and English +critics to consider his realism reality and to mistake his +verisimilitude for the truth itself. The fact is that Bret Harte was a +consummate literary artist, who used facts with all an artist's freedom. +His genius "imbalm'd and treasur'd up on purpose to a life beyond life," +however, many an actual incident that otherwise would lie buried 'neath +the poppy that the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth. + +William Dallam Armes. + + + + +Tennessee's Partner + + +I do not think that we ever knew his real name. Our ignorance of it +certainly never gave us any social inconvenience, for at Sandy Bar in +1854 most men were christened anew. Sometimes these appellatives were +derived from some distinctiveness of dress, as in the case of "Dungaree +Jack"; or from some peculiarity of habit, as shown in "Saleratus Bill," +so called from an undue proportion of that chemical in his daily bread; +or from some unlucky slip, as exhibited in "The Iron Pirate," a mild, +inoffensive man, who earned that baleful title by his unfortunate +mispronunciation of the term "iron pyrites." Perhaps this may have been +the beginning of a rude heraldry; but I am constrained to think that it +was because a man's real name in that day rested solely upon his own +unsupported statement. "Call yourself Clifford, do you?" said Boston, +addressing a timid newcomer with infinite scorn; "hell is full of such +Cliffords!" He then introduced the unfortunate man, whose name happened +to be really Clifford, as "Jaybird Charley,"--an unhallowed inspiration +of the moment that clung to him ever after. + +But to return to Tennessee's Partner, whom we never knew by any other +than this relative title; that he had ever existed as a separate and +distinct individuality we only learned later. It seems that in 1853 he +left Poker Flat to go to San Francisco, ostensibly to procure a wife. He +never got any farther than Stockton. At that place he was attracted by a +young person who waited upon the table at the hotel where he took his +meals. One morning he said something to her which caused her to smile +not unkindly, to somewhat coquettishly break a plate of toast over his +upturned, serious, simple face, and to retreat to the kitchen. He +followed her, and emerged a few moments later, covered with more toast +and victory. That day week they were married by a Justice of the Peace, +and returned to Poker Flat. I am aware that something more might be made +of this episode, but I prefer to tell it as it was current at Sandy +Bar,--in the gulches and barrooms,--where all sentiment was modified by a +strong sense of humor. + +Of their married felicity but little is known, perhaps for the reason +that Tennessee, then living with his partner, one day took occasion to +say something to the bride on his own account, at which, it is said, she +smiled not unkindly, and chastely retreated, this time as far as +Marysville, where Tennessee followed her, and where they went to +housekeeping without the aid of a Justice of the Peace. Tennessee's +Partner took the loss of his wife simply and seriously, as was his +fashion. But to everybody's surprise, when Tennessee one day returned +from Marysville, without his partner's wife,--she having smiled and +retreated with somebody else,--Tennessee's Partner was the first man to +shake his hand and greet him with affection. The boys who had gathered +in the canyon to see the shooting were naturally indignant. Their +indignation might have found vent in sarcasm but for a certain look in +Tennessee's Partner's eye that indicated a lack of humorous +appreciation. In fact, he was a grave man, with a steady application to +practical detail which was unpleasant in a difficulty. + +Meanwhile a popular feeling against Tennessee had grown up on the Bar. +He was known to be a gambler; he was suspected to be a thief. In these +suspicions Tennessee's Partner was equally compromised; his continued +intimacy with Tennessee after the affair above quoted could only be +accounted for on the hypothesis of a copartnership of crime. At last +Tennessee's guilt became flagrant. One day he overtook a stranger on his +way to Red Dog. The stranger afterward related that Tennessee beguiled +the time with interesting anecdote and reminiscence, but illogically +concluded the interview in the following words: "And now, young man, +I'll trouble you for your knife, your pistols, and your money. You see +your weppings might get you into trouble at Red Dog, and your money's a +temptation to the evilly disposed. I think you said your address was San +Francisco. I shall endeavor to call." It may be stated here that +Tennessee had a fine flow of humor, which no business preoccupation +could wholly subdue. + +This exploit was his last. Red Dog and Sandy Bar made common cause +against the highwayman. Tennessee was hunted in very much the same +fashion as his prototype, the grizzly. As the toils closed around him, +he made a desperate dash through the Bar, emptying his revolver at the +crowd before the Arcade Saloon, and so on up Grizzly Canyon; but at its +farther extremity he was stopped by a small man on a gray horse. The men +looked at each other a moment in silence. Both were fearless, both +self-possessed and independent, and both types of a civilization that in +the seventeenth century would have been called heroic, but in the +nineteenth simply "reckless." "What have you got there?--I call," said +Tennessee see, quietly. "Two bowers and an ace," said the stranger, as +quietly, showing two revolvers and a bowie-knife. "That takes me," +returned Tennessee; and, with this gambler's epigram, he threw away his +useless pistol, and rode back with his captor. + +It was a warm night. The cool breeze which usually sprang up with the +going down of the sun behind the chaparral-crested mountain was that +evening withheld from Sandy Bar. The little canyon was stifling with +heated resinous odors, and the decaying driftwood on the Bar sent forth +faint, sickening exhalations. The feverishness of day and its fierce +passions still filled the camp. Lights moved restlessly along the bank +of the river, striking no answering reflection from its tawny current. +Against the blackness of the pines the windows of the old loft above the +express-office stood out staringly bright; and through their curtainless +panes, the loungers below could see the forms of those who were even +then deciding the fate of Tennessee. And above all this, etched on the +dark firmament, rose the Sierra, remote and passionless, crowned with +remoter passionless stars. + +The trial of Tennessee was conducted as fairly as was consistent with a +judge and jury who felt themselves to some extent obliged to justify, in +their verdict, the previous irregularities of arrest and indictment. The +law of Sandy Bar was implacable, but not vengeful. The excitement and +personal feeling of the chase were over; with Tennessee safe in their +hands they were ready to listen patiently to any defense, which they +were already satisfied was insufficient. There being no doubt in their +own minds, they were willing to give the prisoner the benefit of any +that might exist. Secure in the hypothesis that he ought to be hanged, +on general principles, they indulged him with more latitude of defense +than his reckless hardihood seemed to ask. The Judge appeared to be more +anxious than the prisoner, who, otherwise unconcerned, evidently took a +grim pleasure in the responsibility he had created. "I don't take any +hand in this yer game," had been his invariable but good-humored reply +to all questions. The Judge--who was also his captor--for a moment +vaguely regretted that he had not shot him "on sight," that morning, but +presently dismissed this human weakness as unworthy of the judicial +mind. Nevertheless, when there was a tap at the door, and it was said +that Tennessee's Partner was there on behalf of the prisoner, he was +admitted at once without question. Perhaps the younger members of the +jury, to whom the proceedings were becoming irksomely thoughtful, hailed +him as a relief. + +For he was not, certainly, an imposing figure. Short and stout, with a +square face, sunburned into a preternatural redness, clad in a loose +duck "jumper" and trousers streaked and splashed with red soil, his +aspect under any circumstances would have been quaint, and was now even +ridiculous. As he stooped to deposit at his feet a heavy carpet-bag he +was carrying, it became obvious, from partially developed legends and +inscriptions, that the material with which his trousers had been patched +had been originally intended for a less ambitious covering. Yet he +advanced with great gravity, and after shaking the hand of each person +in the room with labored cordiality, he wiped his serious, perplexed +face on a red bandanna handkerchief, a shade lighter than his +complexion, laid his powerful hand upon the table to steady himself, and +thus addressed the Judge:--"I was passin' by," he began, by way of +apology, "and I thought I'd just step in and see how things was gittin' +on with Tennessee thar,--my pardner. It's a hot night. I disremember +any sich weather before on the Bar." + +He paused a moment, but nobody volunteering any other meteorological +recollection, he again had recourse to his pocket-handkerchief, and for +some moments mopped his face diligently. + +"Have you anything to say on behalf of the prisoner?"' said the Judge, +finally. + +"Thet's it," said Tennessee's Partner, in a tone of relief. "I come yar +as Tennessee's pardner, knowing him nigh on four year, off and on, wet +and dry, in luck and out o' luck. His ways ain't allers my ways, but +thar ain't any p'ints in that young man, thar ain't any liveliness as +he's been up to, as I don't know. And you sez to me, sez +you,--confidential-like, and between man and man,--sez you, 'Do you know +anything in his behalf?' and I sez to you, sez I,--confidential-like, +as between man and man,--'What should a man know of his pardner?'" + +"Is this all you have to say? asked the Judge impatiently, feeling, +perhaps, that a dangerous sympathy of humor was beginning to humanize +the court. + +"Thet's so," continued Tennessee's Partner. "It ain't for me to say +anything agin' him. And now, what's the case? Here's Tennessee wants +money, wants it bad, and doesn't like to ask it of his old pardner. +Well, what does Tennessee do? He lays for a stranger, and he fetches +that stranger; and you lays for him, and you fetches him; and the honors +is easy. And I put it to you, bein' a far-minded man, and to you, +gentlemen all, as far-minded men, ef this is isn't so." + +"Prisoner," said the Judge, interrupting, "have you any questions to ask +this man?" + +"No! no!" continued Tennessee's Partner hastily. "I play this yer hand +alone. To come down to the bedrock, it's just this: Tennessee, thar, has +played it pretty rough and expensive-like on a stranger, and on this yer +camp. And now, what's the fair thing? Some would say more; some would +say less. Here's seventeen hundred dollars in coarse gold and a +watch,--it's about all my pile,--and call it square!" And before a hand +could be raised to prevent him, he had emptied the contents of the +carpet-bag upon the table. + +For a moment his life was in jeopardy. One or two men sprang to their +feet, several hands groped for hidden weapons, and a suggestion to +"throw him from the window," was only overridden by a gesture from the +Judge. Tennessee laughed. And apparently oblivious of the excitement, +Tennessee's Partner improved the opportunity to mop his face again with +his handkerchief. + +When order was restored, and the man was made to understand, by the use +of forcible figures and rhetoric, that Tennessee's offense could not be +condoned by money, his face took a more serious and sanguinary hue, and +those who were nearest to him noticed that his rough hand trembled +slightly on the table. He hesitated a moment as he slowly returned the +gold to the carpetbag, as if he had not yet entirely caught the elevated +sense of justice which swayed the tribunal, and was perplexed with the +belief that he had not offered enough. Then he turned to the Judge, and +saying, "This yer is a lone hand, played alone, and without my pardner," +he bowed to the jury and was about to withdraw, when the Judge called +him back. "If you have anything to say to Tennessee, you had better say +it now." For the first time that evening the eyes of the prisoner and +his strange advocate met. Tennessee smiled, showed his white teeth, and +saying, "Euchred, old man!" held out his hand. Tennessee's Partner took +it in his own, and saying, "I just dropped in as I was passin' to see +how things was gettin' on," let the hand passively fall, and adding that +"it was a warm night," I again mopped his face with his handkerchief, +and without another word withdrew. + +The two men never again met each other alive. For the unparalleled +insult of a bribe offered to Judge Lynch--who, whether bigoted, weak, +or narrow, was at least incorruptible--firmly fixed in the mind of that +mythical personage any wavering determination of Tennessee's fate; and +at the break of day he was marched, closely guarded, to meet it at the +top of Marley's Hill. + +How he met it, how cool he was, how he refused to say anything, how +perfect were the arrangements of the committee, were all duly reported, +with the addition of a warning moral and example to all future +evil-doers, in the Red Dog Clarion, by its editor, who was present, and +to whose vigorous English I cheerfully refer the reader. But the beauty +of that midsummer morning, the blessed amity of earth and air and sky, +the awakened life of the free woods and hills, the joyous renewal and +promise of Nature, and, above all, the infinite serenity that thrilled +through each, was not reported, as not being a part of the social +lesson. And yet, when the weak and foolish deed was done, and a life, +with its possibilities and responsibilities, had passed out of the +misshapen thing that dangled between earth and sky, the birds sang, the +flowers bloomed, the sun shone, as cheerily as before; and possibly the +Red Dog Clarion was right. + +Tennessee's Partner was not in the group that surrounded the ominous +tree. But as they turned to disperse, attention was drawn to the +singular appearance of a motionless donkey-cart halted at the side of +the road. As they approached, they at once recognized the venerable +Jenny and the two-wheeled cart as the property of Tennessee's +Partner,--used by him in carrying dirt from his claim; and a few paces +distant, the owner of the equipage himself, sitting under a buckeye tree, +wiping the perspiration from his glowing face. In answer to an inquiry, +he said he had come for the body of the "diseased," "if it was all the +same to the committee." He didn't wish to "hurry anything"; he could +wait. He was not working that day; and when the gentlemen were done with +the "diseased" he would take him. "Ef thar is any present," he added, in +his simple, serious way, "as would care to jine in the fun'l, they kin +come." Perhaps it was from a sense of humor, which I have already +intimated was a feature of Sandy Bar,--perhaps it was from something +even better than that; but two-thirds of the loungers accepted the +invitation at once. + +It was noon when the body of Tennessee was delivered into the hands of +his partner. As the cart drew up to the fatal tree, we noticed that it +contained a rough oblong box,--apparently made from a section of +sluicing,--and half filled with bark and the tassels of pine. The cart +was further decorated with slips of willow, and made fragrant with +buckeye-blossoms. When the body was deposited in the box, Tennessee's +Partner drew over it a piece of tarred canvas, and gravely mounting the +narrow seat in front, with his feet upon the shafts, urged the little +donkey forward. The equipage moved slowly on, at that decorous pace +which was habitual with Jenny even under less solemn circumstances. The +men--half curiously, have jestingly, but all good-humoredly--strolled +along beside the cart; some in advance, some a little in the rear, of +the homely catafalque. But, whether from the narrowing of the road or +some present sense of decorum, as the cart passed on, the company fell +to the rear in couples, keeping step, and otherwise assuming the +external show of a formal procession. Jack Folinsbee, who had at the +outset played a funeral march in dumb show upon an imaginary trombone, +desisted, from a lack of sympathy and appreciation,--not having, +perhaps, your true humorist's capacity to be content with the enjoyment +of his own fun. + +The way led through Grizzly Canyon, by this time clothed in funereal +drapery and shadows. The redwoods, burying their moccasined feet in the +red soil, stood in Indian-file along the track, trailing an uncouth +benediction from their bending boughs upon the passing bier. A hare, +surprised into helpless inactivity, sat upright and pulsating in the +ferns by the roadside, as the cortege went by. Squirrels hastened to +gain a secure outlook from higher boughs; and the blue-jays, spreading +their wings, fluttered before them like outriders, until the outskirts +of Sandy Bar were reached, and the solitary cabin of Tennessee's +Partner. + +Viewed under more favorable circumstances, it would not have been a +cheerful place. The unpicturesque site, the rude and unlovely outlines, +the unsavory details, which distinguish the nest-building of the +California miner, were all here, with the dreariness of decay +superadded. A few paces from the cabin there was a rough enclosure, +which, in the brief days of Tennessee's Partner's matrimonial felicity, +had been used as a garden, but was now overgrown with fern. As we +approached it we were surprised to find that what we had taken for a +recent attempt at cultivation was the broken soil about an open grave. + +The cart was halted before the enclosure; and rejecting the offers of +assistance with the same air of simple self-reliance he had displayed +throughout, Tennessee's Partner lifted the rough coffin on his back, and +deposited it, unaided, within the shallow grave. He then nailed down the +board which served as a lid, and, mounting the little mound of earth +beside it, took off his hat, and slowly mopped his face with his +handkerchief. This the crowd felt was a preliminary to speech; and they +disposed themselves variously on stumps and boulders, and sat expectant. + +"When a man," began Tennessee's Partner slowly, "has been running free +all day, what's the natural thing for him to do? Why, to come home. And +if he ain't in a condition to go home, what can his best friend do? Why, +bring him home! And here's Tennessee has been running free, and we +brings him home from his wandering." He paused, and picked up a fragment +of quartz, rubbed it thoughtfully on his sleeve, and went on: "It ain't +the first time that I've packed him on my back, as you see'd me now. It +ain't the first time that I brought him to this yer cabin when he +couldn't help himself; it ain't the first time that I and Jinny have +waited for him on yon hill, and picked him up and so fetched him home, +when he couldn't speak, and didn't know me. And now that it's the last +time, why"--he paused, and rubbed the quartz gently on his sleeve--"you +see it's sort of rough on his pardner. And now, gentlemen," he added +abruptly, picking up his long handled shovel, "the fun'l's over; and my +thanks, and Tennessee's thanks, to you for your trouble." + +Resisting any proffers of assistance, he began to fill in the grave, +turning his back upon the crowd, that, after a few moments' hesitation, +gradually withdrew. As they crossed the little ridge that hid Sandy Bar +from view, some, looking back, thought they could see Tennessee's +Partner, his work done, sitting upon the grave, his shovel between his +knees, and his face buried in his red bandanna handkerchief. But it was +argued by others that you couldn't tell his face from his handkerchief +at that distance; and this point remained undecided. + +In the reaction that followed the feverish excitement of that day, +Tennessee's Partner was not forgotten. A secret investigation had +cleared him of any complicity in Tennessee's guilt, and left only a +suspicion of his general sanity. Sandy Bar made a point of calling on +him, and proffering various uncouth but well-meant kindnesses. But from +that day his rude health and great strength seemed visibly to decline; +and when the rainy season fairly set in, and the tiny grass-blades were +beginning to peep from the rocky mound above Tennessee's grave, he took +to his bed. + +One night, when the pines beside the cabin were swaying in the storm, +and trailing their slender fingers over the roof, and the roar and rush +of the swollen river were heard below, Tennessee's Partner lifted his +head from the Pillow, saying, "It is time to go for Tennessee; I must +put Jinny in the cart;" and would have risen from his bed but for the +restraint of his attendant. Struggling, he still pursued his singular +fancy: "There, now, steady, Jinny,--steady, old girl. How dark it is! +Look out for the ruts,--and look out for him, too, old gal. Sometimes, +you know, when he's blind drunk, he drops down right in the trail. Keep +on straight up to the pine on the top of the hill. Thar! I told you +so!--thar he is,--coming this way, too,--all by himself, sober, and his +face a-shining. Tennessee! Pardner!" + +And so they met. + + + +Here ends No. Three of the western classics, Being Tennessee's Partner +by Bret Harte, the introduction by William Dallam Armes. The +photogravure frontispiece by Albertine Randall Wheelan. Of this First +Edition One Thousand Copies have been issued, printed upon Fabriano +handmade paper. The typography designed by J. H. Nash. Published by Paul +Elder and Company, and done into a book for them at the Tomoye Press, +New York City, in the year Nineteen Hundred and Seven. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tennessee's Partner, by Bret Harte + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TENNESSEE'S PARTNER *** + +***** This file should be named 4674.txt or 4674.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/6/7/4674/ + +Produced by David Schwan + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +The "legal small print" and other information about this book +may now be found at the end of this file. Please read this +important information, as it gives you specific rights and +tells you about restrictions in how the file may be used. + +*** +This etext was produced by David Schwan <davidsch@earthlink.net>. + +Western Classics No. Three + + + +Tennessee's Partner + + + +"Both were fearless types of a civilization that in the seventeenth +century would have been called heroic, but in the nineteenth simply +'reckless.'" + + + +Tennessee's Partner By Bret Harte, Including An Introduction By William +Dallam Armes. + + + + + +The Introduction + + + +When Marshall's discovery caused a sudden influx of thousands of +adventurers from all classes and almost all countries, the conditions of +government in California were almost the worst possible. Though the +Mexican system was unpopular and the Mexican law practically unknown, +until other provision was made by congress, they had to continue in +force. But the free and slave states were equal in number; California +would turn the scale; there was a battle royal as to which pan should +descend, a battle that the congresses of 1848 and 1849 left unsettled on +adjourning. + +Under these circumstances, it might be supposed that the worst elements +would get the upper hand, crime become common, and anarchy result. +Precisely the opposite happened. The de facto government was accepted as +a necessity, and under its direction "alcaldes" and "ayuntamientos" were +elected. But the mining-camps, which were in a part of the country that +had not been settled by the Mexicans and were occupied by men who knew +nothing of their system or laws, were left to work out their own +salvation. The preponderating element was the Anglo-Saxon, and its +genius for law and order asserted itself. Each camp elected its own +officers, recognized the customary laws and adopted special ones, and +punished lawbreakers. Naturally theft was considered a more serious +crime than it is in ordinary communities. As there were no jails or +jailors, flogging and expulsion were the usual punishment, but in +aggravated cases it was death. Even after the state government had been +organized, indeed, the law for a short while permitted a jury to +prescribe the death penalty for grand larceny, and, in fact, several +notorious thieves were legally executed. + +The testimony of all observers is that the camps were surprisingly +orderly, that crime was infrequent, and that its punishment, though +swift and certain, leaned to mercy rather than rigor. Bayard Taylor, for +example, who was in the mines in '50 and '51, writes: "In a region five +hundred miles long, inhabited by a hundred thousand people, who had +neither locks, bolts, regular laws of government, military or civil +protection, there was as much security to life and property as in any +state of the Union." + +As these "miners' courts" were allowed after the organization of the +state to retain jurisdiction in all questions that concerned the +appropriation of claims,the miners but slowly appreciated that they had +been shorn of their criminal jurisdiction. But that they did come to +recognize that "the old order changeth, yielding place to new," is, in +fact, shown by the very incident on which Harte based his of a lynching. + +Spite of the autobiographic method that leads the casual reader to think +that Harte was intimately connected with this early pioneer life and +derived the material for his sketches from personal observation and +experience, his is, in truth, only hearsay evidence. The heroic age was +with Iram and all his rose ere he landed in 1854, a lad of eighteen. +With no especial equipment for battling with the world, he had to turn +his hand to many things, and naturally tried mining. But finding the +returns incommensurate with the labor, he soon gave it up and sought +more congenial occupations, mainly in the towns of the valleys and the +seacoast. Before he was twenty-three, he had been school-teacher, +express-messenger, deputy tax-collector, and druggist's assistant; and +had risen from "printer's devil" to assistant editor of a country +newspaper. In 1859 he was back in San Francisco, utilizing the trade he +had picked up, as a compositor on The Golden Era. To this he contributed +poems and local sketches that soon led to his appointment as assistant +editor. His writings made him friends, one of whom, Thomas Starr King, +in 1864, obtained for him the position of secretary to the +superintendent of the Mint. His duties were not arduous, and his rooms +became the resort of his literary associates and of men from "the +diggings," whose mines, like the meadows of Concord, yielded a two-fold +crop: gold-dust for the superintendent to turn into bullion, and stories +for his young secretary later to turn into literature. By 1868 his +reputation was so great that when Mr. A. Roman established The Overland +Monthly, he was made its first editor. + +Mr. Roman impressed upon him the literary possibilities of the life of +the miners, and furnished him with incidents, tales, and pictures. "The +Luck of Roaring Camp," his first venture in this hitherto almost +untouched field, proved that Bret Harte had come into his own. His local +sketches and Mexican legends had been imitative of Irving, his stories +of Dickens; but for this he had evolved a method and a style distinctly +personal. His first success was followed up by "The Outcasts of Poker +Flat" and (in October, 1869) by the tale here reprinted; and when, in +1870, an Eastern house published his sketches in book form, his fame was +secure. In 1871 he left California, and after a few years in the East +that added little to his reputation as a writer, or as a man, secured a +consulate in Germany. In 1878 he left America forever. Till his death in +1902 he wrote on, frequently recurring to the claim where he first "got +the color," but never equaling his work during the year and a half that +he was editor of the Overland. + +In 1866 Harte heard, from one who had been present, the incident that +inspired "Tennessee's Partner." Eleven years before, at Second Garrote, +a newcomer had committed a capital crime. The miners organized a court, +appointed counsel, and gave the miscreant a trial. He confessed his +guilt, and the cry arose, "Hang him!"' But "Old Man Chaffee" stepped +forward, drew a bag of gold-dust from his bosom, and said that he would +give his "pile" rather than have a lynching occur in a camp that, spite +its name, had never been so disgraced. He begged the crowd to turn the +prisoner over to the authorities and let the law take its course. Such +was the fervor of his appeal and so great were the respect and affection +for the old man that his proposal was adopted with a cheer for the +advocate of law and order, and the culprit taken to the jail at +Columbia. + +Chaffee's partner, Chamberlain, seems to have had no part in this +affair; but the two were united by a love like that of his partner for +Tennessee. And long after the Second Garrote had become but a memory, +the two octogenarians lived on in their little cabin, Chaffee seeking +with primitive pick, shovel, and pan the more and more elusive gold, and +Chamberlain contributing to the common purse by cultivating a small +"ranch," the best crop of which was the campers who came to chat of +bygone days with "the original of Tennessee's Partner." At last, in +1903, their partnership of fifty-four years was ended by the death of +Chaffee. Within eight weeks he was followed by Chamberlain. Their last +days were made easy by the bounty of Professor W. E. Magee, of the State +University, to whom I am indebted for the authority for some of these +statements, - Chamberlain's journal. + +From this simple material the imagination of Bret Harte spun the +characters, incidents, and motives that his genius wove into an +exquisite fabric, an idyl of blind, unreasoning love of man for man. He +was not writing history; and the complaint of those who were part of the +life he depicted, that he misstated the facts, rests on the same failure +to appreciate his purpose and method that leads Eastern and English +critics to consider his realism reality and to mistake his +verisimilitude for the truth itself. The fact is that Bret Harte was a +consummate literary artist, who used facts with all an artist's freedom. +His genius "imbalm'd and treasur'd up on purpose to a life beyond life," +however, many an actual incident that otherwise would lie buried 'neath +the poppy that the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth. + +William Dallam Armes. + + + +Tennessee's Partner + + + +I do not think that we ever knew his real name. Our ignorance of it +certainly never gave us any social inconvenience, for at Sandy Bar in +1854 most men were christened anew. Sometimes these appellatives were +derived from some distinctiveness of dress, as in the case of "Dungaree +Jack"; or from some peculiarity of habit, as shown in "Saleratus Bill," +so called from an undue proportion of that chemical in his daily bread; +or from some unlucky slip, as exhibited in "The Iron Pirate," a mild, +inoffensive man, who earned that baleful title by his unfortunate +mispronunciation of the term "iron pyrites." Perhaps this may have been +the beginning of a rude heraldry; but I am constrained to think that it +was because a man's real name in that day rested solely upon his own +unsupported statement. "Call yourself Clifford, do you?" said Boston, +addressing a timid newcomer with infinite scorn; "hell is full of such +Cliffords! "He then introduced the unfortunate man, whose name happened +to be really Clifford, as "Jaybird Charley," - an unhallowed +inspiration of the moment that clung to him ever after. + +But to return to Tennessee's Partner, whom we never knew by any other +than this relative title; that he had ever existed as a separate and +distinct individuality we only learned later. It seems that in 1853 he +left Poker Flat to go to San Francisco, ostensibly to procure a wife. He +never got any farther than Stockton. At that place he was attracted by a +young person who waited upon the table at the hotel where he took his +meals. One morning he said something to her which caused her to smile +not unkindly, to somewhat coquettishly break a plate of toast over his +upturned, serious, simple face, and to retreat to the kitchen. He +followed her, and emerged a few moments later, covered with more toast +and victory. That day week they were married by a Justice of the Peace, +and returned to Poker Flat. I am aware that something more might be made +of this episode, but I prefer to tell it as it was current at Sandy Bar, +- in the gulches and barrooms, - where all sentiment was modified by a +strong sense of humor. + +Of their married felicity but little is known, perhaps for the reason +that Tennessee, then living with his partner, one day took occasion to +say something to the bride on his own account, at which, it is said, she +smiled not unkindly, and chastely retreated, this time as far as +Marysville, where Tennessee followed her, and where they went to +housekeeping without the aid of a Justice of the Peace. Tennessee's +Partner took the loss of his wife simply and seriously, as was his +fashion. But to everybody's surprise, when Tennessee one day returned +from Marysville, without his partner's wife, - she having smiled and +retreated with somebody else, - Tennessee's Partner was the first man to +shake his hand and greet him with affection. The boys who had gathered +in the cañon to see the shooting were naturally indignant. Their +indignation might have found vent in sarcasm but for a certain look in +Tennessee's Partner's eye that indicated a lack of humorous +appreciation. In fact, he was a grave man, with a steady application to +practical detail which was unpleasant in a difficulty. + +Meanwhile a popular feeling against Tennessee had grown up on the Bar. +He was known to be a gambler; he was suspected to be a thief. In these +suspicions Tennessee's Partner was equally compromised; his continued +intimacy with Tennessee after the affair above quoted could only be +accounted for on the hypothesis of a copartnership of crime. At last +Tennessee's guilt became flagrant. One day he overtook a stranger on his +way to Red Dog. The stranger afterward related that Tennessee beguiled +the time with interesting anecdote and reminiscence, but illogically +concluded the interview in the following words: "And now, young man, +I'll trouble you for your knife, your pistols, and your money. You see +your weppings might get you into trouble at Red Dog, and your money's a +temptation to the evilly disposed. I think you said your address was San +Francisco. I shall endeavor to call." It may be stated here that +Tennessee had a fine flow of humor, which no business preoccupation +could wholly subdue. + +This exploit was his last. Red Dog and Sandy Bar made common cause +against the highwayman. Tennessee was hunted in very much the same +fashion as his prototype, the grizzly. As the toils closed around him, +he made a desperate dash through the Bar, emptying his revolver at the +crowd before the Arcade Saloon, and so on up Grizzly Cañon; but at its +farther extremity he was stopped by a small man on a gray horse. The men +looked at each other a moment in silence. Both were fearless, both +self-possessed and independent, and both types of a civilization that in +the seventeenth century would have been called heroic, but in the +nineteenth simply "reckless." "What have you got there? - I call," said +Tennessee see, quietly. "Two bowers and an ace," said the stranger, as +quietly, showing two revolvers and a bowie-knife. "That takes me," +returned Tennessee; and, with this gambler's epigram, he threw away his +useless pistol, and rode back with his captor. + +It was a warm night. The cool breeze which usually sprang up with the +going down of the sun behind the chaparral-crested mountain was that +evening withheld from Sandy Bar. The little cañon was stifling with +heated resinous odors, and the decaying driftwood on the Bar sent forth +faint, sickening exhalations. The feverishness of day and its fierce +passions still filled the camp. Lights moved restlessly along the bank +of the river, striking no answering reflection from its tawny current. +Against the blackness of the pines the windows of the old loft above the +express-office stood out staringly bright; and through their curtainless +panes, the loungers below could see the forms of those who were even +then deciding the fate of Tennessee. And above all this, etched on the +dark firmament, rose the Sierra, remote and passionless, crowned with +remoter passionless stars. + +The trial of Tennessee was conducted as fairly as was consistent with a +judge and jury who felt themselves to some extent obliged to justify, in +their verdict, the previous irregularities of arrest and indictment. The +law of Sandy Bar was implacable, but not vengeful. The excitement and +personal feeling of the chase were over; with Tennessee safe in their +hands they were ready to listen patiently to any defense, which they +were already satisfied was insufficient. There being no doubt in their +own minds, they were willing to give the prisoner the benefit of any +that might exist. Secure in the hypothesis that he ought to be hanged, +on general principles, they indulged him with more latitude of defense +than his reckless hardihood seemed to ask. The Judge appeared to be more +anxious than the prisoner, who, otherwise unconcerned, evidently took a +grim pleasure in the responsibility he had created. "I don't take any +hand in this yer game," had been his invariable but good-humored reply +to all questions. The Judge - who was also his captor - for a moment +vaguely regretted that he had not shot him "on sight," that morning, but +presently dismissed this human weakness as unworthy of the judicial +mind. Nevertheless, when there was a tap at the door, and it was said +that Tennessee's Partner was there on behalf of the prisoner, he was +admitted at once without question. Perhaps the younger members of the +jury, to whom the proceedings were becoming irksomely thoughtful, hailed +him as a relief. + +For he was not, certainly, an imposing figure. Short and stout, with a +square face, sunburned into a preternatural redness, clad in a loose +duck "jumper" and trousers streaked and splashed with red soil, his +aspect under any circumstances would have been quaint, and was now even +ridiculous. As he stooped to deposit at his feet a heavy carpet-bag he +was carrying, it became obvious, from partially developed legends and +inscriptions, that the material with which his trousers had been patched +had been originally intended for a less ambitious covering. Yet he +advanced with great gravity, and after shaking the hand of each person +in the room with labored cordiality, he wiped his serious, perplexed +face on a red bandanna handkerchief, a shade lighter than his +complexion, laid his powerful hand upon the table to steady himself, and +thus addressed the Judge: - "I was passin' by," he began, by way of +apology, "and I thought I'd just step in and see how things was gittin' +on with Tennessee thar, - my pardner. It's a hot night. I disremember +any sich weather before on the Bar." + +He paused a moment, but nobody volunteering any other meteorological +recollection, he again had recourse to his pocket-handkerchief, and for +some moments mopped his face diligently. + +"Have you anything to say on behalf of the prisoner?"' said the Judge, +finally. + +"Thet's it," said Tennessee's Partner, in a tone of relief. "I come yar +as Tennessee's pardner, knowing him nigh on four year, off and on, wet +and dry, in luck and out o' luck. His ways ain't allers my ways, but +thar ain't any p'ints in that young man, thar ain't any liveliness as +he's been up to, as I don't know. And you sez to me, sez you, - +confidential-like, and between man and man, - sez you, 'Do you know +anything in his behalf?' and I sez to you, sez I, - confidential-like, +as between man and man, - 'What should a man know of his pardner?'" + +"Is this all you have to say? asked the Judge impatiently, feeling, +perhaps, that a dangerous sympathy of humor was beginning to humanize +the court. + +"Thet's so," continued Tennessee's Partner. "It ain't for me to say +anything agin' him. And now, what's the case? Here's Tennessee wants +money, wants it bad, and doesn't like to ask it of his old pardner. +Well, what does Tennessee do? He lays for a stranger, and he fetches +that stranger; and you lays for him, and you fetches him; and the honors +is easy. And I put it to you, bein' a far-minded man, and to you, +gentlemen all, as far-minded men, ef this is isn't so." + +"Prisoner," said the Judge, interrupting, "have you any questions to ask +this man?" + +"No! no!" continued Tennessee's Partner hastily. "I play this yer hand +alone. To come down to the bedrock, it's just this: Tennessee, thar, has +played it pretty rough and expensive-like on a stranger, and on this yer +camp. And now, what's the fair thing? Some would say more; some would +say less. Here's seventeen hundred dollars in coarse gold and a watch, - +it's about all my pile, - and call it square!" And before a hand could +be raised to prevent him, he had emptied the contents of the carpet-bag +upon the table. + +For a moment his life was in jeopardy. One or two men sprang to their +feet, several hands groped for hidden weapons, and a suggestion to +"throw him from the window," was only overridden by a gesture from the +Judge. Tennessee laughed. And apparently oblivious of the excitement, +Tennessee's Partner improved the opportunity to mop his face again with +his handkerchief. + +When order was restored, and the man was made to understand, by the use +of forcible figures and rhetoric, that Tennessee's offense could not be +condoned by money, his face took a more serious and sanguinary hue, and +those who were nearest to him noticed that his rough hand trembled +slightly on the table. He hesitated a moment as he slowly returned the +gold to the carpetbag, as if he had not yet entirely caught the elevated +sense of justice which swayed the tribunal, and was perplexed with the +belief that he had not offered enough. Then he turned to the Judge, and +saying, "This yer is a lone hand, played alone, and without my pardner," +he bowed to the jury and was about to withdraw, when the Judge called +him back. "If you have anything to say to Tennessee, you had better say +it now." For the first time that evening the eyes of the prisoner and +his strange advocate met. Tennessee smiled, showed his white teeth, and +saying, "Euchred, old man!" held out his hand. Tennessee's Partner took +it in his own, and saying, "I just dropped in as I was passin' to see +how things was gettin' on," let the hand passively fall, and adding that +"it was a warm night," I again mopped his face with his handkerchief, +and without another word withdrew. + +The two men never again met each other alive. For the unparalleled +insult of a bribe offered to Judge Lynch - who, whether bigoted, weak, +or narrow, was at least incorruptible - firmly fixed in the mind of that +mythical personage any wavering determination of Tennessee's fate; and +at the break of day he was marched, closely guarded, to meet it at the +top of Marley's Hill. + +How he met it, how cool he was, how he refused to say anything, how +perfect were the arrangements of the committee, were all duly reported, +with the addition of a warning moral and example to all future +evil-doers, in the Red Dog Clarion, by its editor, who was present, and +to whose vigorous English I cheerfully refer the reader. But the beauty +of that midsummer morning, the blessed amity of earth and air and sky, +the awakened life of the free woods and hills, the joyous renewal and +promise of Nature, and, above all, the infinite serenity that thrilled +through each, was not reported, as not being a part of the social +lesson. And yet, when the weak and foolish deed was done, and a life, +with its possibilities and responsibilities, had passed out of the +misshapen thing that dangled between earth and sky, the birds sang, the +flowers bloomed, the sun shone, as cheerily as before; and possibly the +Red Dog Clarion was right. + +Tennessee's Partner was not in the group that surrounded the ominous +tree. But as they turned to disperse, attention was drawn to the +singular appearance of a motionless donkey-cart halted at the side of +the road. As they approached, they at once recognized the venerable +Jenny and the two-wheeled cart as the property of Tennessee's Partner, - +used by him in carrying dirt from his claim; and a few paces distant, +the owner of the equipage himself, sitting under a buckeye tree, wiping +the perspiration from his glowing face. In answer to an inquiry, he said +he had come for the body of the "diseased," "if it was all the same to +the committee." He didn't wish to "hurry anything"; he could wait. He +was not working that day; and when the gentlemen were done with the +"diseased" he would take him. "Ef thar is any present," he added, in his +simple, serious way, "as would care to jine in the fun'l, they kin +come." Perhaps it was from a sense of humor, which I have already +intimated was a feature of Sandy Bar, - perhaps it was from something +even better than that; but two-thirds of the loungers accepted the +invitation at once. + +It was noon when the body of Tennessee was delivered into the hands of +his partner. As the cart drew up to the fatal tree, we noticed that it +contained a rough oblong box, - apparently made from a section of +sluicing, - and half filled with bark and the tassels of pine. The cart +was further decorated with slips of willow, and made fragrant with +buckeye-blossoms. When the body was deposited in the box, Tennessee's +Partner drew over it a piece of tarred canvas, and gravely mounting the +narrow seat in front, with his feet upon the shafts, urged the little +donkey forward. The equipage moved slowly on, at that decorous pace +which was habitual with Jenny even under less solemn circumstances. The +men - half curiously, have jestingly, but all good-humoredly - strolled +along beside the cart; some in advance, some a little in the rear, of +the homely catafalque. But, whether from the narrowing of the road or +some present sense of decorum, as the cart passed on, the company fell +to the rear in couples, keeping step, and otherwise assuming the +external show of a formal procession. Jack Folinsbee, who had at the +outset played a funeral march in dumb show upon an imaginary trombone, +desisted, from a lack of sympathy and appreciation, - not having, +perhaps, your true humorist's capacity to be content with the enjoyment +of his own fun. + +The way led through Grizzly Cañon, by this time clothed in funereal +drapery and shadows. The redwoods, burying their moccasined feet in the +red soil, stood in Indian-file along the track, trailing an uncouth +benediction from their bending boughs upon the passing bier. A hare, +surprised into helpless inactivity, sat upright and pulsating in the +ferns by the roadside, as the cortège went by. Squirrels hastened to +gain a secure outlook from higher boughs; and the blue-jays, spreading +their wings, fluttered before them like outriders, until the outskirts +of Sandy Bar were reached, and the solitary cabin of Tennessee's +Partner. + +Viewed under more favorable circumstances, it would not have been a +cheerful place. The unpicturesque site, the rude and unlovely outlines, +the unsavory details, which distinguish the nest-building of the +California miner, were all here, with the dreariness of decay +superadded. A few paces from the cabin there was a rough enclosure, +which, in the brief days of Tennessee's Partner's matrimonial felicity, +had been used as a garden, but was now overgrown with fern. As we +approached it we were surprised to find that what we had taken for a +recent attempt at cultivation was the broken soil about an open grave. + +The cart was halted before the enclosure; and rejecting the offers of +assistance with the same air of simple self-reliance he had displayed +throughout, Tennessee's Partner lifted the rough coffin on his back, and +deposited it, unaided, within the shallow grave. He then nailed down the +board which served as a lid, and, mounting the little mound of earth +beside it, took off his hat, and slowly mopped his face with his +handkerchief. This the crowd felt was a preliminary to speech; and they +disposed themselves variously on stumps and boulders, and sat expectant. + +"When a man," began Tennessee's Partner slowly, "has been running free +all day, what's the natural thing for him to do? Why, to come home. And +if he ain't in a condition to go home, what can his best friend do? Why, +bring him home! And here's Tennessee has been running free, and we +brings him home from his wandering." He paused, and picked up a fragment +of quartz, rubbed it thoughtfully on his sleeve, and went on: "It ain't +the first time that I've packed him on my back, as you see'd me now. It +ain't the first time that I brought him to this yer cabin when he +couldn't help himself; it ain't the first time that I and Jinny have +waited for him on yon hill, and picked him up and so fetched him home, +when he couldn't speak, and didn't know me. And now that it's the last +time, why "- he paused, and rubbed the quartz gently on his sleeve - +"you see it's sort of rough on his pardner. And now, gentlemen," he added +abruptly, picking up his long handled shovel, "the fun'l's over; and my +thanks, and Tennessee's thanks, to you for your trouble." + +Resisting any proffers of assistance, he began to fill in the grave, +turning his back upon the crowd, that, after a few moments' hesitation, +gradually withdrew. As they crossed the little ridge that hid Sandy Bar +from view, some, looking back, thought they could see Tennessee's +Partner, his work done, sitting upon the grave, his shovel between his +knees, and his face buried in his red bandanna handkerchief. But it was +argued by others that you couldn't tell his face from his handkerchief +at that distance; and this point remained undecided. + +In the reaction that followed the feverish excitement of that day, +Tennessee's Partner was not forgotten. A secret investigation had +cleared him of any complicity in Tennessee's guilt, and left only a +suspicion of his general sanity. Sandy Bar made a point of calling on +him, and proffering various uncouth but well-meant kindnesses. But from +that day his rude health and great strength seemed visibly to decline; +and when the rainy season fairly set in, and the tiny grass-blades were +beginning to peep from the rocky mound above Tennessee's grave, he took +to his bed. + +One night, when the pines beside the cabin were swaying in the storm, +and trailing their slender fingers over the roof, and the roar and rush +of the swollen river were heard below, Tennessee's Partner lifted his +head from the Pillow, saying, "It is time to go for Tennessee; I must +put Jinny in the cart;" and would have risen from his bed but for the +restraint of his attendant. Struggling, he still pursued his singular +fancy: "There, now, steady, Jinny, - steady, old girl. How dark it is! +Look out for the ruts, - and look out for him, too, old gal. Sometimes, +you know, when he's blind drunk, he drops down right in the trail. Keep +on straight up to the pine on the top of the hill. Thar! I told you so! +- thar he is, - coming this way, too, - all by himself, sober, and his +face a-shining. Tennessee! Pardner!" + +And so they met. + + + +Here ends No. Three of the western classics. Being Tennessee's Partner +by Bret Harte, the introduction by William Dallam Armes. The +photogravure frontispiece by Albertine Randall Wheelan. Of this First +Edition One Thousand Copies have been issued, printed upon Fabriano +handmade paper. The typography designed by J. H. Nash. Published by Paul +Elder and Company, and done into a book for them at the Tomoye Press, +New York City, in the year Nineteen Hundred and Seven + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Tennessee's Partner +by Bret Harte +******This file should be named tennp10.txt or tennp10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, tennp11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, tennp10a.txt + +This etext was produced by David Schwan <davidsch@earthlink.net>. + +*** + +More information about this book is at the top of this file. + + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. 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