Complete Poetical Works by Bret Harte Part 17

LUKE

(IN THE COLORADO PARK, 1873)

Wot's that you're readin'?--a novel? A novel!--well, darn my skin!

You a man grown and bearded and histin' such stuff ez that in-- Stuff about gals and their sweethearts! No wonder you're thin ez a knife.

Look at me--clar two hundred--and never read one in my life!

That's my opinion o' novels. And ez to their lyin' round here, They belong to the Jedge's daughter--the Jedge who came up last year On account of his lungs and the mountains and the balsam o' pine and fir; And his daughter--well, she read novels, and that's what's the matter with her.

Yet she was sweet on the Jedge, and stuck by him day and night, Alone in the cabin up 'yer--till she grew like a ghost, all white.

She wus only a slip of a thing, ez light and ez up and away Ez rifle smoke blown through the woods, but she wasn't my kind--no way!

Speakin' o' gals, d'ye mind that house ez you rise the hill, A mile and a half from White's, and jist above Mattingly's mill?

You do? Well now THAR's a gal! What! you saw her? Oh, come now, thar! quit!

She was only bedevlin' you boys, for to me she don't cotton one bit.

Now she's what I call a gal--ez pretty and plump ez a quail; Teeth ez white ez a hound's, and they'd go through a ten-penny nail; Eyes that kin snap like a cap. So she asked to know "whar I was hid?"

She did! Oh, it's jist like her sa.s.s, for she's peart ez a Katydid.

But what was I talking of?--Oh! the Jedge and his daughter--she read Novels the whole day long, and I reckon she read them abed; And sometimes she read them out loud to the Jedge on the porch where he sat, And 'twas how "Lord Augustus" said this, and how "Lady Blanche" she said that.

But the sickest of all that I heerd was a yarn thet they read 'bout a chap, "Leather-stocking" by name, and a hunter chock full o' the greenest o' sap; And they asked me to hear, but I says, "Miss Mabel, not any for me; When I likes I kin sling my own lies, and thet chap and I shouldn't agree."

Yet somehow or other that gal allus said that I brought her to mind Of folks about whom she had read, or suthin belike of thet kind, And thar warn't no end o' the names that she give me thet summer up here-- "Robin Hood," "Leather-stocking" "Rob Roy,"--Oh, I tell you, the critter was queer!

And yet, ef she hadn't been spiled, she was harmless enough in her way; She could jabber in French to her dad, and they said that she knew how to play; And she worked me that shot-pouch up thar, which the man doesn't live ez kin use; And slippers--you see 'em down 'yer--ez would cradle an Injin's papoose.

Yet along o' them novels, you see, she was wastin' and mopin' away, And then she got shy with her tongue, and at last she had nothin' to say; And whenever I happened around, her face it was hid by a book, And it warn't till the day she left that she give me ez much ez a look.

And this was the way it was. It was night when I kem up here To say to 'em all "good-by," for I reckoned to go for deer At "sun up" the day they left. So I shook 'em all round by the hand, 'Cept Mabel, and she was sick, ez they give me to understand.

But jist ez I pa.s.sed the house next morning at dawn, some one, Like a little waver o' mist got up on the hill with the sun; Miss Mabel it was, alone--all wrapped in a mantle o' lace-- And she stood there straight in the road, with a touch o' the sun in her face.

And she looked me right in the eye--I'd seen suthin' like it before When I hunted a wounded doe to the edge o' the Clear Lake Sh.o.r.e, And I had my knee on its neck, and I jist was raisin' my knife, When it give me a look like that, and--well, it got off with its life.

"We are going to-day," she said, "and I thought I would say good-by To you in your own house, Luke--these woods and the bright blue sky!

You've always been kind to us, Luke, and papa has found you still As good as the air he breathes, and wholesome as Laurel Tree Hill.

"And we'll always think of you, Luke, as the thing we could not take away,-- The balsam that dwells in the woods, the rainbow that lives in the spray.

And you'll sometimes think of ME, Luke, as you know you once used to say, A rifle smoke blown through the woods, a moment, but never to stay."

And then we shook hands. She turned, but a-suddent she tottered and fell, And I caught her sharp by the waist, and held her a minit. Well, It was only a minit, you know, thet ez cold and ez white she lay Ez a snowflake here on my breast, and then--well, she melted away--

And was gone.... And thar are her books; but I says not any for me; Good enough may be for some, but them and I mightn't agree.

They spiled a decent gal ez might hev made some chap a wife, And look at me!--clar two hundred--and never read one in my life!

"THE BABES IN THE WOODS"

(BIG PINE FLAT, 1871)

"Something characteristic," eh?

Humph! I reckon you mean by that Something that happened in our way, Here at the crossin' of Big Pine Flat.

Times aren't now as they used to be, When gold was flush and the boys were frisky, And a man would pull out his battery For anything--maybe the price of whiskey.

Nothing of that sort, eh? That's strange!

Why, I thought you might be diverted Hearing how Jones of Red Rock Range Drawed his "hint to the unconverted,"

And saying, "Whar will you have it?" shot Cherokee Bob at the last debating!

What was the question I forgot, But Jones didn't like Bob's way of stating.

Nothing of that kind, eh? You mean Something milder? Let's see!--O Joe!

Tell to the stranger that little scene Out of the "Babes in the Woods." You know, "Babes" was the name that we gave 'em, sir, Two lean lads in their teens, and greener Than even the belt of spruce and fir Where they built their nest, and each day grew leaner.

No one knew where they came from. None Cared to ask if they had a mother.

Runaway schoolboys, maybe. One Tall and dark as a spruce; the other Blue and gold in the eyes and hair, Soft and low in his speech, but rarely Talking with us; and we didn't care To get at their secret at all unfairly.

For they were so quiet, so sad and shy, Content to trust each other solely, That somehow we'd always shut one eye, And never seem to observe them wholly As they pa.s.sed to their work. 'Twas a worn-out claim, And it paid them grub. They could live without it, For the boys had a way of leaving game In their tent, and forgetting all about it.

Yet no one asked for their secret. Dumb It lay in their big eyes' heavy hollows.

It was understood that no one should come To their tent unawares, save the bees and swallows.

So they lived alone. Until one warm night I was sitting here at the tent-door,--so, sir!

When out of the sunset's rosy light Up rose the Sheriff of Mariposa.

I knew at once there was something wrong, For his hand and his voice shook just a little, And there isn't much you can fetch along To make the sinews of Jack Hill brittle.

"Go warn the Babes!" he whispered, hoa.r.s.e; "Tell them I'm coming--to get and scurry; For I've got a story that's bad,--and worse, I've got a warrant: G-d d--n it, hurry!"

Too late! they had seen him cross the hill; I ran to their tent and found them lying Dead in each other's arms, and still Clasping the drug they had taken flying.

And there lay their secret cold and bare, Their life, their trial--the old, old story!

For the sweet blue eyes and the golden hair Was a WOMAN'S shame and a WOMAN'S glory.

"Who were they?" Ask no more, or ask The sun that visits their grave so lightly; Ask of the whispering reeds, or task The mourning crickets that chirrup nightly.

All of their life but its love forgot, Everything tender and soft and mystic, These are our Babes in the Woods,--you've got, Well--human nature--that's characteristic.

THE LATEST CHINESE OUTRAGE

It was noon by the sun; we had finished our game, And was pa.s.sin' remarks goin' back to our claim; Jones was countin' his chips, Smith relievin' his mind Of ideas that a "straight" should beat "three of a kind,"

When Johnson of Elko came gallopin' down, With a look on his face 'twixt a grin and a frown, And he calls, "Drop your shovels and face right about, For them Chinees from Murphy's are cleanin' us out-- With their ching-a-ring-chow And their chic-colorow They're bent upon making No slouch of a row."

Then Jones--my own pardner--looks up with a sigh; "It's your wash-bill," sez he, and I answers, "You lie!"

But afore he could draw or the others could arm, Up tumbles the Bates boys, who heard the alarm.

And a yell from the hill-top and roar of a gong, Mixed up with remarks like "Hi! yi! Chang-a-wong,"

And bombs, sh.e.l.ls, and crackers, that crashed through the trees, Revealed in their war-togs four hundred Chinees!

Four hundred Chinee; We are eight, don't ye see!