The Life of Bret Harte Part 8

So late as 1860 it was often said that there were busy men in San Francisco who had never taken a day's vacation, or even left the city to cross the Bay, from the hour of their arrival in 1849 until that moment.

Even this record has been eclipsed. A Pioneer of German birth, named Henry Miller, who acc.u.mulated a fortune of six million dollars, is said to have lived, or at least to have existed, in San Francisco for thirty-five years without taking a single day's vacation.

It was even a.s.serted at first that the climate neutralized the effect of intoxicating liquor, and that it was difficult, if not impossible, to get really drunk in California. Possibly a somewhat lax definition of drunkenness accounted in part for this theory. A witness once testified in a San Francisco court that he did not consider a man to be drunk so long as he could move. But the crowning excellence of the California climate remains to be stated. It was observed by the Pioneers,--and they had ample opportunity to make observations upon the subject,--that in that benign atmosphere gunshot wounds healed rapidly.

With a climate exhilarating and curative; with youth, health, courage, and the prospect of almost immediate wealth; with new and exciting surroundings, it is no wonder that the Pioneers enjoyed their hour. In San Francisco, especially, a kind of pleasant madness seized upon every newcomer. "As each man steps his foot on sh.o.r.e," writes one adventurer, "he seems to have entered a magic circle in which he is under the influence of new impulses." And another, in a letter to a friend says, "As soon as you reach California you will think every one is crazy; and without great caution, you will be crazy yourself."

Still another Pioneer wrote home even more emphatically on this point: "You can form no conception of the state of affairs here. I do believe, in my soul, everybody has gone mad,--stark, staring mad."[40]

To the same effect is the narrative of Stephen J. Field, afterward, and for many years, a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr.

Field, who arrived in San Francisco as a very young man, thus describes his first experience:--

"As I walked along the streets, I met a great many persons whom I had known in New York, and they all seemed to be in the highest spirits. Every one in greeting me said, 'It is a glorious country!' or 'Isn't it a glorious country?' or 'Did you ever see a more glorious country?' In every case the word 'glorious' was sure to come out.... I caught the infection, and though I had but a single dollar in my pocket, no business whatever, and did not know where I was to get my next meal, I found myself saying to everybody I met, 'It is a glorious country!'"[41]

"The exuberance of my spirits," Judge Field continues, "was marvellous"; and the readers of his interesting reminiscences will not be inclined to dispute the fact when they learn that four days after his arrival, having made the sum of twenty dollars by selling a few New York newspapers, he forthwith put down his name for sixty-five thousand dollars' worth of town lots, and received the consideration due to a capitalist bent upon developing the resources of a new country.

The most extravagant acts appeared reasonable under the new dispensation.

n.o.body was surprised when an enthusiastic miner offered to bet a friend that the latter could not hit him with a shotgun at the distance of seventy-eight yards. As a result the miner received five shots, causing severe wounds, beside losing the bet, which amounted to four drinks. After the first State election, a magistrate holding an important office fulfilled a wager by carrying the winner a distance of three miles in a wheelbarrow.

A characteristic scene in a Chinese restaurant is described as follows in the "Sacramento Transcript" of October 8, 1850:--

"One young man called for a plate of mutton chops, and the waiter, not understanding, asked for a repet.i.tion of the order.

"'Mutton chops, you chuckle head,' said the young gentleman.

"'Mutton chops, you chuckle head,' shouted the Chinaman to the kitchen.

"The joke took among the customers, and presently one of them called out, 'A gla.s.s of pigeon milk, you long-tailed Asiatic.'

"'A gla.s.s of pigeon milk, you long-tailed satic,' echoed the waiter.

"'A barrel of h.o.m.oeopathic soup, old smooth head,' shouted another.

"'Arrel homepatty soup, you old smooth head,' echoed the waiter.

"'A hatful of bricks,' shouted a fourth.

"'Hatter bricks,' repeated the waiter.

"By this time the kitchen was in a perfect state of confusion, and the proprietor in a stew of perplexity rushed into the dining-room. 'What you mean by pigeon milk, homepatty soup, and de brick? How you cooking, gentlemen?'

"A roar burst from the tables, and the shrewd Asiatic saw in a moment that they were hoaxing his subordinates. 'The gentlemen make you all dam fools,' said he, rus.h.i.+ng again into the smoky recess of the kitchen."

At a dinner given in San Francisco a local orator thus discoursed upon the glories of California: "Look at its forest trees, varying from three hundred to one thousand feet in height, with their trunks so close together [drawing his knife and pantomiming] that you can't stick this bowie-knife between them; and the lordly elk, with antlers from seventeen to twenty feet spread, with their heads and tails up, ambling through these grand forests. It's a sight, gentlemen"--

"Stop," cried a newcomer who had not yet been inoculated with the atmosphere. "My friend, if the trees are so close together, how does the elk get through the woods with his wide-branching horns?"

The Californian turned on the stranger with a look of thorough contempt and replied, "That's the elk's business"; and continued his unvarnished tale, no more embarra.s.sed than the sun at noonday.

"There was a spirit of off-hand, jolly fun in those days, a sort of universal free and easy cheerfulness.... The California Pioneer that could not give and take a joke was just no Californian at all. It was this spirit that gives the memory of those days an indescribable fascination and charm."[42]

The very names first given to places and situations show the same exuberant spirit; such, for example, as Murderer's Alley, Dead Man's Bar, Mad Mule Canon, Skunk Flat, Whiskey Gulch, Port Wine Diggins, s.h.i.+rt-Tail Hollow, b.l.o.o.d.y Bend, Death Pa.s.s, Jacka.s.s Flat, and h.e.l.l's Half Acre.

Even crime took on a bold and original form. A scapegrace in Sacramento stole a horse while the owner still held the bridle. The owner had stepped into a shop to ask a question, but kept the end of the reins in his hand, when the thief gently slipped the bridle from the horse's head, hung it on a post, and rode off with steed and saddle.

Bizarre characters from all parts of the world, drawn as by a magnet, took s.h.i.+p for California in '49 and '50 and became wealthy, or landed in the Police Court, as fate would have it. The latter was the destination of one Murphy, an Irishman presumably, and certainly a man of imagination, who described himself as a teacher of mathematics, and acknowledged that he had been drunk for the preceding six years. He added, for the benefit of the Court, that he had been at the breaking of every pane of gla.s.s from Vera Cruz to San Francisco, that he had smoked a dozen cigars in the halls of the Montezumas, and that there were as many persons contending for his name as there were cities for the birth of Homer. The Court gave him six months.

Two residents of San Francisco, one a Frenchman, the other a Dutchman, were so enthusiastic over their new and republican surroundings that they slept every night under the Liberty Pole on the Plaza; and seldom did they fail to turn in patriotically drunk, shouting for freedom and equality.

Prize-fighters, as a matter of course, were attracted to a place where sporting blood ran so high. In June, 1850, news came that Tom Hyer (of whose celebrity the Reader is doubtless aware) was shortly expected with "his lady" at Panama; and he must have arrived in due course, for in August, Tom Hyer was tried in the Police Court of San Francisco for entering several saloons on horseback, in one case performing the cla.s.sic feat of riding up a flight of steps. The defence set up that this was not an uncommon method of entering saloons in San Francisco, and the Court took "judicial notice" of the fact, his honor having witnessed the same thing himself on more than one occasion. However, as Mr. Hyer was somewhat intoxicated, and as the alleged offence was committed on a Sunday, the Judge imposed a small fine.

In the same year, Mr. T. Belcher Kay, another famous prize-fighter from the East, narrowly escaped being murdered while returning from a ball before daylight one Sunday morning; and subsequently Mr. Kay was tried, but acquitted, on a charge of burglary.

In that strange collection of human beings drawn from all parts of the earth, for the most part unknown to one another, but almost all having this fundamental trait in common, namely, that they were close to nature, it was inevitable that incidents of pathos and tragedy, deeds of rascality and cruelty, and still more deeds of unselfishness and heroism, should continually occur.

Some Pioneers met good fortune or disaster at the very threshold. One young man, upon landing in San Francisco, borrowed ten dollars, went immediately to a gambling saloon, won seven thousand dollars, and with rare good sense took the next steamer for home. Another newcomer, who brought a few hundred dollars with him, wandered into the gambling rooms of the Parker House soon after his arrival, won twenty thousand dollars there, and went home two days later.

A Pioneer who had just crossed the Plains fell into a strange experience upon his arrival at Placerville. He was a poor man, his only property being a yoke of oxen which he sold almost immediately for one hundred dollars in gold dust. Shortly before that a purse containing the same quant.i.ty of gold had been stolen; and when, a few hours later, the newly-arrived teamster took out his pocket-book to pay for a small purchase, a man immediately stepped forward and accused him of the robbery. He was, of course, arrested, and a jury to try him was impanelled on the spot. The quality of the gold in his purse corresponded exactly with the quality of the stolen gold. It was known that he had only just arrived from the Plains and could not have obtained the gold dust by mining. The man to whom he sold his cattle had gone, and he was unable to prove how he had come by the treasure. Under these circ.u.mstances, the jury found him guilty, and sentenced him to receive thirty lashes on the bare back, which were thereupon administered, the unfortunate man all the time protesting his innocence.

After he was whipped, he procured a pistol, walked deliberately up to the person who first accused him, placed the pistol at his head, and declared that he believed him to be the guilty man, and that if he did not then and there confess that he had stolen the money he would blow his brains out.

The fellow could not stand the power of injured innocence. He became frightened, acknowledged that he was the thief, and drew the identical stolen money out of his pocket. The enraged crowd instantly set upon him, bore him to the nearest tree, and hung him. A subscription was then started, and about eighteen hundred dollars were raised in a few minutes for the sagacious teamster, who departed forthwith for his home in the East.[43]

Of the many thousand Pioneers at work in the mines very few reaped a reward at all commensurate with their toils, privations and sufferings,--much less with their expectations. The wild ideas which prevailed in some quarters as to the abundance of the gold may be gathered from the advice given to one young Argonaut by his father, on the eve of his departure from Illinois. The venerable man urged his son not to work too hard, but to buy a low chair and a small iron rake, and, taking his seat comfortably, to rake over the sand, pick up the nuggets as they came to view, and place them in a convenient box.

In reality, the miners' earnings, after deducting necessary living expenses, are computed to have averaged only about three times the wages of an unskilled day-laborer in the East. Few of them saved anything, for there was every temptation to squander their gains in dissipation; and men whose income is subject to wide fluctuations are notoriously unthrifty.

The following is a typical experience: "Our diet consists of hard bread, flour which we eat half-cooked, and salt pork, with occasionally a salmon which we purchase of the Indians. Vegetables are not to be procured. Our feet are wet all day, while a hot sun s.h.i.+nes down upon our heads, and the very air parches the skin like the hot air of an oven. Our drinking water comes down to us thoroughly impregnated with the mineral substances washed through the thousand cradles above us. The hands and feet of the novice become painfully blistered and the limbs are stiff. Besides all these causes of sickness, many men who have left their wives and children in far-distant States are homesick, anxious and despondent."[44]

Many a family in the East was desolated and reduced to poverty by the untimely death of a husband and father; and in other cases long absence was as effectual in this respect as death itself. The once-common expression "California widow" is significant. Some Eastern men took informal wives on the Pacific Slope; others, who had succeeded, put off their home-coming from month to month, and even from year to year, hoping for still greater success; others yet, who had failed, were ashamed to go home in poverty, and lingered in California until death overtook them.

This phase of Pioneer life is treated by Bret Harte in the stories _How Old Man Plunkett went Home_, and _Jimmy's Big Brother from California_. Of those who were lucky enough to find gold in large quant.i.ties, many were robbed, and some of these unfortunates went home, or died, broken-hearted.

But as a rule, the Pioneers rose superior to every blow that fate could deal them. Men met misfortune, danger, even death with composure, and yet without bravado. A traveller being told that a man was about to be lynched, proceeded to the spot and found a large gathering of miners standing around in groups under the trees, and quietly talking. Seeing no apparent criminal there, he stepped up to one person who stood a little apart from the others, and asked him which was the man about to be hung.

The person addressed replied, without the slightest change of countenance, "I believe, Sir, it's me." Half an hour later he was dead.

There was a battle at Sacramento in 1850 between a party of "Squatters" on one side, and city officials and citizens on the other. Among the latter was one J. F. Hooper from Independence in Missouri. Hooper, armed only with a pistol, discharged all his cartridges, then threw the weapon at his advancing opponents, and calmly faced them, crossing his hands over his breast as a protection. They fired at him, notwithstanding his defenceless situation, and one ball piercing his right hand inflicted a wound, but not a mortal one, in his side. Four men were killed and several others badly wounded in this fight.

When a father and son were arrested by a vigilance committee at Santa Clara for horse-stealing, and were sentenced to receive thirty-six lashes apiece, the son begged that he might take his father's share as well as his own.

Men died well in California. In November, 1851, two horse-thieves were hung by a vigilance committee at Stockton. One of them, who was very young, smoked a cigar up to the last moment, and made a little speech in which he explained that the act was not dictated by irreverence, but that he desired to die like a man. When Stuart, a noted robber and horse-thief was being tried for his life by the Vigilance Committee in San Francisco, he complained that the proceedings were "tiresome," and asked for a chew of tobacco.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TWO OPPONENTS CAME NEARER

From "The Iliad of Sandy Bar"

Frederic Remington, del.]

The death of this man was one of the most impressive scenes ever witnessed upon this blood-stained earth. Sentence having been pa.s.sed upon the prisoner the Committee, numbering one thousand men, came down from the hall where they met and formed in the street, three abreast. They comprised, with some exceptions, the best, the most substantial, the most public-spirited citizens of San Francisco. In the centre was Stuart, handcuffed and pinioned, but perfectly self-possessed and cool. A gallows had been erected some distance off, and the procession moved up Battery Street, followed by a great throng of men. There was no confusion, no outcry, no apparent excitement,--not a sound, indeed, except the tread of many feet upon the planked streets, every footfall sounding the prisoner's knell.

It was of this event that Bret Harte wrote in his _Bohemian Days in San Francisco_: "Under the reign of the Committee the lawless and vicious cla.s.s were more appalled by the moral spectacle of several thousand black-coated, serious-minded business men in embattled procession than by mere force of arms."