Selected Stories of Bret Harte | Page 6

giver's); a pair of surgeon's shears; a lancet; a Bank of
England note for 5 pounds; and about $200 in loose gold and silver
coin. During these proceedings Stumpy maintained a silence as
impassive as the dead on his left, a gravity as inscrutable as that of the
newly born on his right. Only one incident occurred to break the
monotony of the curious procession. As Kentuck bent over the
candle-box half curiously, the child turned, and, in a spasm of pain,
caught at his groping finger, and held it fast for a moment. Kentuck
looked foolish and embarrassed. Something like a blush tried to assert
itself in his weather-beaten cheek. "The damned little cuss!" he said, as
he extricated his finger, with perhaps more tenderness and care than he

might have been deemed capable of showing. He held that finger a little
apart from its fellows as he went out, and examined it curiously. The
examination provoked the same original remark in regard to the child.
In fact, he seemed to enjoy repeating it. "He rastled with my finger," he
remarked to Tipton, holding up the member, "the damned little cuss!"
It was four o'clock before the camp sought repose. A light burnt in the
cabin where the watchers sat, for Stumpy did not go to bed that night.
Nor did Kentuck. He drank quite freely, and related with great gusto his
experience, invariably ending with his characteristic condemnation of
the newcomer. It seemed to relieve him of any unjust implication of
sentiment, and Kentuck had the weaknesses of the nobler sex. When
everybody else had gone to bed, he walked down to the river and
whistled reflectingly. Then he walked up the gulch past the cabin, still
whistling with demonstrative unconcern. At a large redwood-tree he
paused and retraced his steps, and again passed the cabin. Halfway
down to the river's bank he again paused, and then returned and
knocked at the door. It was opened by Stumpy. "How goes it?" said
Kentuck, looking past Stumpy toward the candle-box. "All serene!"
replied Stumpy. "Anything up?" "Nothing." There was a pause--an
embarrassing one--Stumpy still holding the door. Then Kentuck had
recourse to his finger, which he held up to Stumpy. "Rastled with
it,--the damned little cuss," he said, and retired.
The next day Cherokee Sal had such rude sepulture as Roaring Camp
afforded. After her body had been committed to the hillside, there was
a formal meeting of the camp to discuss what should be done with her
infant. A resolution to adopt it was unanimous and enthusiastic. But an
animated discussion in regard to the manner and feasibility of
providing for its wants at once sprang up. It was remarkable that the
argument partook of none of those fierce personalities with which
discussions were usually conducted at Roaring Camp. Tipton proposed
that they should send the child to Red Dog,--a distance of forty
miles,--where female attention could be procured. But the unlucky
suggestion met with fierce and unanimous opposition. It was evident
that no plan which entailed parting from their new acquisition would
for a moment be entertained. "Besides," said Tom Ryder, "them fellows

at Red Dog would swap it, and ring in somebody else on us." A
disbelief in the honesty of other camps prevailed at Roaring Camp, as
in other places.
The introduction of a female nurse in the camp also met with objection.
It was argued that no decent woman could be prevailed to accept
Roaring Camp as her home, and the speaker urged that "they didn't
want any more of the other kind." This unkind allusion to the defunct
mother, harsh as it may seem, was the first spasm of propriety,--the
first symptom of the camp's regeneration. Stumpy advanced nothing.
Perhaps he felt a certain delicacy in interfering with the selection of a
possible successor in office. But when questioned, he averred stoutly
that he and "Jinny"--the mammal before alluded to--could manage to
rear the child. There was something original, independent, and heroic
about the plan that pleased the camp. Stumpy was retained. Certain
articles were sent for to Sacramento. "Mind," said the treasurer, as he
pressed a bag of gold-dust into the expressman's hand, "the best that
can be got,--lace, you know, and filigree-work and frills,--damn the
cost!"
Strange to say, the child thrived. Perhaps the invigorating climate of the
mountain camp was compensation for material deficiencies. Nature
took the foundling to her broader breast. In that rare atmosphere of the
Sierra foothills,--that air pungent with balsamic odor, that ethereal
cordial at once bracing and exhilarating,--he may have found food and
nourishment, or a subtle chemistry that transmuted ass's milk to lime
and phosphorus. Stumpy inclined to the belief that it was the latter and
good nursing. "Me and that ass," he would say, "has