Tennessees Partner | Page 6

Clarion, by its editor, who was present, and
to whose vigorous English I cheerfully refer the reader. But the beauty
of that midsummer morning, the blessed amity of earth and air and sky,
the awakened life of the free woods and hills, the joyous renewal and
promise of Nature, and, above all, the infinite serenity that thrilled
through each, was not reported, as not being a part of the social lesson.
And yet, when the weak and foolish deed was done, and a life, with its
possibilities and responsibilities, had passed out of the misshapen thing
that dangled between earth and sky, the birds sang, the flowers

bloomed, the sun shone, as cheerily as before; and possibly the Red
Dog Clarion was right.
Tennessee's Partner was not in the group that surrounded the ominous
tree. But as they turned to disperse, attention was drawn to the singular
appearance of a motionless donkey-cart halted at the side of the road.
As they approached, they at once recognized the venerable Jenny and
the two-wheeled cart as the property of Tennessee's Partner, - used by
him in carrying dirt from his claim; and a few paces distant, the owner
of the equipage himself, sitting under a buckeye tree, wiping the
perspiration from his glowing face. In answer to an inquiry, he said he
had come for the body of the "diseased," "if it was all the same to the
committee." He didn't wish to "hurry anything"; he could wait. He was
not working that day; and when the gentlemen were done with the
"diseased" he would take him. "Ef thar is any present," he added, in his
simple, serious way, "as would care to jine in the fun'l, they kin come."
Perhaps it was from a sense of humor, which I have already intimated
was a feature of Sandy Bar, - perhaps it was from something even
better than that; but two-thirds of the loungers accepted the invitation at
once.
It was noon when the body of Tennessee was delivered into the hands
of his partner. As the cart drew up to the fatal tree, we noticed that it
contained a rough oblong box, - apparently made from a section of
sluicing, - and half filled with bark and the tassels of pine. The cart was
further decorated with slips of willow, and made fragrant with
buckeye-blossoms. When the body was deposited in the box,
Tennessee's Partner drew over it a piece of tarred canvas, and gravely
mounting the narrow seat in front, with his feet upon the shafts, urged
the little donkey forward. The equipage moved slowly on, at that
decorous pace which was habitual with Jenny even under less solemn
circumstances. The men - half curiously, have jestingly, but all
good-humoredly - strolled along beside the cart; some in advance,
some a little in the rear, of the homely catafalque. But, whether from
the narrowing of the road or some present sense of decorum, as the cart
passed on, the company fell to the rear in couples, keeping step, and
otherwise assuming the external show of a formal procession. Jack
Folinsbee, who had at the outset played a funeral march in dumb show
upon an imaginary trombone, desisted, from a lack of sympathy and

appreciation, - not having, perhaps, your true humorist's capacity to be
content with the enjoyment of his own fun.
The way led through Grizzly Cañon, by this time clothed in funereal
drapery and shadows. The redwoods, burying their moccasined feet in
the red soil, stood in Indian-file along the track, trailing an uncouth
benediction from their bending boughs upon the passing bier. A hare,
surprised into helpless inactivity, sat upright and pulsating in the ferns
by the roadside, as the cortège went by. Squirrels hastened to gain a
secure outlook from higher boughs; and the blue-jays, spreading their
wings, fluttered before them like outriders, until the outskirts of Sandy
Bar were reached, and the solitary cabin of Tennessee's Partner.
Viewed under more favorable circumstances, it would not have been a
cheerful place. The unpicturesque site, the rude and unlovely outlines,
the unsavory details, which distinguish the nest-building of the
California miner, were all here, with the dreariness of decay
superadded. A few paces from the cabin there was a rough enclosure,
which, in the brief days of Tennessee's Partner's matrimonial felicity,
had been used as a garden, but was now overgrown with fern. As we
approached it we were surprised to find that what we had taken for a
recent attempt at cultivation was the broken soil about an open grave.
The cart was halted before the enclosure; and rejecting the offers of
assistance with the same air of simple self-reliance he had displayed
throughout, Tennessee's Partner lifted the rough coffin on his back, and
deposited it, unaided, within