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diff --git a/8587-h/8587-h.htm b/8587-h/8587-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b9b971 --- /dev/null +++ b/8587-h/8587-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3465 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>Roughing It, Part 6</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; text-align: center; } + blockquote {font-size: 97% } + .figleft {float: left;} + .figright {float: right;} + .toc { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + // --> +</style> + +</head> +<body> + +<h2>ROUGHING It, By Mark Twain, Part 6 </h2> +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Roughing It, Part 6., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +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: Roughing It, Part 6. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: July 2, 2004 [EBook #8587] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 6. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<br> +<hr> +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + + +<center><img alt="cover.jpg (90K)" src="images/cover.jpg" height="1071" width="733"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="spine.jpg (54K)" src="images/spine.jpg" height="1071" width="307"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center> +<h1>ROUGHING IT, Part 6</h1> +<br><br> +<h2>By Mark Twain</h2> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="frontispiece1.jpg (168K)" src="images/frontispiece1.jpg" height="643" width="903"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<a name="frontispiece2"></a> +<center><img alt="frontispiece2.jpg (184K)" src="images/frontispiece2.jpg" height="1020" width="600"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="titlepage.jpg (95K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" height="1064" width="705"></center> +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="dedication.jpg (18K)" src="images/dedication.jpg" height="273" width="425"></center> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2>PREFATORY.</h2> </center> +<br> +<p>This book is merely a personal narrative, and not a +pretentious history or a philosophical dissertation. It is a +record of several years of variegated vagabondizing, and its +object is rather to help the resting reader while away an idle +hour than afflict him with metaphysics, or goad him with science. +Still, there is information in the volume; information concerning +an interesting episode in the history of the Far West, about +which no books have been written by persons who were on the +ground in person, and saw the happenings of the time with their +own eyes. I allude to the rise, growth and culmination of the +silver-mining fever in Nevada—a curious episode, in some +respects; the only one, of its peculiar kind, that has occurred +in the land; and the only one, indeed, that is likely to occur in +it.</p> + +<p>Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of +information in the book. I regret this very much; but really it +could not be helped: information appears to stew out of me +naturally, like the precious ottar of roses out of the otter. +Sometimes it has seemed to me that I would give worlds if I could +retain my facts; but it cannot be. The more I calk up the +sources, and the tighter I get, the more I leak wisdom. +Therefore, I can only claim indulgence at the hands of the +reader, not justification.</p> + +<p>THE AUTHOR.</p> + <br><br><br><br> +<center><h2>CONTENTS.</h2></center> + +<blockquote><blockquote> + + +<p><a href="#ch51">CHAPTER LI.</a> The Weekly Occidental—A Ready Editor—A Novel—A +Concentration of Talent—The Heroes and the Heroines—The +Dissolute Author Engaged—Extraordinary Havoc With the Novel—A +Highly Romantic Chapter—The Lovers Separated—Jonah Out-done—A +Lost Poem—The Aged Pilot Man—Storm On the Erie Canal—Dollinger +the Pilot Man—Terrific Gale—Danger Increases—A Crisis +Arrived—Saved as if by a Miracle</p> + +<p><a href="#ch52">CHAPTER LII.</a> Freights to California—Silver Bricks—Under +Ground Mines—Timber Supports—A Visit to the Mines—The Caved +Mines—Total of Shipments in 1863</p> + +<p><a href="#ch53">CHAPTER LIII.</a> Jim Blaine and his Grandfather's Ram—Filkin's +Mistake—Old Miss Wagner and her Glass Eye—Jacobs, the Coffin +Dealer—Waiting for a Customer—His Bargain With Old +Robbins—Robbins Sues for Damage and Collects—A New Use for +Missionaries—The Effect—His Uncle Lem. and the Use Providence +Made of Him—Sad Fate of Wheeler—Devotion of His Wife—A Model +Monument—What About the Ram?</p> + +<p><a href="#ch54">CHAPTER LIV.</a> Chinese in Virginia City—Washing Bills—Habit of +Imitation—Chinese Immigration—A Visit to Chinatown—Messrs. Ah +Sing, Hong Wo, See Yup, &c</p> + +<p><a href="#ch55">CHAPTER LV.</a> Tired of Virginia City—An Old Schoolmate—A Two +Years' Loan—Acting as an Editor—Almost Receive an Offer—An +Accident—Three Drunken Anecdotes—Last Look at Mt. Davidson—A +Beautiful Incident</p> + +<p><a href="#ch56">CHAPTER LVI.</a> Off for San Francisco—Western and Eastern +Landscapes—The Hottest place on Earth—Summer and Winter</p> + +<p><a href="#ch57">CHAPTER LVII.</a> California—Novelty of Seeing a Woman—"Well if +it ain't a Child!"—One Hundred and Fifty Dollars for a +Kiss—Waiting for a turn</p> + +<p><a href="#ch58">CHAPTER LVIII.</a> Life in San Francisco—Worthless Stocks—My +First Earthquake—Reportorial Instincts—Effects of the +Shocks—Incidents and Curiosities—Sabbath Breakers—The Lodger +and the Chambermaid—A Sensible Fashion to Follow—Effects of +the Earthquake on the Ministers</p> + +<p><a href="#ch59">CHAPTER LIX.</a> Poor Again—Slinking as a Business—A Model +Collector—Misery loves Company—Comparing Notes for Comfort—A +Streak of Luck—Finding a Dime—Wealthy by Comparison—Two +Sumptuous Dinners</p> + +<p><a href="#ch60">CHAPTER LX.</a> An Old Friend—An Educated Miner—Pocket +Mining—Freaks of Fortune</p> + +</blockquote></blockquote> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2></center> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + + +186. <a href="#361">THE HEROES AND HEROINES OF THE STORY</a><br> +187. <a href="#362">DISSOLUTE AUTHOR</a><br> +188. <a href="#365">THERE SAT THE LAWYER</a><br> +189. <a href="#367">JONAH OUTDONE</a><br> +190. <a href="#370">DOLLINGER</a><br> +191. <a href="#371">LOW BRIDGE</a><br> +192. <a href="#372">SHORTENING SAIL</a><br> +193. <a href="#374">LIGHTENING SHIP</a><br> +194. <a href="#375">THE MARVELLOUS RESCUE</a><br> +195. <a href="#377">SILVER BRICKS</a><br> +196. <a href="#379">TIMBER SUPPORTS</a><br> +197. <a href="#380">FROM GALLERY TO GALLERY</a><br> +198. <a href="#384">JIM BLAINE</a><br> +199. <a href="#385">HURRAH FOR NIXON</a><br> +200. <a href="#386">MISS WAGNER</a><br> +201. <a href="#387">WAITING FOR A CUSTOMER</a><br> +202. <a href="#388">WAS TO BE THERE</a><br> +209. <a href="#389">THE MONUMENT</a><br> +205. <a href="#390">WHERE IS THE RAM-TAIL-PIECE</a><br> +205. <a href="#392">CHINESE WASH BILL</a><br> +206. <a href="#393">IMITATION</a><br> +207. <a href="#396">CHINESE LOTTERY</a><br> +208. <a href="#397">CHINESE MERCHANT AT HOME</a><br> +209. <a href="#399">AN OLD FRIEND</a><br> +210. <a href="#403">FAREWELL AND ACCIDENT</a><br> +211. <a href="#404">"GIMME A CIGAR"</a><br> +212. <a href="#406">THE HERALD OF GLAD NEWS</a><br> +213. <a href="#407">FLAG-TAIL-PIECE</a><br> +214. <a href="#409">A NEW ENGLAND SCENE</a><br> +215. <a href="#410">A VARIABLE CLIMATE</a><br> +216. <a href="#413">SACRAMENTO AND THREE NODES AWAY</a><br> +217. <a href="#416">"FETCH HER OUT ...</a><br> +218. <a href="#417">"WELL IF IT AINT A CHILD ...</a><br> +219. <a href="#418">A GENUINE LIVE WOMAN</a><br> +220. <a href="#420">THE GRACE OF A KANGAROO</a><br> +221. <a href="#421">DREAMS DISSIPATED</a><br> +222. <a href="#422">THE "ONE HORSE SHAY" OUTDONE</a><br> +223. <a href="#423a">HARD ON THE INNOCENTS</a><br> +224. <a href="#423b">DRY BONES SHAKEN</a><br> +225. <a href="#424">"OH! WHAT, SHALL I DO!...</a><br> +226. <a href="#425">"GET OUT YOUR TOWEL MY DEAR"</a><br> +227. <a href="#426">"WE WILL OMIT THE BENEDICTION...</a><br> +228. <a href="#429">SLINKING</a><br> +229. <a href="#431">A PRIZE</a><br> +230. <a href="#432">A LOOK IN AT THE WINDOW</a><br> +231. <a href="#433">"DO IT STRANGER"</a><br> +232. <a href="#436">THE OLD COLLEGIATE</a><br> +233. <a href="#437">STRIKING A POCKET</a><br> + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + + +<br><br> + +<br><br> +<a name="ch51"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LI.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>Vice flourished luxuriantly during the hey-day of our "flush +times." The saloons were overburdened with custom; so were the +police courts, the gambling dens, the brothels and the +jails—unfailing signs of high prosperity in a mining region—in +any region for that matter. Is it not so? A crowded police court +docket is the surest of all signs that trade is brisk and money +plenty. Still, there is one other sign; it comes last, but when +it does come it establishes beyond cavil that the "flush times" +are at the flood. This is the birth of the "literary" paper. The +Weekly Occidental, "devoted to literature," made its appearance +in Virginia. All the literary people were engaged to write for +it. Mr. F. was to edit it. He was a felicitous skirmisher with a +pen, and a man who could say happy things in a crisp, neat way. +Once, while editor of the Union, he had disposed of a labored, +incoherent, two-column attack made upon him by a contemporary, +with a single line, which, at first glance, seemed to contain a +solemn and tremendous compliment—viz.: "THE LOGIC OF OUR +ADVERSARY RESEMBLES THE PEACE OF GOD,"—and left it to the +reader's memory and after-thought to invest the remark with +another and "more different" meaning by supplying for himself and +at his own leisure the rest of the Scripture—"in that it +passeth understanding." He once said of a little, half-starved, +wayside community that had no subsistence except what they could +get by preying upon chance passengers who stopped over with them +a day when traveling by the overland stage, that in their Church +service they had altered the Lord's Prayer to read: "Give us this +day our daily stranger!"</p> + +<p>We expected great things of the Occidental. Of course it could +not get along without an original novel, and so we made +arrangements to hurl into the work the full strength of the +company. Mrs. F. was an able romancist of the ineffable school—I +know no other name to apply to a school whose heroes are all +dainty and all perfect. She wrote the opening chapter, and +introduced a lovely blonde simpleton who talked nothing but +pearls and poetry and who was virtuous to the verge of +eccentricity. She also introduced a young French Duke of +aggravated refinement, in love with the blonde. Mr. F. followed +next week, with a brilliant lawyer who set about getting the +Duke's estates into trouble, and a sparkling young lady of high +society who fell to fascinating the Duke and impairing the +appetite of the blonde. Mr. D., a dark and bloody editor of one +of the dailies, followed Mr. F., the third week, introducing a +mysterious Roscicrucian who transmuted metals, held consultations +with the devil in a cave at dead of night, and cast the horoscope +of the several heroes and heroines in such a way as to provide +plenty of trouble for their future careers and breed a solemn and +awful public interest in the novel. He also introduced a cloaked +and masked melodramatic miscreant, put him on a salary and set +him on the midnight track of the Duke with a poisoned dagger. He +also created an Irish coachman with a rich brogue and placed him +in the service of the society-young-lady with an ulterior mission +to carry billet-doux to the Duke.</p> + +<a name="361"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="361.jpg (79K)" src="images/361.jpg" height="421" width="605"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>About this time there arrived in Virginia a dissolute stranger +with a literary turn of mind—rather seedy he was, but very quiet +and unassuming; almost diffident, indeed. He was so gentle, and +his manners were so pleasing and kindly, whether he was sober or +intoxicated, that he made friends of all who came in contact with +him. He applied for literary work, offered conclusive evidence +that he wielded an easy and practiced pen, and so Mr. F. engaged +him at once to help write the novel. His chapter was to follow +Mr. D.'s, and mine was to come next. Now what does this fellow do +but go off and get drunk and then proceed to his quarters and set +to work with his imagination in a state of chaos, and that chaos +in a condition of extravagant activity. The result may be +guessed. He scanned the chapters of his predecessors, found +plenty of heroes and heroines already created, and was satisfied +with them; he decided to introduce no more; with all the +confidence that whisky inspires and all the easy complacency it +gives to its servant, he then launched himself lovingly into his +work: he married the coachman to the society-young-lady for the +sake of the scandal; married the Duke to the blonde's stepmother, +for the sake of the sensation; stopped the desperado's salary; +created a misunderstanding between the devil and the +Roscicrucian; threw the Duke's property into the wicked lawyer's +hands; made the lawyer's upbraiding conscience drive him to +drink, thence to delirium tremens, thence to suicide; broke the +coachman's neck; let his widow succumb to contumely, neglect, +poverty and consumption; caused the blonde to drown herself, +leaving her clothes on the bank with the customary note pinned to +them forgiving the Duke and hoping he would be happy; revealed to +the Duke, by means of the usual strawberry mark on left arm, that +he had married his own long-lost mother and destroyed his +long-lost sister; instituted the proper and necessary suicide of +the Duke and the Duchess in order to compass poetical justice; +opened the earth and let the Roscicrucian through, accompanied +with the accustomed smoke and thunder and smell of brimstone, and +finished with the promise that in the next chapter, after holding +a general inquest, he would take up the surviving character of +the novel and tell what became of the devil!</p> + +<a name="362"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="362.jpg (39K)" src="images/362.jpg" height="515" width="315"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>It read with +singular smoothness, and with a "dead" earnestness that was funny +enough to suffocate a body. But there was war when it came in. +The other novelists were furious. The mild stranger, not yet more +than half sober, stood there, under a scathing fire of +vituperation, meek and bewildered, looking from one to another of +his assailants, and wondering what he could have done to invoke +such a storm. When a lull came at last, he said his say gently +and appealingly—said he did not rightly remember what he had +written, but was sure he had tried to do the best he could, and +knew his object had been to make the novel not only pleasant and +plausible but instructive and——</p> + +<p>The bombardment began again. The novelists assailed his +ill-chosen adjectives and demolished them with a storm of +denunciation and ridicule. And so the siege went on. Every time +the stranger tried to appease the enemy he only made matters +worse. Finally he offered to rewrite the chapter. This arrested +hostilities. The indignation gradually quieted down, peace +reigned again and the sufferer retired in safety and got him to +his own citadel.</p> + +<p>But on the way thither the evil angel tempted him and he got +drunk again. And again his imagination went mad. He led the +heroes and heroines a wilder dance than ever; and yet all through +it ran that same convincing air of honesty and earnestness that +had marked his first work. He got the characters into the most +extraordinary situations, put them through the most surprising +performances, and made them talk the strangest talk! But the +chapter cannot be described. It was symmetrically crazy; it was +artistically absurd; and it had explanatory footnotes that were +fully as curious as the text. I remember one of the "situations," +and will offer it as an example of the whole. He altered the +character of the brilliant lawyer, and made him a great-hearted, +splendid fellow; gave him fame and riches, and set his age at +thirty-three years. Then he made the blonde discover, through the +help of the Roscicrucian and the melodramatic miscreant, that +while the Duke loved her money ardently and wanted it, he +secretly felt a sort of leaning toward the society-young-lady. +Stung to the quick, she tore her affections from him and bestowed +them with tenfold power upon the lawyer, who responded with +consuming zeal. But the parents would none of it. What they +wanted in the family was a Duke; and a Duke they were determined +to have; though they confessed that next to the Duke the lawyer +had their preference. Necessarily the blonde now went into a +decline. The parents were alarmed. They pleaded with her to marry +the Duke, but she steadfastly refused, and pined on. Then they +laid a plan. They told her to wait a year and a day, and if at +the end of that time she still felt that she could not marry the +Duke, she might marry the lawyer with their full consent. The +result was as they had foreseen: gladness came again, and the +flush of returning health. Then the parents took the next step in +their scheme. They had the family physician recommend a long sea +voyage and much land travel for the thorough restoration of the +blonde's strength; and they invited the Duke to be of the party. +They judged that the Duke's constant presence and the lawyer's +protracted absence would do the rest—for they did not invite the +lawyer.</p> + +<p>So they set sail in a steamer for America—and the third day +out, when their sea-sickness called truce and permitted them to +take their first meal at the public table, behold there sat the +lawyer! The Duke and party made the best of an awkward situation; +the voyage progressed, and the vessel neared America.</p> + +<a name="365"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="365.jpg (74K)" src="images/365.jpg" height="421" width="597"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>But, by and by, two hundred miles off New Bedford, the ship +took fire; she burned to the water's edge; of all her crew and +passengers, only thirty were saved. They floated about the sea +half an afternoon and all night long. Among them were our +friends. The lawyer, by superhuman exertions, had saved the +blonde and her parents, swimming back and forth two hundred yards +and bringing one each time—(the girl first). The Duke had saved +himself. In the morning two whale ships arrived on the scene and +sent their boats. The weather was stormy and the embarkation was +attended with much confusion and excitement. The lawyer did his +duty like a man; helped his exhausted and insensible blonde, her +parents and some others into a boat (the Duke helped himself in); +then a child fell overboard at the other end of the raft and the +lawyer rushed thither and helped half a dozen people fish it out, +under the stimulus of its mother's screams. Then he ran back—a +few seconds too late—the blonde's boat was under way. So he had +to take the other boat, and go to the other ship. The storm +increased and drove the vessels out of sight of each other—drove +them whither it would.</p> + +<a name="366"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="366.jpg (83K)" src="images/366.jpg" height="570" width="545"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>When it calmed, at the end of three days, the blonde's ship +was seven hundred miles north of Boston and the other about seven +hundred south of that port. The blonde's captain was bound on a +whaling cruise in the North Atlantic and could not go back such a +distance or make a port without orders; such being nautical law. +The lawyer's captain was to cruise in the North Pacific, and he +could not go back or make a port without orders. All the lawyer's +money and baggage were in the blonde's boat and went to the +blonde's ship—so his captain made him work his passage as a +common sailor. When both ships had been cruising nearly a year, +the one was off the coast of Greenland and the other in Behring's +Strait. The blonde had long ago been well-nigh persuaded that her +lawyer had been washed overboard and lost just before the whale +ships reached the raft, and now, under the pleadings of her +parents and the Duke she was at last beginning to nerve herself +for the doom of the covenant, and prepare for the hated +marriage.</p> + +<p>But she would not yield a day before the date set. The weeks +dragged on, the time narrowed, orders were given to deck the ship +for the wedding—a wedding at sea among icebergs and walruses. +Five days more and all would be over. So the blonde reflected, +with a sigh and a tear. Oh where was her true love—and why, why +did he not come and save her? At that moment he was lifting his +harpoon to strike a whale in Behring's Strait, five thousand +miles away, by the way of the Arctic Ocean, or twenty thousand by +the way of the Horn—that was the reason. He struck, but not with +perfect aim—his foot slipped and he fell in the whale's mouth +and went down his throat. He was insensible five days. Then he +came to himself and heard voices; daylight was streaming through +a hole cut in the whale's roof. He climbed out and astonished the +sailors who were hoisting blubber up a ship's side. He recognized +the vessel, flew aboard, surprised the wedding party at the altar +and exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"Stop the proceedings—I'm here! Come to my arms, my own!"</p> + +<a name="367"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="367.jpg (88K)" src="images/367.jpg" height="507" width="608"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>There were foot-notes to this extravagant piece of literature +wherein the author endeavored to show that the whole thing was +within the possibilities; he said he got the incident of the +whale traveling from Behring's Strait to the coast of Greenland, +five thousand miles in five days, through the Arctic Ocean, from +Charles Reade's "Love Me Little Love Me Long," and considered +that that established the fact that the thing could be done; and +he instanced Jonah's adventure as proof that a man could live in +a whale's belly, and added that if a preacher could stand it +three days a lawyer could surely stand it five!</p> + +<p>There was a fiercer storm than ever in the editorial sanctum +now, and the stranger was peremptorily discharged, and his +manuscript flung at his head. But he had already delayed things +so much that there was not time for some one else to rewrite the +chapter, and so the paper came out without any novel in it. It +was but a feeble, struggling, stupid journal, and the absence of +the novel probably shook public confidence; at any rate, before +the first side of the next issue went to press, the Weekly +Occidental died as peacefully as an infant.</p> + +<p>An effort was made to resurrect it, with the proposed +advantage of a telling new title, and Mr. F. said that The Phenix +would be just the name for it, because it would give the idea of +a resurrection from its dead ashes in a new and undreamed of +condition of splendor; but some low- priced smarty on one of the +dailies suggested that we call it the Lazarus; and inasmuch as +the people were not profound in Scriptural matters but thought +the resurrected Lazarus and the dilapidated mendicant that begged +in the rich man's gateway were one and the same person, the name +became the laughing stock of the town, and killed the paper for +good and all.</p> + +<p>I was sorry enough, for I was very proud of being connected +with a literary paper—prouder than I have ever been of anything +since, perhaps. I had written some rhymes for it—poetry I +considered it—and it was a great grief to me that the production +was on the "first side" of the issue that was not completed, and +hence did not see the light. But time brings its revenges—I can +put it in here; it will answer in place of a tear dropped to the +memory of the lost Occidental. The idea (not the chief idea, but +the vehicle that bears it) was probably suggested by the old song +called "The Raging Canal," but I cannot remember now. I do +remember, though, that at that time I thought my doggerel was one +of the ablest poems of the age:</p> + + + +<h3>THE AGED PILOT MAN.</h3> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +<p>On the Erie Canal, it was,<br> +All on a summer's day,<br> +I sailed forth with my parents<br> +Far away to Albany.</p> + +<p>From out the clouds at noon that day<br> +There came a dreadful storm,<br> +That piled the billows high about,<br> +And filled us with alarm.</p> + +<p>A man came rushing from a house,<br> +Saying, "Snub up your boat I pray,<br> +[The customary canal technicality for "tie up."]<br> +Snub up your boat, snub up, alas,<br> +Snub up while yet you may."</p> + +<p>Our captain cast one glance astern,<br> +Then forward glanced he,<br> +And said, "My wife and little ones<br> +I never more shall see."</p> + +<p>Said Dollinger the pilot man,<br> +In noble words, but few,--<br> +"Fear not, but lean on Dollinger,<br> +And he will fetch you through."</p> + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + + +<a name="370"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="370.jpg (53K)" src="images/370.jpg" height="504" width="336"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +<p>The boat drove on, the frightened mules<br> +Tore through the rain and wind,<br> +And bravely still, in danger's post,<br> +The whip-boy strode behind.</p> + +<p>"Come 'board, come 'board," the captain cried,<br> +"Nor tempt so wild a storm;"<br> +But still the raging mules advanced,<br> +And still the boy strode on.</p> + +<p>Then said the captain to us all,<br> +"Alas, 'tis plain to me,<br> +The greater danger is not there,<br> +But here upon the sea.</p> + +<p>"So let us strive, while life remains,<br> +To save all souls on board,<br> +And then if die at last we must,<br> +Let . . . . I cannot speak the word!"</p> + +<p>Said Dollinger the pilot man,<br> +Tow'ring above the crew,<br> +"Fear not, but trust in Dollinger,<br> +And he will fetch you through."</p> + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + +<a name="371"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="371.jpg (102K)" src="images/371.jpg" height="538" width="581"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +<p>"Low bridge! low bridge!" all heads went down,<br> +The laboring bark sped on;<br> +A mill we passed, we passed church,<br> +Hamlets, and fields of corn;<br> +And all the world came out to see,<br> +And chased along the shore<br> +Crying, "Alas, alas, the sheeted rain,<br> +The wind, the tempest's roar!<br> +Alas, the gallant ship and crew,<br> +Can nothing help them more?"</p> + +<p>And from our deck sad eyes looked out<br> +Across the stormy scene:<br> +The tossing wake of billows aft,<br> +The bending forests green,<br> +The chickens sheltered under carts<br> +In lee of barn the cows,<br> +The skurrying swine with straw in mouth,<br> +The wild spray from our bows!</p> + +<p>"She balances!<br> +She wavers!<br> +Now let her go about!<br> +If she misses stays and broaches to,<br> +We're all"--then with a shout,<br> +"Huray! huray!<br> +Avast! belay!<br> +Take in more sail!<br> +Lord, what a gale!<br> +Ho, boy, haul taut on the hind mule's tail!"<br> + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + +<a name="372"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="372.jpg (105K)" src="images/372.jpg" height="531" width="597"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +<p>"Ho! lighten ship! ho! man the pump!<br> +Ho, hostler, heave the lead!"</p> + +<p>"A quarter-three!--'tis shoaling fast!<br> +Three feet large!--t-h-r-e-e feet!--<br> +Three feet scant!" I cried in fright<br> +"Oh, is there no retreat?"</p> + +<p>Said Dollinger, the pilot man,<br> +As on the vessel flew,<br> +"Fear not, but trust in Dollinger,<br> +And he will fetch you through."</p> + +<p>A panic struck the bravest hearts,<br> +The boldest cheek turned pale;<br> +For plain to all, this shoaling said<br> +A leak had burst the ditch's bed!<br> +And, straight as bolt from crossbow sped,<br> +Our ship swept on, with shoaling lead,<br> +Before the fearful gale!</p> + +<p>"Sever the tow-line! Cripple the mules!"<br> +Too late! There comes a shock!<br> +Another length, and the fated craft<br> +Would have swum in the saving lock!</p> + +<p>Then gathered together the shipwrecked crew<br> +And took one last embrace,<br> +While sorrowful tears from despairing eyes<br> +Ran down each hopeless face;<br> +And some did think of their little ones<br> +Whom they never more might see,<br> +And others of waiting wives at home,<br> +And mothers that grieved would be.</p> + +<p>But of all the children of misery there<br> +On that poor sinking frame,<br> +But one spake words of hope and faith,<br> +And I worshipped as they came:<br> +Said Dollinger the pilot man,--<br> +(O brave heart, strong and true!)--<br> +"Fear not, but trust in Dollinger,<br> +For he will fetch you through."</p> + +<p>Lo! scarce the words have passed his lips<br> +The dauntless prophet say'th,<br> +When every soul about him seeth<br> +A wonder crown his faith!</p> + +<p>"And count ye all, both great and small,<br> +As numbered with the dead:<br> +For mariner for forty year,<br> +On Erie, boy and man,<br> +I never yet saw such a storm,<br> +Or one't with it began!"</p> + +<p>So overboard a keg of nails<br> +And anvils three we threw,<br> +Likewise four bales of gunny-sacks,<br> +Two hundred pounds of glue,<br> +Two sacks of corn, four ditto wheat,<br> +A box of books, a cow,<br> +A violin, Lord Byron's works,<br> +A rip-saw and a sow.</p> + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + +<a name="374"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="374.jpg (67K)" src="images/374.jpg" height="488" width="486"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +<p>A curve! a curve! the dangers grow!<br> +"Labbord!--stabbord!--s-t-e-a-d-y!--so!--<br> +Hard-a-port, Dol!--hellum-a-lee!<br> +Haw the head mule!--the aft one gee!<br> +Luff!--bring her to the wind!"</p> + +<p>For straight a farmer brought a plank,--<br> +(Mysteriously inspired)--<br> +And laying it unto the ship,<br> +In silent awe retired.</p> + +<p>Then every sufferer stood amazed<br> +That pilot man before;<br> +A moment stood. Then wondering turned,<br> +And speechless walked ashore.</p> + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + + + +<a name="375"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="375.jpg (82K)" src="images/375.jpg" height="477" width="565"> +</center> +<br><br> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch52"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LII.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>Since I desire, in this chapter, to say an instructive word or +two about the silver mines, the reader may take this fair warning +and skip, if he chooses. The year 1863 was perhaps the very top +blossom and culmination of the "flush times." Virginia swarmed +with men and vehicles to that degree that the place looked like a +very hive—that is when one's vision could pierce through the +thick fog of alkali dust that was generally blowing in summer. I +will say, concerning this dust, that if you drove ten miles +through it, you and your horses would be coated with it a +sixteenth of an inch thick and present an outside appearance that +was a uniform pale yellow color, and your buggy would have three +inches of dust in it, thrown there by the wheels. The delicate +scales used by the assayers were inclosed in glass cases intended +to be air-tight, and yet some of this dust was so impalpable and +so invisibly fine that it would get in, somehow, and impair the +accuracy of those scales.</p> + +<p>Speculation ran riot, and yet there was a world of substantial +business going on, too. All freights were brought over the +mountains from California (150 miles) by pack-train partly, and +partly in huge wagons drawn by such long mule teams that each +team amounted to a procession, and it did seem, sometimes, that +the grand combined procession of animals stretched unbroken from +Virginia to California. Its long route was traceable clear across +the deserts of the Territory by the writhing serpent of dust it +lifted up. By these wagons, freights over that hundred and fifty +miles were $200 a ton for small lots (same price for all express +matter brought by stage), and $100 a ton for full loads. One +Virginia firm received one hundred tons of freight a month, and +paid $10,000 a month freightage. In the winter the freights were +much higher. All the bullion was shipped in bars by stage to San +Francisco (a bar was usually about twice the size of a pig of +lead and contained from $1,500 to $3,000 according to the amount +of gold mixed with the silver), and the freight on it (when the +shipment was large) was one and a quarter per cent. of its +intrinsic value.</p> + +<a name="377"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="377.jpg (16K)" src="images/377.jpg" height="231" width="364"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>So, the freight on these bars probably averaged something more +than $25 each. Small shippers paid two per cent. There were three +stages a day, each way, and I have seen the out-going stages +carry away a third of a ton of bullion each, and more than once I +saw them divide a two-ton lot and take it off. However, these +were extraordinary events. [Mr. Valentine, Wells Fargo's agent, +has handled all the bullion shipped through the Virginia office +for many a month. To his memory—which is excellent—we are +indebted for the following exhibit of the company's business in +the Virginia office since the first of January, 1862: From +January 1st to April 1st, about $270,000 worth of bullion passed +through that office, during the next quarter, $570,000; next +quarter, $800,000; next quarter, $956,000; next quarter, +$1,275,000; and for the quarter ending on the 30th of last June, +about $1,600,000. Thus in a year and a half, the Virginia office +only shipped $5,330,000 in bullion. During the year 1862 they +shipped $2,615,000, so we perceive the average shipments have +more than doubled in the last six months. This gives us room to +promise for the Virginia office $500,000 a month for the year +1863 (though perhaps, judging by the steady increase in the +business, we are under estimating, somewhat). This gives us +$6,000,000 for the year. Gold Hill and Silver City together can +beat us—we will give them $10,000,000. To Dayton, Empire City, +Ophir and Carson City, we will allow an aggregate of $8,000,000, +which is not over the mark, perhaps, and may possibly be a little +under it. To Esmeralda we give $4,000,000. To Reese River and +Humboldt $2,000,000, which is liberal now, but may not be before +the year is out. So we prognosticate that the yield of bullion +this year will be about $30,000,000. Placing the number of mills +in the Territory at one hundred, this gives to each the labor of +producing $300,000 in bullion during the twelve months. Allowing +them to run three hundred days in the year (which none of them +more than do), this makes their work average $1,000 a day. Say +the mills average twenty tons of rock a day and this rock worth +$50 as a general thing, and you have the actual work of our one +hundred mills figured down "to a spot"—$1,000 a day each, and +$30,000,000 a year in the aggregate.—Enterprise. [A considerable +over estimate—M. T.]]</p> + +<p>Two tons of silver bullion would be in the neighborhood of +forty bars, and the freight on it over $1,000. Each coach always +carried a deal of ordinary express matter beside, and also from +fifteen to twenty passengers at from $25 to $30 a head. With six +stages going all the time, Wells, Fargo and Co.'s Virginia City +business was important and lucrative.</p> + +<p>All along under the centre of Virginia and Gold Hill, for a +couple of miles, ran the great Comstock silver lode—a vein of +ore from fifty to eighty feet thick between its solid walls of +rock—a vein as wide as some of New York's streets. I will remind +the reader that in Pennsylvania a coal vein only eight feet wide +is considered ample.</p> + +<p>Virginia was a busy city of streets and houses above ground. +Under it was another busy city, down in the bowels of the earth, +where a great population of men thronged in and out among an +intricate maze of tunnels and drifts, flitting hither and thither +under a winking sparkle of lights, and over their heads towered a +vast web of interlocking timbers that held the walls of the +gutted Comstock apart. These timbers were as large as a man's +body, and the framework stretched upward so far that no eye could +pierce to its top through the closing gloom. It was like peering +up through the clean-picked ribs and bones of some colossal +skeleton. Imagine such a framework two miles long, sixty feet +wide, and higher than any church spire in America. Imagine this +stately lattice- work stretching down Broadway, from the St. +Nicholas to Wall street, and a Fourth of July procession, reduced +to pigmies, parading on top of it and flaunting their flags, high +above the pinnacle of Trinity steeple. One can imagine that, but +he cannot well imagine what that forest of timbers cost, from the +time they were felled in the pineries beyond Washoe Lake, hauled +up and around Mount Davidson at atrocious rates of freightage, +then squared, let down into the deep maw of the mine and built up +there. Twenty ample fortunes would not timber one of the greatest +of those silver mines. The Spanish proverb says it requires a +gold mine to "run" a silver one, and it is true. A beggar with a +silver mine is a pitiable pauper indeed if he cannot sell.</p> + +<a name="379"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="379.jpg (47K)" src="images/379.jpg" height="479" width="330"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>I spoke of the underground Virginia as a city. The Gould and +Curry is only one single mine under there, among a great many +others; yet the Gould and Curry's streets of dismal drifts and +tunnels were five miles in extent, altogether, and its population +five hundred miners. Taken as a whole, the underground city had +some thirty miles of streets and a population of five or six +thousand. In this present day some of those populations are at +work from twelve to sixteen hundred feet under Virginia and Gold +Hill, and the signal-bells that tell them what the superintendent +above ground desires them to do are struck by telegraph as we +strike a fire alarm. Sometimes men fall down a shaft, there, a +thousand feet deep. In such cases, the usual plan is to hold an +inquest.</p> + +<a name="380"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="380.jpg (161K)" src="images/380.jpg" height="1020" width="608"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>If you wish to visit one of those mines, you may walk through +a tunnel about half a mile long if you prefer it, or you may take +the quicker plan of shooting like a dart down a shaft, on a small +platform. It is like tumbling down through an empty steeple, feet +first. When you reach the bottom, you take a candle and tramp +through drifts and tunnels where throngs of men are digging and +blasting; you watch them send up tubs full of great lumps of +stone—silver ore; you select choice specimens from the mass, as +souvenirs; you admire the world of skeleton timbering; you +reflect frequently that you are buried under a mountain, a +thousand feet below daylight; being in the bottom of the mine you +climb from "gallery" to "gallery," up endless ladders that stand +straight up and down; when your legs fail you at last, you lie +down in a small box-car in a cramped "incline" like a +half-up-ended sewer and are dragged up to daylight feeling as if +you are crawling through a coffin that has no end to it. Arrived +at the top, you find a busy crowd of men receiving the ascending +cars and tubs and dumping the ore from an elevation into long +rows of bins capable of holding half a dozen tons each; under the +bins are rows of wagons loading from chutes and trap-doors in the +bins, and down the long street is a procession of these wagons +wending toward the silver mills with their rich freight. It is +all "done," now, and there you are. You need never go down again, +for you have seen it all. If you have forgotten the process of +reducing the ore in the mill and making the silver bars, you can +go back and find it again in my Esmeralda chapters if so +disposed.</p> + +<p>Of course these mines cave in, in places, occasionally, and +then it is worth one's while to take the risk of descending into +them and observing the crushing power exerted by the pressing +weight of a settling mountain. I published such an experience in +the Enterprise, once, and from it I will take an extract:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p>AN HOUR IN THE CAVED MINES.—We journeyed down into the Ophir +mine, yesterday, to see the earthquake. We could not go down the +deep incline, because it still has a propensity to cave in +places. Therefore we traveled through the long tunnel which +enters the hill above the Ophir office, and then by means of a +series of long ladders, climbed away down from the first to the +fourth gallery. Traversing a drift, we came to the Spanish line, +passed five sets of timbers still uninjured, and found the +earthquake. Here was as complete a chaos as ever was seen—vast +masses of earth and splintered and broken timbers piled +confusedly together, with scarcely an aperture left large enough +for a cat to creep through. Rubbish was still falling at +intervals from above, and one timber which had braced others +earlier in the day, was now crushed down out of its former +position, showing that the caving and settling of the tremendous +mass was still going on. We were in that portion of the Ophir +known as the "north mines." Returning to the surface, we entered +a tunnel leading into the Central, for the purpose of getting +into the main Ophir. Descending a long incline in this tunnel, we +traversed a drift or so, and then went down a deep shaft from +whence we proceeded into the fifth gallery of the Ophir. From a +side-drift we crawled through a small hole and got into the midst +of the earthquake again—earth and broken timbers mingled +together without regard to grace or symmetry. A large portion of +the second, third and fourth galleries had caved in and gone to +destruction—the two latter at seven o'clock on the previous +evening.</p> + +<p>At the turn-table, near the northern extremity of the fifth +gallery, two big piles of rubbish had forced their way through +from the fifth gallery, and from the looks of the timbers, more +was about to come. These beams are solid—eighteen inches square; +first, a great beam is laid on the floor, then upright ones, five +feet high, stand on it, supporting another horizontal beam, and +so on, square above square, like the framework of a window. The +superincumbent weight was sufficient to mash the ends of those +great upright beams fairly into the solid wood of the horizontal +ones three inches, compressing and bending the upright beam till +it curved like a bow. Before the Spanish caved in, some of their +twelve-inch horizontal timbers were compressed in this way until +they were only five inches thick! Imagine the power it must take +to squeeze a solid log together in that way. Here, also, was a +range of timbers, for a distance of twenty feet, tilted six +inches out of the perpendicular by the weight resting upon them +from the caved galleries above. You could hear things cracking +and giving way, and it was not pleasant to know that the world +overhead was slowly and silently sinking down upon you. The men +down in the mine do not mind it, however.</p> + +<p>Returning along the fifth gallery, we struck the safe part of +the Ophir incline, and went down it to the sixth; but we found +ten inches of water there, and had to come back. In repairing the +damage done to the incline, the pump had to be stopped for two +hours, and in the meantime the water gained about a foot. +However, the pump was at work again, and the flood-water was +decreasing. We climbed up to the fifth gallery again and sought a +deep shaft, whereby we might descend to another part of the +sixth, out of reach of the water, but suffered disappointment, as +the men had gone to dinner, and there was no one to man the +windlass. So, having seen the earthquake, we climbed out at the +Union incline and tunnel, and adjourned, all dripping with candle +grease and perspiration, to lunch at the Ophir office.</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>During the great flush year of 1863, Nevada [claims to have] +produced $25,000,000 in bullion—almost, if not quite, a round +million to each thousand inhabitants, which is very well, +considering that she was without agriculture and manufactures. +Silver mining was her sole productive industry. +</p> + + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p>[Since the above +was in type, I learn from an official source that the above +figure is too high, and that the yield for 1863 did not exceed +$20,000,000.] However, the day for large figures is approaching; +the Sutro Tunnel is to plow through the Comstock lode from end to +end, at a depth of two thousand feet, and then mining will be +easy and comparatively inexpensive; and the momentous matters of +drainage, and hoisting and hauling of ore will cease to be +burdensome. This vast work will absorb many years, and millions +of dollars, in its completion; but it will early yield money, for +that desirable epoch will begin as soon as it strikes the first +end of the vein. The tunnel will be some eight miles long, and +will develop astonishing riches. Cars will carry the ore through +the tunnel and dump it in the mills and thus do away with the +present costly system of double handling and transportation by +mule teams. The water from the tunnel will furnish the motive +power for the mills. Mr. Sutro, the originator of this prodigious +enterprise, is one of the few men in the world who is gifted with +the pluck and perseverance necessary to follow up and hound such +an undertaking to its completion. He has converted several +obstinate Congresses to a deserved friendliness toward his +important work, and has gone up and down and to and fro in Europe +until he has enlisted a great moneyed interest in it there.</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch53"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LIII.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>Every now and then, in these days, the boys used to tell me I +ought to get one Jim Blaine to tell me the stirring story of his +grandfather's old ram—but they always added that I must not +mention the matter unless Jim was drunk at the time—just +comfortably and sociably drunk. They kept this up until my +curiosity was on the rack to hear the story. I got to haunting +Blaine; but it was of no use, the boys always found fault with +his condition; he was often moderately but never satisfactorily +drunk. I never watched a man's condition with such absorbing +interest, such anxious solicitude; I never so pined to see a man +uncompromisingly drunk before. At last, one evening I hurried to +his cabin, for I learned that this time his situation was such +that even the most fastidious could find no fault with it—he was +tranquilly, serenely, symmetrically drunk—not a hiccup to mar +his voice, not a cloud upon his brain thick enough to obscure his +memory. As I entered, he was sitting upon an empty powder- keg, +with a clay pipe in one hand and the other raised to command +silence. His face was round, red, and very serious; his throat +was bare and his hair tumbled; in general appearance and costume +he was a stalwart miner of the period. On the pine table stood a +candle, and its dim light revealed "the boys" sitting here and +there on bunks, candle-boxes, powder-kegs, etc. They said:</p> + +<p>"Sh—! Don't speak—he's going to commence."</p> + +<a name="384"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="384.jpg (53K)" src="images/384.jpg" height="443" width="435"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<center> +<h3>THE STORY OF THE OLD RAM.</h3> +</center> +<p>I found a seat at once, and Blaine said:</p> + +<p>'I don't reckon them times will ever come again. There never +was a more bullier old ram than what he was. Grandfather fetched +him from Illinois—got him of a man by the name of Yates—Bill +Yates—maybe you might have heard of him; his father was a +deacon—Baptist—and he was a rustler, too; a man had to get up +ruther early to get the start of old Thankful Yates; it was him +that put the Greens up to jining teams with my grandfather when +he moved west.</p> + +<p>'Seth Green was prob'ly the pick of the flock; he married a +Wilkerson—Sarah Wilkerson—good cretur, she was—one of the +likeliest heifers that was ever raised in old Stoddard, everybody +said that knowed her. She could heft a bar'l of flour as easy as +I can flirt a flapjack. And spin? Don't mention it! Independent? +Humph! When Sile Hawkins come a browsing around her, she let him +know that for all his tin he couldn't trot in harness alongside +of her. You see, Sile Hawkins was—no, it warn't Sile Hawkins, +after all—it was a galoot by the name of Filkins—I disremember +his first name; but he was a stump—come into pra'r meeting +drunk, one night, hooraying for Nixon, becuz he thought it was a +primary; and old deacon Ferguson up and scooted him through the +window and he lit on old Miss Jefferson's head, poor old filly. +</p> + +<a name="385"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="385.jpg (52K)" src="images/385.jpg" height="488" width="417"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>She was a good soul—had a glass eye and used to lend it to old +Miss Wagner, that hadn't any, to receive company in; it warn't +big enough, and when Miss Wagner warn't noticing, it would get +twisted around in the socket, and look up, maybe, or out to one +side, and every which way, while t' other one was looking as +straight ahead as a spy-glass.</p> + +<p>'Grown people didn't mind it, but it most always made the +children cry, it was so sort of scary. She tried packing it in +raw cotton, but it wouldn't work, somehow—the cotton would get +loose and stick out and look so kind of awful that the children +couldn't stand it no way. +</p> + +<a name="386"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="386.jpg (26K)" src="images/386.jpg" height="354" width="324"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p> +She was always dropping it out, and +turning up her old dead-light on the company empty, and making +them oncomfortable, becuz she never could tell when it hopped +out, being blind on that side, you see. So somebody would have to +hunch her and say, "Your game eye has fetched loose. Miss Wagner +dear"—and then all of them would have to sit and wait till she +jammed it in again—wrong side before, as a general thing, and +green as a bird's egg, being a bashful cretur and easy sot back +before company. But being wrong side before warn't much +difference, anyway; becuz her own eye was sky- blue and the glass +one was yaller on the front side, so whichever way she turned it +it didn't match nohow.</p> + +<p>'Old Miss Wagner was considerable on the borrow, she was. When +she had a quilting, or Dorcas S'iety at her house she gen'ally +borrowed Miss Higgins's wooden leg to stump around on; it was +considerable shorter than her other pin, but much she minded +that. She said she couldn't abide crutches when she had company, +becuz they were so slow; said when she had company and things had +to be done, she wanted to get up and hump herself. She was as +bald as a jug, and so she used to borrow Miss Jacops's wig—Miss +Jacops was the coffin-peddler's wife—a ratty old buzzard, he +was, that used to go roosting around where people was sick, +waiting for 'em; and there that old rip would sit all day, in the +shade, on a coffin that he judged would fit the can'idate; and if +it was a slow customer and kind of uncertain, he'd fetch his +rations and a blanket along and sleep in the coffin nights. He +was anchored out that way, in frosty weather, for about three +weeks, once, before old Robbins's place, waiting for him; and +after that, for as much as two years, Jacops was not on speaking +terms with the old man, on account of his disapp'inting him. He +got one of his feet froze, and lost money, too, becuz old Robbins +took a favorable turn and got well. + +</p> + +<a name="387"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="387.jpg (61K)" src="images/387.jpg" height="438" width="582"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p> + +The next time Robbins got +sick, Jacops tried to make up with him, and varnished up the same +old coffin and fetched it along; but old Robbins was too many for +him; he had him in, and 'peared to be powerful weak; he bought +the coffin for ten dollars and Jacops was to pay it back and +twenty-five more besides if Robbins didn't like the coffin after +he'd tried it. And then Robbins died, and at the funeral he +bursted off the lid and riz up in his shroud and told the parson +to let up on the performances, becuz he could not stand such a +coffin as that. You see he had been in a trance once before, when +he was young, and he took the chances on another, cal'lating that +if he made the trip it was money in his pocket, and if he missed +fire he couldn't lose a cent. And by George he sued Jacops for +the rhino and got jedgment; and he set up the coffin in his back +parlor and said he 'lowed to take his time, now. It was always an +aggravation to Jacops, the way that miserable old thing acted. He +moved back to Indiany pretty soon—went to +Wellsville—Wellsville was the place the Hogadorns was from. Mighty fine +family. Old Maryland stock. Old Squire Hogadorn could carry +around more mixed licker, and cuss better than most any man I +ever see. His second wife was the widder Billings—she that was +Becky Martin; her dam was deacon Dunlap's first wife. Her oldest +child, Maria, married a missionary and died in grace—et up by +the savages. They et him, too, poor feller—biled him. It warn't +the custom, so they say, but they explained to friends of his'n +that went down there to bring away his things, that they'd tried +missionaries every other way and never could get any good out of +'em—and so it annoyed all his relations to find out that that +man's life was fooled away just out of a dern'd experiment, so to +speak. But mind you, there ain't anything ever reely lost; +everything that people can't understand and don't see the reason +of does good if you only hold on and give it a fair shake; +Prov'dence don't fire no blank ca'tridges, boys. That there +missionary's substance, unbeknowns to himself, actu'ly converted +every last one of them heathens that took a chance at the +barbacue. Nothing ever fetched them but that. Don't tell me it +was an accident that he was biled. There ain't no such a thing as +an accident.</p> + +<a name="388"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="388.jpg (43K)" src="images/388.jpg" height="468" width="304"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>'When my uncle Lem was leaning up agin a scaffolding once, +sick, or drunk, or suthin, an Irishman with a hod full of bricks +fell on him out of the third story and broke the old man's back +in two places. People said it was an accident. Much accident +there was about that. He didn't know what he was there for, but +he was there for a good object. If he hadn't been there the +Irishman would have been killed. Nobody can ever make me believe +anything different from that. Uncle Lem's dog was there. Why +didn't the Irishman fall on the dog? Becuz the dog would a seen +him a coming and stood from under. That's the reason the dog +warn't appinted. A dog can't be depended on to carry out a +special providence. Mark my words it was a put-up thing. +Accidents don't happen, boys. Uncle Lem's dog—I wish you could a +seen that dog. He was a reglar shepherd—or ruther he was part +bull and part shepherd—splendid animal; belonged to parson Hagar +before Uncle Lem got him. Parson Hagar belonged to the Western +Reserve Hagars; prime family; his mother was a Watson; one of his +sisters married a Wheeler; they settled in Morgan county, and he +got nipped by the machinery in a carpet factory and went through +in less than a quarter of a minute; his widder bought the piece +of carpet that had his remains wove in, and people come a hundred +mile to 'tend the funeral. There was fourteen yards in the +piece.</p> + +<p>'She wouldn't let them roll him up, but planted him just +so—full length. The church was middling small where they +preached the funeral, and they had to let one end of the coffin +stick out of the window. They didn't bury him—they planted one +end, and let him stand up, same as a monument. And they nailed a +sign on it and put—put on—put on it—"sacred to—the +m-e-m-o-r-y—of fourteen y-a-r-d-s—of +three-ply—car—-pet—containing all that +was—m-o-r-t-a-l—of—of—W-i-l-l-i-a-m—W-h-e—"'</p> + +<a name="389"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="389.jpg (111K)" src="images/389.jpg" height="743" width="579"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>Jim Blaine had been growing gradually drowsy and drowsier—his +head nodded, once, twice, three times—dropped peacefully upon +his breast, and he fell tranquilly asleep. The tears were running +down the boys' cheeks—they were suffocating with suppressed +laughter—and had been from the start, though I had never noticed +it. I perceived that I was "sold." I learned then that Jim +Blaine's peculiarity was that whenever he reached a certain stage +of intoxication, no human power could keep him from setting out, +with impressive unction, to tell about a wonderful adventure +which he had once had with his grandfather's old ram—and the +mention of the ram in the first sentence was as far as any man +had ever heard him get, concerning it. He always maundered off, +interminably, from one thing to another, till his whisky got the +best of him and he fell asleep. What the thing was that happened +to him and his grandfather's old ram is a dark mystery to this +day, for nobody has ever yet found out.</p> + +<a name="390"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="390.jpg (64K)" src="images/390.jpg" height="583" width="458"> +</center> +<br><br> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch54"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LIV.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>Of course there was a large Chinese population in Virginia—it +is the case with every town and city on the Pacific coast. They +are a harmless race when white men either let them alone or treat +them no worse than dogs; in fact they are almost entirely +harmless anyhow, for they seldom think of resenting the vilest +insults or the cruelest injuries. They are quiet, peaceable, +tractable, free from drunkenness, and they are as industrious as +the day is long. A disorderly Chinaman is rare, and a lazy one +does not exist. So long as a Chinaman has strength to use his +hands he needs no support from anybody; white men often complain +of want of work, but a Chinaman offers no such complaint; he +always manages to find something to do. He is a great convenience +to everybody—even to the worst class of white men, for he bears +the most of their sins, suffering fines for their petty thefts, +imprisonment for their robberies, and death for their murders. +Any white man can swear a Chinaman's life away in the courts, but +no Chinaman can testify against a white man. Ours is the "land of +the free"—nobody denies that—nobody challenges it. [Maybe it is +because we won't let other people testify.] As I write, news +comes that in broad daylight in San Francisco, some boys have +stoned an inoffensive Chinaman to death, and that although a +large crowd witnessed the shameful deed, no one interfered.</p> + +<p>There are seventy thousand (and possibly one hundred thousand) +Chinamen on the Pacific coast. There were about a thousand in +Virginia. They were penned into a "Chinese quarter"—a thing +which they do not particularly object to, as they are fond of +herding together. Their buildings were of wood; usually only one +story high, and set thickly together along streets scarcely wide +enough for a wagon to pass through. Their quarter was a little +removed from the rest of the town. The chief employment of +Chinamen in towns is to wash clothing. They always send a bill, +like this below, pinned to the clothes. It is mere ceremony, for +it does not enlighten the customer much. +</p> + +<a name="392"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="392.jpg (12K)" src="images/392.jpg" height="593" width="131"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p> +Their price for washing +was $2.50 per dozen—rather cheaper than white people could +afford to wash for at that time. A very common sign on the +Chinese houses was: "See Yup, Washer and Ironer"; "Hong Wo, +Washer"; "Sam Sing & Ah Hop, Washing." The house servants, cooks, +etc., in California and Nevada, were chiefly Chinamen. There were +few white servants and no Chinawomen so employed. Chinamen make +good house servants, being quick, obedient, patient, quick to +learn and tirelessly industrious. They do not need to be taught a +thing twice, as a general thing. They are imitative. If a +Chinaman were to see his master break up a centre table, in a +passion, and kindle a fire with it, that Chinaman would be likely +to resort to the furniture for fuel forever afterward.</p> + +<a name="393"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="393.jpg (42K)" src="images/393.jpg" height="408" width="394"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>All Chinamen can read, write and cipher with easy +facility—pity but all our petted voters could. In California +they rent little patches of ground and do a deal of gardening. +They will raise surprising crops of vegetables on a sand pile. +They waste nothing. What is rubbish to a Christian, a Chinaman +carefully preserves and makes useful in one way or another. He +gathers up all the old oyster and sardine cans that white people +throw away, and procures marketable tin and solder from them by +melting. He gathers up old bones and turns them into manure. In +California he gets a living out of old mining claims that white +men have abandoned as exhausted and worthless—and then the +officers come down on him once a month with an exorbitant swindle +to which the legislature has given the broad, general name of +"foreign" mining tax, but it is usually inflicted on no +foreigners but Chinamen. This swindle has in some cases been +repeated once or twice on the same victim in the course of the +same month—but the public treasury was no additionally enriched +by it, probably.</p> + +<p>Chinamen hold their dead in great reverence—they worship +their departed ancestors, in fact. Hence, in China, a man's front +yard, back yard, or any other part of his premises, is made his +family burying ground, in order that he may visit the graves at +any and all times. Therefore that huge empire is one mighty +cemetery; it is ridged and wringled from its centre to its +circumference with graves—and inasmuch as every foot of ground +must be made to do its utmost, in China, lest the swarming +population suffer for food, the very graves are cultivated and +yield a harvest, custom holding this to be no dishonor to the +dead. Since the departed are held in such worshipful reverence, a +Chinaman cannot bear that any indignity be offered the places +where they sleep. Mr. Burlingame said that herein lay China's +bitter opposition to railroads; a road could not be built +anywhere in the empire without disturbing the graves of their +ancestors or friends.</p> + +<p>A Chinaman hardly believes he could enjoy the hereafter except +his body lay in his beloved China; also, he desires to receive, +himself, after death, that worship with which he has honored his +dead that preceded him. Therefore, if he visits a foreign +country, he makes arrangements to have his bones returned to +China in case he dies; if he hires to go to a foreign country on +a labor contract, there is always a stipulation that his body +shall be taken back to China if he dies; if the government sells +a gang of Coolies to a foreigner for the usual five-year term, it +is specified in the contract that their bodies shall be restored +to China in case of death. On the Pacific coast the Chinamen all +belong to one or another of several great companies or +organizations, and these companies keep track of their members, +register their names, and ship their bodies home when they die. +The See Yup Company is held to be the largest of these. The Ning +Yeong Company is next, and numbers eighteen thousand members on +the coast. Its headquarters are at San Francisco, where it has a +costly temple, several great officers (one of whom keeps regal +state in seclusion and cannot be approached by common humanity), +and a numerous priesthood. In it I was shown a register of its +members, with the dead and the date of their shipment to China +duly marked. Every ship that sails from San Francisco carries +away a heavy freight of Chinese corpses—or did, at least, until +the legislature, with an ingenious refinement of Christian +cruelty, forbade the shipments, as a neat underhanded way of +deterring Chinese immigration. The bill was offered, whether it +passed or not. It is my impression that it passed. There was +another bill—it became a law—compelling every incoming Chinaman +to be vaccinated on the wharf and pay a duly appointed quack (no +decent doctor would defile himself with such legalized robbery) +ten dollars for it. As few importers of Chinese would want to go +to an expense like that, the law-makers thought this would be +another heavy blow to Chinese immigration.</p> + +<p>What the Chinese quarter of Virginia was like—or, indeed, +what the Chinese quarter of any Pacific coast town was and is +like—may be gathered from this item which I printed in the +Enterprise while reporting for that paper:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p>CHINATOWN.—Accompanied by a fellow reporter, we made a trip +through our Chinese quarter the other night. The Chinese have +built their portion of the city to suit themselves; and as they +keep neither carriages nor wagons, their streets are not wide +enough, as a general thing, to admit of the passage of vehicles. +At ten o'clock at night the Chinaman may be seen in all his +glory. In every little cooped-up, dingy cavern of a hut, faint +with the odor of burning Josh-lights and with nothing to see the +gloom by save the sickly, guttering tallow candle, were two or +three yellow, long-tailed vagabonds, coiled up on a sort of short +truckle-bed, smoking opium, motionless and with their lustreless +eyes turned inward from excess of satisfaction—or rather the +recent smoker looks thus, immediately after having passed the +pipe to his neighbor—for opium-smoking is a comfortless +operation, and requires constant attention. A lamp sits on the +bed, the length of the long pipe-stem from the smoker's mouth; he +puts a pellet of opium on the end of a wire, sets it on fire, and +plasters it into the pipe much as a Christian would fill a hole +with putty; then he applies the bowl to the lamp and proceeds to +smoke—and the stewing and frying of the drug and the gurgling of +the juices in the stem would well-nigh turn the stomach of a +statue. John likes it, though; it soothes him, he takes about two +dozen whiffs, and then rolls over to dream, Heaven only knows +what, for we could not imagine by looking at the soggy creature. +Possibly in his visions he travels far away from the gross world +and his regular washing, and feast on succulent rats and +birds'-nests in Paradise.</p> + +<p>Mr. Ah Sing keeps a general grocery and provision store at No. +13 Wang street. He lavished his hospitality upon our party in the +friendliest way. He had various kinds of colored and colorless +wines and brandies, with unpronouncable names, imported from +China in little crockery jugs, and which he offered to us in +dainty little miniature wash-basins of porcelain. He offered us a +mess of birds'-nests; also, small, neat sausages, of which we +could have swallowed several yards if we had chosen to try, but +we suspected that each link contained the corpse of a mouse, and +therefore refrained. Mr. Sing had in his store a thousand +articles of merchandise, curious to behold, impossible to imagine +the uses of, and beyond our ability to describe.</p> + +<p>His ducks, however, and his eggs, we could understand; the +former were split open and flattened out like codfish, and came +from China in that shape, and the latter were plastered over with +some kind of paste which kept them fresh and palatable through +the long voyage.</p> + +<p>We found Mr. Hong Wo, No. 37 Chow-chow street, making up a +lottery scheme—in fact we found a dozen others occupied in the +same way in various parts of the quarter, for about every third +Chinaman runs a lottery, and the balance of the tribe "buck" at +it. "Tom," who speaks faultless English, and used to be chief and +only cook to the Territorial Enterprise, when the establishment +kept bachelor's hall two years ago, said that "Sometime Chinaman +buy ticket one dollar hap, ketch um two tree hundred, sometime no +ketch um anything; lottery like one man fight um seventy—may-be +he whip, may-be he get whip heself, welly good."</p> + +<a name="396"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="396.jpg (69K)" src="images/396.jpg" height="480" width="442"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>However, the percentage being sixty-nine against him, the +chances are, as a general thing, that "he get whip heself." We +could not see that these lotteries differed in any respect from +our own, save that the figures being Chinese, no ignorant white +man might ever hope to succeed in telling "t'other from which;" +the manner of drawing is similar to ours.</p> + +<p>Mr. See Yup keeps a fancy store on Live Fox street. He sold us +fans of white feathers, gorgeously ornamented; perfumery that +smelled like Limburger cheese, Chinese pens, and watch-charms +made of a stone unscratchable with steel instruments, yet +polished and tinted like the inner coat of a sea-shell. As tokens +of his esteem, See Yup presented the party with gaudy plumes made +of gold tinsel and trimmed with peacocks' feathers.</p> + +<p>We ate chow-chow with chop-sticks in the celestial +restaurants; our comrade chided the moon-eyed damsels in front of +the houses for their want of feminine reserve; we received +protecting Josh-lights from our hosts and "dickered" for a pagan +God or two. Finally, we were impressed with the genius of a +Chinese book-keeper; he figured up his accounts on a machine like +a gridiron with buttons strung on its bars; the different rows +represented units, tens, hundreds and thousands. He fingered them +with incredible rapidity—in fact, he pushed them from place to +place as fast as a musical professor's fingers travel over the +keys of a piano.</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>They are a kindly disposed, well-meaning race, and are +respected and well treated by the upper classes, all over the +Pacific coast. No Californian gentleman or lady ever abuses or +oppresses a Chinaman, under any circumstances, an explanation +that seems to be much needed in the East. Only the scum of the +population do it—they and their children; they, and, naturally +and consistently, the policemen and politicians, likewise, for +these are the dust-licking pimps and slaves of the scum, there as +well as elsewhere in America.</p> + +<a name="397"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="397.jpg (76K)" src="images/397.jpg" height="432" width="550"> +</center> +<br><br> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch55"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LV.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>I began to get tired of staying in one place so long.</p> + +<p>There was no longer satisfying variety in going down to Carson +to report the proceedings of the legislature once a year, and +horse-races and pumpkin-shows once in three months; (they had got +to raising pumpkins and potatoes in Washoe Valley, and of course +one of the first achievements of the legislature was to institute +a ten-thousand-dollar Agricultural Fair to show off forty +dollars' worth of those pumpkins in—however, the territorial +legislature was usually spoken of as the "asylum"). I wanted to +see San Francisco. I wanted to go somewhere. I wanted—I did not +know what I wanted. I had the "spring fever" and wanted a change, +principally, no doubt. Besides, a convention had framed a State +Constitution; nine men out of every ten wanted an office; I +believed that these gentlemen would "treat" the moneyless and the +irresponsible among the population into adopting the constitution +and thus well-nigh killing the country (it could not well carry +such a load as a State government, since it had nothing to tax +that could stand a tax, for undeveloped mines could not, and +there were not fifty developed ones in the land, there was but +little realty to tax, and it did seem as if nobody was ever going +to think of the simple salvation of inflicting a money penalty on +murder). I believed that a State government would destroy the +"flush times," and I wanted to get away. I believed that the +mining stocks I had on hand would soon be worth $100,000, and +thought if they reached that before the Constitution was adopted, +I would sell out and make myself secure from the crash the change +of government was going to bring. I considered $100,000 +sufficient to go home with decently, though it was but a small +amount compared to what I had been expecting to return with. I +felt rather down-hearted about it, but I tried to comfort myself +with the reflection that with such a sum I could not fall into +want. About this time a schoolmate of mine whom I had not seen +since boyhood, came tramping in on foot from Reese River, a very +allegory of Poverty. The son of wealthy parents, here he was, in +a strange land, hungry, bootless, mantled in an ancient +horse-blanket, roofed with a brimless hat, and so generally and +so extravagantly dilapidated that he could have "taken the shine +out of the Prodigal Son himself," as he pleasantly remarked.</p> + +<a name="399"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="399.jpg (43K)" src="images/399.jpg" height="545" width="312"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>He wanted to borrow forty-six dollars—twenty-six to take him +to San Francisco, and twenty for something else; to buy some soap +with, maybe, for he needed it. I found I had but little more than +the amount wanted, in my pocket; so I stepped in and borrowed +forty-six dollars of a banker (on twenty days' time, without the +formality of a note), and gave it him, rather than walk half a +block to the office, where I had some specie laid up. If anybody +had told me that it would take me two years to pay back that +forty-six dollars to the banker (for I did not expect it of the +Prodigal, and was not disappointed), I would have felt injured. +And so would the banker.</p> + +<p>I wanted a change. I wanted variety of some kind. It came. Mr. +Goodman went away for a week and left me the post of chief +editor. It destroyed me. The first day, I wrote my "leader" in +the forenoon. The second day, I had no subject and put it off +till the afternoon. The third day I put it off till evening, and +then copied an elaborate editorial out of the "American +Cyclopedia," that steadfast friend of the editor, all over this +land. The fourth day I "fooled around" till midnight, and then +fell back on the Cyclopedia again. The fifth day I cudgeled my +brain till midnight, and then kept the press waiting while I +penned some bitter personalities on six different people. The +sixth day I labored in anguish till far into the night and +brought forth—nothing. The paper went to press without an +editorial. The seventh day I resigned. On the eighth, Mr. Goodman +returned and found six duels on his hands—my personalities had +borne fruit.</p> + +<p>Nobody, except he has tried it, knows what it is to be an +editor. It is easy to scribble local rubbish, with the facts all +before you; it is easy to clip selections from other papers; it +is easy to string out a correspondence from any locality; but it +is unspeakable hardship to write editorials. Subjects are the +trouble—the dreary lack of them, I mean. Every day, it is drag, +drag, drag—think, and worry and suffer—all the world is a dull +blank, and yet the editorial columns must be filled. Only give +the editor a subject, and his work is done—it is no trouble to +write it up; but fancy how you would feel if you had to pump your +brains dry every day in the week, fifty-two weeks in the year. It +makes one low spirited simply to think of it. The matter that +each editor of a daily paper in America writes in the course of a +year would fill from four to eight bulky volumes like this book! +Fancy what a library an editor's work would make, after twenty or +thirty years' service. Yet people often marvel that Dickens, +Scott, Bulwer, Dumas, etc., have been able to produce so many +books. If these authors had wrought as voluminously as newspaper +editors do, the result would be something to marvel at, indeed. +How editors can continue this tremendous labor, this exhausting +consumption of brain fibre (for their work is creative, and not a +mere mechanical laying-up of facts, like reporting), day after +day and year after year, is incomprehensible. Preachers take two +months' holiday in midsummer, for they find that to produce two +sermons a week is wearing, in the long run. In truth it must be +so, and is so; and therefore, how an editor can take from ten to +twenty texts and build upon them from ten to twenty painstaking +editorials a week and keep it up all the year round, is farther +beyond comprehension than ever. Ever since I survived my week as +editor, I have found at least one pleasure in any newspaper that +comes to my hand; it is in admiring the long columns of +editorial, and wondering to myself how in the mischief he did +it!</p> + +<p>Mr. Goodman's return relieved me of employment, unless I chose +to become a reporter again. I could not do that; I could not +serve in the ranks after being General of the army. So I thought +I would depart and go abroad into the world somewhere. Just at +this juncture, Dan, my associate in the reportorial department, +told me, casually, that two citizens had been trying to persuade +him to go with them to New York and aid in selling a rich silver +mine which they had discovered and secured in a new mining +district in our neighborhood. He said they offered to pay his +expenses and give him one third of the proceeds of the sale. He +had refused to go. It was the very opportunity I wanted. I abused +him for keeping so quiet about it, and not mentioning it sooner. +He said it had not occurred to him that I would like to go, and +so he had recommended them to apply to Marshall, the reporter of +the other paper. I asked Dan if it was a good, honest mine, and +no swindle. He said the men had shown him nine tons of the rock, +which they had got out to take to New York, and he could +cheerfully say that he had seen but little rock in Nevada that +was richer; and moreover, he said that they had secured a tract +of valuable timber and a mill-site, near the mine. My first idea +was to kill Dan. But I changed my mind, notwithstanding I was so +angry, for I thought maybe the chance was not yet lost. Dan said +it was by no means lost; that the men were absent at the mine +again, and would not be in Virginia to leave for the East for +some ten days; that they had requested him to do the talking to +Marshall, and he had promised that he would either secure +Marshall or somebody else for them by the time they got back; he +would now say nothing to anybody till they returned, and then +fulfil his promise by furnishing me to them.</p> + +<p>It was splendid. I went to bed all on fire with excitement; +for nobody had yet gone East to sell a Nevada silver mine, and +the field was white for the sickle. I felt that such a mine as +the one described by Dan would bring a princely sum in New York, +and sell without delay or difficulty. I could not sleep, my fancy +so rioted through its castles in the air. It was the "blind lead" +come again.</p> + +<p>Next day I got away, on the coach, with the usual eclat +attending departures of old citizens,—for if you have only half +a dozen friends out there they will make noise for a hundred +rather than let you seem to go away neglected and +unregretted—and Dan promised to keep strict watch for the men +that had the mine to sell.</p> + +<p>The trip was signalized but by one little incident, and that +occurred just as we were about to start. A very seedy looking +vagabond passenger got out of the stage a moment to wait till the +usual ballast of silver bricks was thrown in. He was standing on +the pavement, when an awkward express employee, carrying a brick +weighing a hundred pounds, stumbled and let it fall on the +bummer's foot. He instantly dropped on the ground and began to +howl in the most heart-breaking way. A sympathizing crowd +gathered around and were going to pull his boot off; but he +screamed louder than ever and they desisted; then he fell to +gasping, and between the gasps ejaculated "Brandy! for Heaven's +sake, brandy!" They poured half a pint down him, and it +wonderfully restored and comforted him. Then he begged the people +to assist him to the stage, which was done. The express people +urged him to have a doctor at their expense, but he declined, and +said that if he only had a little brandy to take along with him, +to soothe his paroxyms of pain when they came on, he would be +grateful and content. He was quickly supplied with two bottles, +and we drove off. He was so smiling and happy after that, that I +could not refrain from asking him how he could possibly be so +comfortable with a crushed foot.</p> + +<a name="403"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="403.jpg (72K)" src="images/403.jpg" height="622" width="388"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"Well," said he, "I hadn't had a drink for twelve hours, and +hadn't a cent to my name. I was most perishing—and so, when that +duffer dropped that hundred-pounder on my foot, I see my chance. +Got a cork leg, you know!" and he pulled up his pantaloons and +proved it.</p> + +<p>He was as drunk as a lord all day long, and full of chucklings +over his timely ingenuity.</p> + +<p>One drunken man necessarily reminds one of another. I once +heard a gentleman tell about an incident which he witnessed in a +Californian bar- room. He entitled it "Ye Modest Man Taketh a +Drink." It was nothing but a bit of acting, but it seemed to me a +perfect rendering, and worthy of Toodles himself. The modest man, +tolerably far gone with beer and other matters, enters a saloon +(twenty-five cents is the price for anything and everything, and +specie the only money used) and lays down a half dollar; calls +for whiskey and drinks it; the bar-keeper makes change and lays +the quarter in a wet place on the counter; the modest man fumbles +at it with nerveless fingers, but it slips and the water holds +it; he contemplates it, and tries again; same result; observes +that people are interested in what he is at, blushes; fumbles at +the quarter again—blushes—puts his forefinger carefully, slowly +down, to make sure of his aim—pushes the coin toward the +bar-keeper, and says with a sigh:</p> + +<a name="404"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="404.jpg (120K)" src="images/404.jpg" height="754" width="582"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"Gimme a cigar!"</p> + +<p>Naturally, another gentleman present told about another +drunken man. He said he reeled toward home late at night; made a +mistake and entered the wrong gate; thought he saw a dog on the +stoop; and it was—an iron one.</p> + +<p>He stopped and considered; wondered if it was a dangerous dog; +ventured to say "Be (hic) begone!" No effect. Then he approached +warily, and adopted conciliation; pursed up his lips and tried to +whistle, but failed; still approached, saying, "Poor dog!—doggy, +doggy, doggy!—poor doggy-dog!" Got up on the stoop, still +petting with fond names; till master of the advantages; then +exclaimed, "Leave, you thief!"—planted a vindictive kick in his +ribs, and went head-over-heels overboard, of course. A pause; a +sigh or two of pain, and then a remark in a reflective voice:</p> + +<p>"Awful solid dog. What could he ben eating? ('ic!) Rocks, +p'raps. Such animals is dangerous.—' At's what I say—they're +dangerous. If a man—('ic!)—if a man wants to feed a dog on +rocks, let him feed him on rocks; 'at's all right; but let him +keep him at home—not have him layin' round promiscuous, where +('ic!) where people's liable to stumble over him when they ain't +noticin'!"</p> + +<p>It was not without regret that I took a last look at the tiny +flag (it was thirty-five feet long and ten feet wide) fluttering +like a lady's handkerchief from the topmost peak of Mount +Davidson, two thousand feet above Virginia's roofs, and felt that +doubtless I was bidding a permanent farewell to a city which had +afforded me the most vigorous enjoyment of life I had ever +experienced. And this reminds me of an incident which the dullest +memory Virginia could boast at the time it happened must vividly +recall, at times, till its possessor dies. Late one summer +afternoon we had a rain shower.</p> + +<p>That was astonishing enough, in itself, to set the whole town +buzzing, for it only rains (during a week or two weeks) in the +winter in Nevada, and even then not enough at a time to make it +worth while for any merchant to keep umbrellas for sale. But the +rain was not the chief wonder. It only lasted five or ten +minutes; while the people were still talking about it all the +heavens gathered to themselves a dense blackness as of midnight. +All the vast eastern front of Mount Davidson, over- looking the +city, put on such a funereal gloom that only the nearness and +solidity of the mountain made its outlines even faintly +distinguishable from the dead blackness of the heavens they +rested against. This unaccustomed sight turned all eyes toward +the mountain; and as they looked, a little tongue of rich golden +flame was seen waving and quivering in the heart of the midnight, +away up on the extreme summit! In a few minutes the streets were +packed with people, gazing with hardly an uttered word, at the +one brilliant mote in the brooding world of darkness. It flicked +like a candle-flame, and looked no larger; but with such a +background it was wonderfully bright, small as it was. It was the +flag!—though no one suspected it at first, it seemed so like a +supernatural visitor of some kind—a mysterious messenger of good +tidings, some were fain to believe. It was the nation's emblem +transfigured by the departing rays of a sun that was entirely +palled from view; and on no other object did the glory fall, in +all the broad panorama of mountain ranges and deserts. Not even +upon the staff of the flag—for that, a needle in the distance at +any time, was now untouched by the light and undistinguishable in +the gloom. For a whole hour the weird visitor winked and burned +in its lofty solitude, and still the thousands of uplifted eyes +watched it with fascinated interest. How the people were wrought +up! The superstition grew apace that this was a mystic courier +come with great news from the war—the poetry of the idea +excusing and commending it—and on it spread, from heart to +heart, from lip to lip and from street to street, till there was +a general impulse to have out the military and welcome the bright +waif with a salvo of artillery!</p> + +<a name="406"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="406.jpg (72K)" src="images/406.jpg" height="450" width="546"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>And all that time one sorely tried man, the telegraph operator +sworn to official secrecy, had to lock his lips and chain his +tongue with a silence that was like to rend them; for he, and he +only, of all the speculating multitude, knew the great things +this sinking sun had seen that day in the east—Vicksburg fallen, +and the Union arms victorious at Gettysburg!</p> + +<p>But for the journalistic monopoly that forbade the slightest +revealment of eastern news till a day after its publication in +the California papers, the glorified flag on Mount Davidson would +have been saluted and re-saluted, that memorable evening, as long +as there was a charge of powder to thunder with; the city would +have been illuminated, and every man that had any respect for +himself would have got drunk,—as was the custom of the country +on all occasions of public moment. Even at this distant day I +cannot think of this needlessly marred supreme opportunity +without regret. What a time we might have had!</p> + +<a name="407"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="407.jpg (12K)" src="images/407.jpg" height="240" width="269"> +</center> +<br><br> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch56"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LVI.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>We rumbled over the plains and valleys, climbed the Sierras to +the clouds, and looked down upon summer-clad California. And I +will remark here, in passing, that all scenery in California +requires distance to give it its highest charm. The mountains are +imposing in their sublimity and their majesty of form and +altitude, from any point of view—but one must have distance to +soften their ruggedness and enrich their tintings; a Californian +forest is best at a little distance, for there is a sad poverty +of variety in species, the trees being chiefly of one monotonous +family—redwood, pine, spruce, fir—and so, at a near view there +is a wearisome sameness of attitude in their rigid arms, +stretched down ward and outward in one continued and reiterated +appeal to all men to "Sh!—don't say a word!—you might disturb +somebody!" Close at hand, too, there is a reliefless and +relentless smell of pitch and turpentine; there is a ceaseless +melancholy in their sighing and complaining foliage; one walks +over a soundless carpet of beaten yellow bark and dead spines of +the foliage till he feels like a wandering spirit bereft of a +footfall; he tires of the endless tufts of needles and yearns for +substantial, shapely leaves; he looks for moss and grass to loll +upon, and finds none, for where there is no bark there is naked +clay and dirt, enemies to pensive musing and clean apparel. Often +a grassy plain in California, is what it should be, but often, +too, it is best contemplated at a distance, because although its +grass blades are tall, they stand up vindictively straight and +self-sufficient, and are unsociably wide apart, with uncomely +spots of barren sand between.</p> + +<p>One of the queerest things I know of, is to hear tourists from +"the States" go into ecstasies over the loveliness of +"ever-blooming California." And they always do go into that sort +of ecstasies. But perhaps they would modify them if they knew how +old Californians, with the memory full upon them of the +dust-covered and questionable summer greens of Californian +"verdure," stand astonished, and filled with worshipping +admiration, in the presence of the lavish richness, the brilliant +green, the infinite freshness, the spend-thrift variety of form +and species and foliage that make an Eastern landscape a vision +of Paradise itself. The idea of a man falling into raptures over +grave and sombre California, when that man has seen New England's +meadow-expanses and her maples, oaks and cathedral-windowed elms +decked in summer attire, or the opaline splendors of autumn +descending upon her forests, comes very near being funny—would +be, in fact, but that it is so pathetic. No land with an +unvarying climate can be very beautiful. The tropics are not, for +all the sentiment that is wasted on them. They seem beautiful at +first, but sameness impairs the charm by and by. Change is the +handmaiden Nature requires to do her miracles with. The land that +has four well-defined seasons, cannot lack beauty, or pall with +monotony. Each season brings a world of enjoyment and interest in +the watching of its unfolding, its gradual, harmonious +development, its culminating graces—and just as one begins to +tire of it, it passes away and a radical change comes, with new +witcheries and new glories in its train. And I think that to one +in sympathy with nature, each season, in its turn, seems the +loveliest.</p> + +<a name="409"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="409.jpg (49K)" src="images/409.jpg" height="434" width="369"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>San Francisco, a truly fascinating city to live in, is stately +and handsome at a fair distance, but close at hand one notes that +the architecture is mostly old-fashioned, many streets are made +up of decaying, smoke-grimed, wooden houses, and the barren +sand-hills toward the outskirts obtrude themselves too +prominently. Even the kindly climate is sometimes pleasanter when +read about than personally experienced, for a lovely, cloudless +sky wears out its welcome by and by, and then when the longed for +rain does come it stays. Even the playful earthquake is better +contemplated at a dis—</p> + +<p>However there are varying opinions about that.</p> + +<p>The climate of San Francisco is mild and singularly equable. +The thermometer stands at about seventy degrees the year round. +It hardly changes at all. You sleep under one or two light +blankets Summer and Winter, and never use a mosquito bar. Nobody +ever wears Summer clothing. You wear black broadcloth—if you +have it—in August and January, just the same. It is no colder, +and no warmer, in the one month than the other. You do not use +overcoats and you do not use fans. It is as pleasant a climate as +could well be contrived, take it all around, and is doubtless the +most unvarying in the whole world. The wind blows there a good +deal in the summer months, but then you can go over to Oakland, +if you choose—three or four miles away—it does not blow there. +It has only snowed twice in San Francisco in nineteen years, and +then it only remained on the ground long enough to astonish the +children, and set them to wondering what the feathery stuff +was.</p> + +<a name="410"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="410.jpg (53K)" src="images/410.jpg" height="347" width="534"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>During eight months of the year, straight along, the skies are +bright and cloudless, and never a drop of rain falls. But when +the other four months come along, you will need to go and steal +an umbrella. Because you will require it. Not just one day, but +one hundred and twenty days in hardly varying succession. When +you want to go visiting, or attend church, or the theatre, you +never look up at the clouds to see whether it is likely to rain +or not—you look at the almanac. If it is Winter, it will +rain—and if it is Summer, it won't rain, and you cannot help it. +You never need a lightning-rod, because it never thunders and it +never lightens. And after you have listened for six or eight +weeks, every night, to the dismal monotony of those quiet rains, +you will wish in your heart the thunder would leap and crash and +roar along those drowsy skies once, and make everything +alive—you will wish the prisoned lightnings would cleave the +dull firmament asunder and light it with a blinding glare for one +little instant. You would give anything to hear the old familiar +thunder again and see the lightning strike somebody. And along in +the Summer, when you have suffered about four months of lustrous, +pitiless sunshine, you are ready to go down on your knees and +plead for rain—hail—snow—thunder and lightning—anything to +break the monotony—you will take an earthquake, if you cannot +do any better. And the chances are that you'll get it, too.</p> + +<p>San Francisco is built on sand hills, but they are prolific +sand hills. They yield a generous vegetation. All the rare +flowers which people in "the States" rear with such patient care +in parlor flower-pots and green- houses, flourish luxuriantly in +the open air there all the year round. Calla lilies, all sorts of +geraniums, passion flowers, moss roses—I do not know the names +of a tenth part of them. I only know that while New Yorkers are +burdened with banks and drifts of snow, Californians are burdened +with banks and drifts of flowers, if they only keep their hands +off and let them grow. And I have heard that they have also that +rarest and most curious of all the flowers, the beautiful +Espiritu Santo, as the Spaniards call it—or flower of the Holy +Spirit—though I thought it grew only in Central America—down on +the Isthmus. In its cup is the daintiest little facsimile of a +dove, as pure as snow. The Spaniards have a superstitious +reverence for it. The blossom has been conveyed to the States, +submerged in ether; and the bulb has been taken thither also, but +every attempt to make it bloom after it arrived, has failed.</p> + +<p>I have elsewhere spoken of the endless Winter of Mono, +California, and but this moment of the eternal Spring of San +Francisco. Now if we travel a hundred miles in a straight line, +we come to the eternal Summer of Sacramento. One never sees +Summer-clothing or mosquitoes in San Francisco—but they can be +found in Sacramento. Not always and unvaryingly, but about one +hundred and forty-three months out of twelve years, perhaps. +Flowers bloom there, always, the reader can easily +believe—people suffer and sweat, and swear, morning, noon and +night, and wear out their stanchest energies fanning themselves. +It gets hot there, but if you go down to Fort Yuma you will find +it hotter. Fort Yuma is probably the hottest place on earth. The +thermometer stays at one hundred and twenty in the shade there +all the time—except when it varies and goes higher. It is a U.S. +military post, and its occupants get so used to the terrific heat +that they suffer without it. There is a tradition (attributed to +John Phenix [It has been purloined by fifty different scribblers +who were too poor to invent a fancy but not ashamed to steal +one.—M. T.]) that a very, very wicked soldier died there, once, +and of course, went straight to the hottest corner of +perdition,—and the next day he telegraphed back for his +blankets. There is no doubt about the truth of this +statement—there can be no doubt about it. I have seen the place +where that soldier used to board. In Sacramento it is fiery +Summer always, and you can gather roses, and eat strawberries and +ice-cream, and wear white linen clothes, and pant and perspire, +at eight or nine o'clock in the morning, and then take the cars, +and at noon put on your furs and your skates, and go skimming +over frozen Donner Lake, seven thousand feet above the valley, +among snow banks fifteen feet deep, and in the shadow of grand +mountain peaks that lift their frosty crags ten thousand feet +above the level of the sea.</p> + +<a name="413"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="413.jpg (94K)" src="images/413.jpg" height="502" width="611"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>There is a transition for you! Where will you find another +like it in the Western hemisphere? And some of us have swept +around snow-walled curves of the Pacific Railroad in that +vicinity, six thousand feet above the sea, and looked down as the +birds do, upon the deathless Summer of the Sacramento Valley, +with its fruitful fields, its feathery foliage, its silver +streams, all slumbering in the mellow haze of its enchanted +atmosphere, and all infinitely softened and spiritualized by +distance—a dreamy, exquisite glimpse of fairyland, made all the +more charming and striking that it was caught through a forbidden +gateway of ice and snow, and savage crags and precipices.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch57"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LVII.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + +<p>It was in this Sacramento Valley, just referred to, that a +deal of the most lucrative of the early gold mining was done, and +you may still see, in places, its grassy slopes and levels torn +and guttered and disfigured by the avaricious spoilers of fifteen +and twenty years ago. You may see such disfigurements far and +wide over California—and in some such places, where only meadows +and forests are visible—not a living creature, not a house, no +stick or stone or remnant of a ruin, and not a sound, not even a +whisper to disturb the Sabbath stillness—you will find it hard +to believe that there stood at one time a fiercely-flourishing +little city, of two thousand or three thousand souls, with its +newspaper, fire company, brass band, volunteer militia, bank, +hotels, noisy Fourth of July processions and speeches, gambling +hells crammed with tobacco smoke, profanity, and rough-bearded +men of all nations and colors, with tables heaped with gold dust +sufficient for the revenues of a German principality—streets +crowded and rife with business—town lots worth four hundred +dollars a front foot—labor, laughter, music, dancing, swearing, +fighting, shooting, stabbing—a bloody inquest and a man for +breakfast every morning—everything that delights and adorns +existence—all the appointments and appurtenances of a thriving +and prosperous and promising young city,—and now nothing is left +of it all but a lifeless, homeless solitude. The men are gone, +the houses have vanished, even the name of the place is +forgotten. In no other land, in modern times, have towns so +absolutely died and disappeared, as in the old mining regions of +California.</p> + +<p>It was a driving, vigorous, restless population in those days. +It was a curious population. It was the only population of the +kind that the world has ever seen gathered together, and it is +not likely that the world will ever see its like again. For +observe, it was an assemblage of two hundred thousand young +men—not simpering, dainty, kid-gloved weaklings, but stalwart, +muscular, dauntless young braves, brimful of push and energy, and +royally endowed with every attribute that goes to make up a +peerless and magnificent manhood—the very pick and choice of the +world's glorious ones. No women, no children, no gray and +stooping veterans,—none but erect, bright-eyed, quick-moving, +strong-handed young giants—the strangest population, the finest +population, the most gallant host that ever trooped down the +startled solitudes of an unpeopled land. And where are they now? +Scattered to the ends of the earth—or prematurely aged and +decrepit—or shot or stabbed in street affrays—or dead of +disappointed hopes and broken hearts—all gone, or nearly +all—victims devoted upon the altar of the golden calf—the noblest +holocaust that ever wafted its sacrificial incense heavenward. It +is pitiful to think upon.</p> + +<p>It was a splendid population—for all the slow, sleepy, +sluggish-brained sloths staid at home—you never find that sort +of people among pioneers—you cannot build pioneers out of that +sort of material. It was that population that gave to California +a name for getting up astounding enterprises and rushing them +through with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessness of +cost or consequences, which she bears unto this day—and when she +projects a new surprise, the grave world smiles as usual, and +says "Well, that is California all over."</p> + +<p>But they were rough in those times! They fairly reveled in +gold, whisky, fights, and fandangoes, and were unspeakably happy. +The honest miner raked from a hundred to a thousand dollars out +of his claim a day, and what with the gambling dens and the other +entertainments, he hadn't a cent the next morning, if he had any +sort of luck. They cooked their own bacon and beans, sewed on +their own buttons, washed their own shirts—blue woollen ones; +and if a man wanted a fight on his hands without any annoying +delay, all he had to do was to appear in public in a white shirt +or a stove-pipe hat, and he would be accommodated. For those +people hated aristocrats. They had a particular and malignant +animosity toward what they called a "biled shirt."</p> + +<p>It was a wild, free, disorderly, grotesque society! Men—only +swarming hosts of stalwart men—nothing juvenile, nothing +feminine, visible anywhere!</p> + +<p>In those days miners would flock in crowds to catch a glimpse +of that rare and blessed spectacle, a woman! Old inhabitants tell +how, in a certain camp, the news went abroad early in the morning +that a woman was come! They had seen a calico dress hanging out +of a wagon down at the camping-ground—sign of emigrants from +over the great plains. Everybody went down there, and a shout +went up when an actual, bona fide dress was discovered fluttering +in the wind! The male emigrant was visible. The miners said:</p> + +<p>"Fetch her out!"</p> + +<p>He said: "It is my wife, gentlemen—she is sick—we have been +robbed of money, provisions, everything, by the Indians—we want +to rest."</p> + +<p>"Fetch her out! We've got to see her!"</p> + +<p>"But, gentlemen, the poor thing, she—"</p> + +<p>"FETCH HER OUT!"</p> + +<a name="416"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="416.jpg (87K)" src="images/416.jpg" height="487" width="592"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>He "fetched her out," and they swung their hats and sent up +three rousing cheers and a tiger; and they crowded around and +gazed at her, and touched her dress, and listened to her voice +with the look of men who listened to a memory rather than a +present reality—and then they collected twenty- five hundred +dollars in gold and gave it to the man, and swung their hats +again and gave three more cheers, and went home satisfied.</p> + +<p>Once I dined in San Francisco with the family of a pioneer, +and talked with his daughter, a young lady whose first experience +in San Francisco was an adventure, though she herself did not +remember it, as she was only two or three years old at the time. +Her father said that, after landing from the ship, they were +walking up the street, a servant leading the party with the +little girl in her arms. And presently a huge miner, bearded, +belted, spurred, and bristling with deadly weapons—just down +from a long campaign in the mountains, evidently-barred the way, +stopped the servant, and stood gazing, with a face all alive with +gratification and astonishment. Then he said, reverently:</p> + +<a name="417"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="417.jpg (58K)" src="images/417.jpg" height="460" width="447"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>"Well, if it ain't a child!" And then he snatched a little +leather sack out of his pocket and said to the servant:</p> + +<p>"There's a hundred and fifty dollars in dust, there, and I'll +give it to you to let me kiss the child!"</p> + +<p>That anecdote is true.</p> + +<p>But see how things change. Sitting at that dinner-table, +listening to that anecdote, if I had offered double the money for +the privilege of kissing the same child, I would have been +refused. Seventeen added years have far more than doubled the +price.</p> + +<p>And while upon this subject I will remark that once in Star +City, in the Humboldt Mountains, I took my place in a sort of +long, post-office single file of miners, to patiently await my +chance to peep through a crack in the cabin and get a sight of +the splendid new sensation—a genuine, live Woman! And at the end +of half of an hour my turn came, and I put my eye to the crack, +and there she was, with one arm akimbo, and tossing flap- jacks +in a frying-pan with the other.</p> + +<p>And she was one hundred and sixty-five [Being in calmer mood, +now, I voluntarily knock off a hundred from that.—M.T.] years +old, and hadn't a tooth in her head.</p> + +<a name="418"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="418.jpg (28K)" src="images/418.jpg" height="219" width="492"> +</center> +<br><br> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch58"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LVIII.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>For a few months I enjoyed what to me was an entirely new +phase of existence—a butterfly idleness; nothing to do, nobody +to be responsible to, and untroubled with financial uneasiness. I +fell in love with the most cordial and sociable city in the +Union. After the sage-brush and alkali deserts of Washoe, San +Francisco was Paradise to me. I lived at the best hotel, +exhibited my clothes in the most conspicuous places, infested the +opera, and learned to seem enraptured with music which oftener +afflicted my ignorant ear than enchanted it, if I had had the +vulgar honesty to confess it. However, I suppose I was not +greatly worse than the most of my countrymen in that. I had +longed to be a butterfly, and I was one at last. I attended +private parties in sumptuous evening dress, simpered and aired my +graces like a born beau, and polkad and schottisched with a step +peculiar to myself—and the kangaroo. In a word, I kept the due +state of a man worth a hundred thousand dollars (prospectively,) +and likely to reach absolute affluence when that silver- mine +sale should be ultimately achieved in the East. I spent money +with a free hand, and meantime watched the stock sales with an +interested eye and looked to see what might happen in Nevada.</p> + +<a name="420"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="420.jpg (49K)" src="images/420.jpg" height="464" width="402"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>Something very important happened. The property holders of +Nevada voted against the State Constitution; but the folks who +had nothing to lose were in the majority, and carried the measure +over their heads. But after all it did not immediately look like +a disaster, though unquestionably it was one I hesitated, +calculated the chances, and then concluded not to sell. Stocks +went on rising; speculation went mad; bankers, merchants, +lawyers, doctors, mechanics, laborers, even the very washerwomen +and servant girls, were putting up their earnings on silver +stocks, and every sun that rose in the morning went down on +paupers enriched and rich men beggared. What a gambling carnival +it was! Gould and Curry soared to six thousand three hundred +dollars a foot! And then—all of a sudden, out went the bottom +and everything and everybody went to ruin and destruction! The +wreck was complete.</p> + +<p>The bubble scarcely left a microscopic moisture behind it. I +was an early beggar and a thorough one. My hoarded stocks were +not worth the paper they were printed on. I threw them all away. +I, the cheerful idiot that had been squandering money like water, +and thought myself beyond the reach of misfortune, had not now as +much as fifty dollars when I gathered together my various debts +and paid them. I removed from the hotel to a very private +boarding house. I took a reporter's berth and went to work. I was +not entirely broken in spirit, for I was building confidently on +the sale of the silver mine in the east. But I could not hear +from Dan. My letters miscarried or were not answered.</p> + +<p>One day I did not feel vigorous and remained away from the +office. The next day I went down toward noon as usual, and found +a note on my desk which had been there twenty-four hours. It was +signed "Marshall"—the Virginia reporter—and contained a request +that I should call at the hotel and see him and a friend or two +that night, as they would sail for the east in the morning. A +postscript added that their errand was a big mining speculation! +I was hardly ever so sick in my life. I abused myself for leaving +Virginia and entrusting to another man a matter I ought to have +attended to myself; I abused myself for remaining away from the +office on the one day of all the year that I should have been +there. And thus berating myself I trotted a mile to the steamer +wharf and arrived just in time to be too late. The ship was in +the stream and under way.</p> + +<a name="421"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="421.jpg (20K)" src="images/421.jpg" height="433" width="235"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>I comforted myself with the thought that may be the +speculation would amount to nothing—poor comfort at best—and +then went back to my slavery, resolved to put up with my +thirty-five dollars a week and forget all about it.</p> + +<p>A month afterward I enjoyed my first earthquake. It was one +which was long called the "great" earthquake, and is doubtless so +distinguished till this day. It was just after noon, on a bright +October day. I was coming down Third street. The only objects in +motion anywhere in sight in that thickly built and populous +quarter, were a man in a buggy behind me, and a street car +wending slowly up the cross street. Otherwise, all was solitude +and a Sabbath stillness. As I turned the corner, around a frame +house, there was a great rattle and jar, and it occurred to me +that here was an item!—no doubt a fight in that house. Before I +could turn and seek the door, there came a really terrific shock; +the ground seemed to roll under me in waves, interrupted by a +violent joggling up and down, and there was a heavy grinding +noise as of brick houses rubbing together. I fell up against the +frame house and hurt my elbow. I knew what it was, now, and from +mere reportorial instinct, nothing else, took out my watch and +noted the time of day; at that moment a third and still severer +shock came, and as I reeled about on the pavement trying to keep +my footing, I saw a sight! The entire front of a tall four-story +brick building in Third street sprung outward like a door and +fell sprawling across the street, raising a dust like a great +volume of smoke! And here came the buggy—overboard went the man, +and in less time than I can tell it the vehicle was distributed +in small fragments along three hundred yards of street.</p> + +<a name="422"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="422.jpg (87K)" src="images/422.jpg" height="485" width="583"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>One could have fancied that somebody had fired a charge of +chair-rounds and rags down the thoroughfare. The street car had +stopped, the horses were rearing and plunging, the passengers +were pouring out at both ends, and one fat man had crashed half +way through a glass window on one side of the car, got wedged +fast and was squirming and screaming like an impaled madman. +Every door, of every house, as far as the eye could reach, was +vomiting a stream of human beings; and almost before one could +execute a wink and begin another, there was a massed multitude of +people stretching in endless procession down every street my +position commanded. Never was solemn solitude turned into teeming +life quicker.</p> + +<a name="423a"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="423a.jpg (38K)" src="images/423a.jpg" height="400" width="341"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>Of the wonders wrought by "the great earthquake," these were +all that came under my eye; but the tricks it did, elsewhere, and +far and wide over the town, made toothsome gossip for nine +days.</p> + +<p>The destruction of property was trifling—the injury to it was +wide- spread and somewhat serious.</p> + +<a name="423b"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="423b.jpg (37K)" src="images/423b.jpg" height="409" width="312"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>The "curiosities" of the earthquake were simply endless. +Gentlemen and ladies who were sick, or were taking a siesta, or +had dissipated till a late hour and were making up lost sleep, +thronged into the public streets in all sorts of queer apparel, +and some without any at all. One woman who had been washing a +naked child, ran down the street holding it by the ankles as if +it were a dressed turkey. Prominent citizens who were supposed to +keep the Sabbath strictly, rushed out of saloons in their +shirt-sleeves, with billiard cues in their hands. Dozens of men +with necks swathed in napkins, rushed from barber-shops, lathered +to the eyes or with one cheek clean shaved and the other still +bearing a hairy stubble. Horses broke from stables, and a +frightened dog rushed up a short attic ladder and out on to a +roof, and when his scare was over had not the nerve to go down +again the same way he had gone up.</p> + +<p>A prominent editor flew down stairs, in the principal hotel, +with nothing on but one brief undergarment—met a chambermaid, +and exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"Oh, what shall I do! Where shall I go!"</p> + +<p>She responded with naive serenity:</p> + +<p>"If you have no choice, you might try a clothing-store!"</p> + +<a name="424"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="424.jpg (63K)" src="images/424.jpg" height="483" width="408"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>A certain foreign consul's lady was the acknowledged leader of +fashion, and every time she appeared in anything new or +extraordinary, the ladies in the vicinity made a raid on their +husbands' purses and arrayed themselves similarly. One man who +had suffered considerably and growled accordingly, was standing +at the window when the shocks came, and the next instant the +consul's wife, just out of the bath, fled by with no other +apology for clothing than—a bath-towel! The sufferer rose +superior to the terrors of the earthquake, and said to his +wife:</p> + +<p>"Now that is something like! Get out your towel my dear!"</p> + + + +<a name="425"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="425 (40K)" src="images/425.jpg" height="416" width="306"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<p>The plastering that fell from ceilings in San Francisco that +day, would have covered several acres of ground. For some days +afterward, groups of eyeing and pointing men stood about many a +building, looking at long zig- zag cracks that extended from the +eaves to the ground. Four feet of the tops of three chimneys on +one house were broken square off and turned around in such a way +as to completely stop the draft.</p> + +<p>A crack a hundred feet long gaped open six inches wide in the +middle of one street and then shut together again with such +force, as to ridge up the meeting earth like a slender grave. A +lady sitting in her rocking and quaking parlor, saw the wall part +at the ceiling, open and shut twice, like a mouth, and then-drop +the end of a brick on the floor like a tooth. She was a woman +easily disgusted with foolishness, and she arose and went out of +there. One lady who was coming down stairs was astonished to see +a bronze Hercules lean forward on its pedestal as if to strike +her with its club. They both reached the bottom of the flight at +the same time,—the woman insensible from the fright. Her child, +born some little time afterward, was club-footed. However—on +second thought,—if the reader sees any coincidence in this, he +must do it at his own risk.</p> + +<p>The first shock brought down two or three huge organ-pipes in +one of the churches. The minister, with uplifted hands, was just +closing the services. He glanced up, hesitated, and said:</p> + +<p>"However, we will omit the benediction!"—and the next instant +there was a vacancy in the atmosphere where he had stood.</p> + +<p>After the first shock, an Oakland minister said:</p> + +<p>"Keep your seats! There is no better place to die than +this"—</p> + +<p>And added, after the third:</p> + +<p>"But outside is good enough!" He then skipped out at the back +door.</p> + +<a name="426"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="426.jpg (40K)" src="images/426.jpg" height="413" width="321"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>Such another destruction of mantel ornaments and toilet +bottles as the earthquake created, San Francisco never saw +before. There was hardly a girl or a matron in the city but +suffered losses of this kind. Suspended pictures were thrown +down, but oftener still, by a curious freak of the earthquake's +humor, they were whirled completely around with their faces to +the wall! There was great difference of opinion, at first, as to +the course or direction the earthquake traveled, but water that +splashed out of various tanks and buckets settled that. Thousands +of people were made so sea-sick by the rolling and pitching of +floors and streets that they were weak and bed-ridden for hours, +and some few for even days afterward.—Hardly an individual +escaped nausea entirely.</p> + +<p>The queer earthquake—episodes that formed the staple of San +Francisco gossip for the next week would fill a much larger book +than this, and so I will diverge from the subject.</p> + +<p>By and by, in the due course of things, I picked up a copy of +the Enterprise one day, and fell under this cruel blow:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p>NEVADA MINES IN NEW YORK.—G. M. Marshall, Sheba Hurs and Amos +H. Rose, who left San Francisco last July for New York City, with +ores from mines in Pine Wood District, Humboldt County, and on +the Reese River range, have disposed of a mine containing six +thousand feet and called the Pine Mountains Consolidated, for the +sum of $3,000,000. The stamps on the deed, which is now on its +way to Humboldt County, from New York, for record, amounted to +$3,000, which is said to be the largest amount of stamps ever +placed on one document. A working capital of $1,000,000 has been +paid into the treasury, and machinery has already been purchased +for a large quartz mill, which will be put up as soon as +possible. The stock in this company is all full paid and entirely +unassessable. The ores of the mines in this district somewhat +resemble those of the Sheba mine in Humboldt. Sheba Hurst, the +discoverer of the mines, with his friends corralled all the best +leads and all the land and timber they desired before making +public their whereabouts. Ores from there, assayed in this city, +showed them to be exceedingly rich in silver and gold—silver +predominating. There is an abundance of wood and water in the +District. We are glad to know that New York capital has been +enlisted in the development of the mines of this region. Having +seen the ores and assays, we are satisfied that the mines of the +District are very valuable—anything but wild-cat.</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Once more native imbecility had carried the day, and I had +lost a million! It was the "blind lead" over again.</p> + +<p>Let us not dwell on this miserable matter. If I were inventing +these things, I could be wonderfully humorous over them; but they +are too true to be talked of with hearty levity, even at this +distant day. [True, and yet not exactly as given in the above +figures, possibly. I saw Marshall, months afterward, and although +he had plenty of money he did not claim to have captured an +entire million. In fact I gathered that he had not then received +$50,000. Beyond that figure his fortune appeared to consist of +uncertain vast expectations rather than prodigious certainties. +However, when the above item appeared in print I put full faith +in it, and incontinently wilted and went to seed under it.] +Suffice it that I so lost heart, and so yielded myself up to +repinings and sighings and foolish regrets, that I neglected my +duties and became about worthless, as a reporter for a brisk +newspaper. And at last one of the proprietors took me aside, with +a charity I still remember with considerable respect, and gave me +an opportunity to resign my berth and so save myself the disgrace +of a dismissal.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch59"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LIX.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>For a time I wrote literary screeds for the Golden Era. C. H. +Webb had established a very excellent literary weekly called the +Californian, but high merit was no guaranty of success; it +languished, and he sold out to three printers, and Bret Harte +became editor at $20 a week, and I was employed to contribute an +article a week at $12. But the journal still languished, and the +printers sold out to Captain Ogden, a rich man and a pleasant +gentleman who chose to amuse himself with such an expensive +luxury without much caring about the cost of it. When he grew +tired of the novelty, he re-sold to the printers, the paper +presently died a peaceful death, and I was out of work again. I +would not mention these things but for the fact that they so +aptly illustrate the ups and downs that characterize life on the +Pacific coast. A man could hardly stumble into such a variety of +queer vicissitudes in any other country.</p> + +<p>For two months my sole occupation was avoiding acquaintances; +for during that time I did not earn a penny, or buy an article of +any kind, or pay my board. I became a very adept at "slinking." I +slunk from back street to back street, I slunk away from +approaching faces that looked familiar, I slunk to my meals, ate +them humbly and with a mute apology for every mouthful I robbed +my generous landlady of, and at midnight, after wanderings that +were but slinkings away from cheerfulness and light, I slunk to +my bed. I felt meaner, and lowlier and more despicable than the +worms. During all this time I had but one piece of money—a +silver ten cent piece—and I held to it and would not spend it on +any account, lest the consciousness coming strong upon me that I +was entirely penniless, might suggest suicide. I had pawned every +thing but the clothes I had on; so I clung to my dime +desperately, till it was smooth with handling.</p> + +<a name="429"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="429.jpg (36K)" src="images/429.jpg" height="446" width="269"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>However, I am forgetting. I did have one other occupation +beside that of "slinking." It was the entertaining of a collector +(and being entertained by him,) who had in his hands the Virginia +banker's bill for forty-six dollars which I had loaned my +schoolmate, the "Prodigal." This man used to call regularly once +a week and dun me, and sometimes oftener. He did it from sheer +force of habit, for he knew he could get nothing. He would get +out his bill, calculate the interest for me, at five per cent a +month, and show me clearly that there was no attempt at fraud in +it and no mistakes; and then plead, and argue and dun with all +his might for any sum—any little trifle—even a dollar—even +half a dollar, on account. Then his duty was accomplished and his +conscience free. He immediately dropped the subject there always; +got out a couple of cigars and divided, put his feet in the +window, and then we would have a long, luxurious talk about +everything and everybody, and he would furnish me a world of +curious dunning adventures out of the ample store in his memory. +By and by he would clap his hat on his head, shake hands and say +briskly:</p> + +<p>"Well, business is business—can't stay with you always!"—and +was off in a second.</p> + +<p>The idea of pining for a dun! And yet I used to long for him +to come, and would get as uneasy as any mother if the day went by +without his visit, when I was expecting him. But he never +collected that bill, at last nor any part of it. I lived to pay +it to the banker myself.</p> + +<p>Misery loves company. Now and then at night, in out-of-the +way, dimly lighted places, I found myself happening on another +child of misfortune. He looked so seedy and forlorn, so homeless +and friendless and forsaken, that I yearned toward him as a +brother. I wanted to claim kinship with him and go about and +enjoy our wretchedness together. The drawing toward each other +must have been mutual; at any rate we got to falling together +oftener, though still seemingly by accident; and although we did +not speak or evince any recognition, I think the dull anxiety +passed out of both of us when we saw each other, and then for +several hours we would idle along contentedly, wide apart, and +glancing furtively in at home lights and fireside gatherings, out +of the night shadows, and very much enjoying our dumb +companionship.</p> + +<p>Finally we spoke, and were inseparable after that. For our +woes were identical, almost. He had been a reporter too, and lost +his berth, and this was his experience, as nearly as I can +recollect it. After losing his berth he had gone down, down, +down, with never a halt: from a boarding house on Russian Hill to +a boarding house in Kearney street; from thence to Dupont; from +thence to a low sailor den; and from thence to lodgings in goods +boxes and empty hogsheads near the wharves. Then; for a while, he +had gained a meagre living by sewing up bursted sacks of grain on +the piers; when that failed he had found food here and there as +chance threw it in his way. He had ceased to show his face in +daylight, now, for a reporter knows everybody, rich and poor, +high and low, and cannot well avoid familiar faces in the broad +light of day.</p> + +<p>This mendicant Blucher—I call him that for convenience—was a +splendid creature. He was full of hope, pluck and philosophy; he +was well read and a man of cultivated taste; he had a bright wit +and was a master of satire; his kindliness and his generous +spirit made him royal in my eyes and changed his curb-stone seat +to a throne and his damaged hat to a crown.</p> + +<p>He had an adventure, once, which sticks fast in my memory as +the most pleasantly grotesque that ever touched my sympathies. He +had been without a penny for two months. He had shirked about +obscure streets, among friendly dim lights, till the thing had +become second nature to him. But at last he was driven abroad in +daylight. The cause was sufficient; he had not tasted food for +forty-eight hours, and he could not endure the misery of his +hunger in idle hiding. He came along a back street, glowering at +the loaves in bake-shop windows, and feeling that he could trade +his life away for a morsel to eat. The sight of the bread doubled +his hunger; but it was good to look at it, any how, and imagine +what one might do if one only had it.</p> + +<p>Presently, in the middle of the street he saw a shining +spot—looked again—did not, and could not, believe his +eyes—turned away, to try them, then looked again. It was a +verity—no vain, hunger-inspired delusion—it was a silver +dime!</p> + +<a name="431"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="431.jpg (31K)" src="images/431.jpg" height="435" width="279"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>He snatched it—gloated over it; doubted it—bit it—found it +genuine—choked his heart down, and smothered a halleluiah. Then +he looked around—saw that nobody was looking at him—threw the +dime down where it was before—walked away a few steps, and +approached again, pretending he did not know it was there, so +that he could re-enjoy the luxury of finding it. He walked around +it, viewing it from different points; then sauntered about with +his hands in his pockets, looking up at the signs and now and +then glancing at it and feeling the old thrill again. Finally he +took it up, and went away, fondling it in his pocket. He idled +through unfrequented streets, stopping in doorways and corners to +take it out and look at it. By and by he went home to his +lodgings—an empty queens-ware hogshead,—and employed himself +till night trying to make up his mind what to buy with it. But it +was hard to do. To get the most for it was the idea. He knew that +at the Miner's Restaurant he could get a plate of beans and a +piece of bread for ten cents; or a fish- ball and some few +trifles, but they gave "no bread with one fish-ball" there. At +French Pete's he could get a veal cutlet, plain, and some +radishes and bread, for ten cents; or a cup of coffee—a pint at +least—and a slice of bread; but the slice was not thick enough +by the eighth of an inch, and sometimes they were still more +criminal than that in the cutting of it. At seven o'clock his +hunger was wolfish; and still his mind was not made up. He turned +out and went up Merchant street, still ciphering; and chewing a +bit of stick, as is the way of starving men.</p> + +<a name="432"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="432.jpg (38K)" src="images/432.jpg" height="449" width="264"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>He passed before the lights of Martin's restaurant, the most +aristocratic in the city, and stopped. It was a place where he +had often dined, in better days, and Martin knew him well. +Standing aside, just out of the range of the light, he worshiped +the quails and steaks in the show window, and imagined that may +be the fairy times were not gone yet and some prince in disguise +would come along presently and tell him to go in there and take +whatever he wanted. He chewed his stick with a hungry interest as +he warmed to his subject. Just at this juncture he was conscious +of some one at his side, sure enough; and then a finger touched +his arm. He looked up, over his shoulder, and saw an +apparition—a very allegory of Hunger! It was a man six feet +high, gaunt, unshaven, hung with rags; with a haggard face and +sunken cheeks, and eyes that pleaded piteously. This phantom +said:</p> + +<p>"Come with me—please."</p> + +<p>He locked his arm in Blucher's and walked up the street to +where the passengers were few and the light not strong, and then +facing about, put out his hands in a beseeching way, and +said:</p> + +<p>"Friend—stranger—look at me! Life is easy to you—you go +about, placid and content, as I did once, in my day—you have +been in there, and eaten your sumptuous supper, and picked your +teeth, and hummed your tune, and thought your pleasant thoughts, +and said to yourself it is a good world—but you've never +suffered! You don't know what trouble is—you don't know what +misery is—nor hunger! Look at me! Stranger have pity on a poor +friendless, homeless dog! As God is my judge, I have not tasted +food for eight and forty hours!—look in my eyes and see if I +lie! Give me the least trifle in the world to keep me from +starving—anything—twenty-five cents! Do it, stranger—do it, +please. It will be nothing to you, but life to me. Do it, and I +will go down on my knees and lick the dust before you! I will +kiss your footprints—I will worship the very ground you walk on! +Only twenty-five cents! I am famishing—perishing—starving by +inches! For God's sake don't desert me!"</p> + +<a name="433"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="433.jpg (71K)" src="images/433.jpg" height="603" width="411"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>Blucher was bewildered—and touched, too—stirred to the +depths. He reflected. Thought again. Then an idea struck him, and +he said:</p> + +<p>"Come with me."</p> + +<p>He took the outcast's arm, walked him down to Martin's +restaurant, seated him at a marble table, placed the bill of fare +before him, and said:</p> + +<p>"Order what you want, friend. Charge it to me, Mr. +Martin."</p> + +<p>"All right, Mr. Blucher," said Martin.</p> + +<p>Then Blucher stepped back and leaned against the counter and +watched the man stow away cargo after cargo of buckwheat cakes at +seventy-five cents a plate; cup after cup of coffee, and porter +house steaks worth two dollars apiece; and when six dollars and a +half's worth of destruction had been accomplished, and the +stranger's hunger appeased, Blucher went down to French Pete's, +bought a veal cutlet plain, a slice of bread, and three radishes, +with his dime, and set to and feasted like a king!</p> + +<p>Take the episode all around, it was as odd as any that can be +culled from the myriad curiosities of Californian life, +perhaps.</p> + + + +<br><br> +<a name="ch60"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<h2>CHAPTER LX.</h2> +</center> +<br> + + + +<p>By and by, an old friend of mine, a miner, came down from one +of the decayed mining camps of Tuolumne, California, and I went +back with him. We lived in a small cabin on a verdant hillside, +and there were not five other cabins in view over the wide +expanse of hill and forest. Yet a flourishing city of two or +three thousand population had occupied this grassy dead solitude +during the flush times of twelve or fifteen years before, and +where our cabin stood had once been the heart of the teeming +hive, the centre of the city. When the mines gave out the town +fell into decay, and in a few years wholly disappeared—streets, +dwellings, shops, everything—and left no sign. The grassy slopes +were as green and smooth and desolate of life as if they had +never been disturbed. The mere handful of miners still remaining, +had seen the town spring up spread, grow and flourish in its +pride; and they had seen it sicken and die, and pass away like a +dream. With it their hopes had died, and their zest of life. They +had long ago resigned themselves to their exile, and ceased to +correspond with their distant friends or turn longing eyes toward +their early homes. They had accepted banishment, forgotten the +world and been forgotten of the world. They were far from +telegraphs and railroads, and they stood, as it were, in a living +grave, dead to the events that stirred the globe's great +populations, dead to the common interests of men, isolated and +outcast from brotherhood with their kind. It was the most +singular, and almost the most touching and melancholy exile that +fancy can imagine.—One of my associates in this locality, for +two or three months, was a man who had had a university +education; but now for eighteen years he had decayed there by +inches, a bearded, rough- clad, clay-stained miner, and at times, +among his sighings and soliloquizings, he unconsciously +interjected vaguely remembered Latin and Greek sentences—dead +and musty tongues, meet vehicles for the thoughts of one whose +dreams were all of the past, whose life was a failure; a tired +man, burdened with the present, and indifferent to the future; a +man without ties, hopes, interests, waiting for rest and the +end.</p> + +<a name="436"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="436.jpg (34K)" src="images/436.jpg" height="446" width="277"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>In that one little corner of California is found a species of +mining which is seldom or never mentioned in print. It is called +"pocket mining" and I am not aware that any of it is done outside +of that little corner. The gold is not evenly distributed through +the surface dirt, as in ordinary placer mines, but is collected +in little spots, and they are very wide apart and exceedingly +hard to find, but when you do find one you reap a rich and sudden +harvest. There are not now more than twenty pocket miners in that +entire little region. I think I know every one of them +personally. I have known one of them to hunt patiently about the +hill-sides every day for eight months without finding gold enough +to make a snuff-box—his grocery bill running up relentlessly all +the time—and then find a pocket and take out of it two thousand +dollars in two dips of his shovel. I have known him to take out +three thousand dollars in two hours, and go and pay up every cent +of his indebtedness, then enter on a dazzling spree that finished +the last of his treasure before the night was gone. And the next +day he bought his groceries on credit as usual, and shouldered +his pan and shovel and went off to the hills hunting pockets +again happy and content. This is the most fascinating of all the +different kinds of mining, and furnishes a very handsome +percentage of victims to the lunatic asylum.</p> + +<p>Pocket hunting is an ingenious process. You take a spadeful of +earth from the hill-side and put it in a large tin pan and +dissolve and wash it gradually away till nothing is left but a +teaspoonful of fine sediment. Whatever gold was in that earth has +remained, because, being the heaviest, it has sought the bottom. +Among the sediment you will find half a dozen yellow particles no +larger than pin-heads. You are delighted. You move off to one +side and wash another pan. If you find gold again, you move to +one side further, and wash a third pan. If you find no gold this +time, you are delighted again, because you know you are on the +right scent.</p> + +<p>You lay an imaginary plan, shaped like a fan, with its handle +up the hill—for just where the end of the handle is, you argue +that the rich deposit lies hidden, whose vagrant grains of gold +have escaped and been washed down the hill, spreading farther and +farther apart as they wandered. And so you proceed up the hill, +washing the earth and narrowing your lines every time the absence +of gold in the pan shows that you are outside the spread of the +fan; and at last, twenty yards up the hill your lines have +converged to a point—a single foot from that point you cannot +find any gold. Your breath comes short and quick, you are +feverish with excitement; the dinner-bell may ring its clapper +off, you pay no attention; friends may die, weddings transpire, +houses burn down, they are nothing to you; you sweat and dig and +delve with a frantic interest—and all at once you strike it! Up +comes a spadeful of earth and quartz that is all lovely with +soiled lumps and leaves and sprays of gold. Sometimes that one +spadeful is all—$500. Sometimes the nest contains $10,000, and +it takes you three or four days to get it all out. The +pocket-miners tell of one nest that yielded $60,000 and two men +exhausted it in two weeks, and then sold the ground for $10,000 +to a party who never got $300 out of it afterward.</p> + +<a name="437"></a> +<br><br> +<center> +<img alt="437.jpg (37K)" src="images/437.jpg" height="466" width="294"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<p>The hogs are good pocket hunters. All the summer they root +around the bushes, and turn up a thousand little piles of dirt, +and then the miners long for the rains; for the rains beat upon +these little piles and wash them down and expose the gold, +possibly right over a pocket. Two pockets were found in this way +by the same man in one day. One had $5,000 in it and the other +$8,000. That man could appreciate it, for he hadn't had a cent +for about a year.</p> + +<p>In Tuolumne lived two miners who used to go to the neighboring +village in the afternoon and return every night with household +supplies. Part of the distance they traversed a trail, and nearly +always sat down to rest on a great boulder that lay beside the +path. In the course of thirteen years they had worn that boulder +tolerably smooth, sitting on it. By and by two vagrant Mexicans +came along and occupied the seat. They began to amuse themselves +by chipping off flakes from the boulder with a sledge- hammer. +They examined one of these flakes and found it rich with gold. +That boulder paid them $800 afterward. But the aggravating +circumstance was that these "Greasers" knew that there must be +more gold where that boulder came from, and so they went panning +up the hill and found what was probably the richest pocket that +region has yet produced. It took three months to exhaust it, and +it yielded $120,000. The two American miners who used to sit on +the boulder are poor yet, and they take turn about in getting up +early in the morning to curse those Mexicans—and when it comes +down to pure ornamental cursing, the native American is gifted +above the sons of men.</p> + +<p>I have dwelt at some length upon this matter of pocket mining +because it is a subject that is seldom referred to in print, and +therefore I judged that it would have for the reader that +interest which naturally attaches to novelty.</p> + + + + + +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Roughing It, Part 6. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 6. *** + +***** This file should be named 8587-h.htm or 8587-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/8/5/8/8587/ + +Produced by David Widger + +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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