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Bret Harte
Complete Poetical Works

THE SPELLING BEE AT ANGELS

(REPORTED BY TRUTHFUL JAMES)

 
     Waltz in, waltz in, ye little kids, and gather round my knee,
     And drop them books and first pot-hooks, and hear a yarn from me.
 
 
     I kin not sling a fairy tale of Jinnys¹ fierce and wild,
     For I hold it is unchristian to deceive a simple child;
     But as from school yer driftin' by, I thowt ye'd like to hear
     Of a "Spelling Bee" at Angels that we organized last year.
 
 
     It warn't made up of gentle kids, of pretty kids, like you,
     But gents ez hed their reg'lar growth, and some enough for two.
     There woz Lanky Jim of Sutter's Fork and Bilson of Lagrange,
     And "Pistol Bob," who wore that day a knife by way of change.
     You start, you little kids, you think these are not pretty names,
     But each had a man behind it, and—my name is Truthful James.
 
 
     There was Poker Dick from Whisky Flat, and Smith of Shooter's Bend,
     And Brown of Calaveras—which I want no better friend;
     Three-fingered Jack—yes, pretty dears, three fingers—YOU have five.
     Clapp cut off two—it's sing'lar, too, that Clapp ain't now alive.
     'Twas very wrong indeed, my dears, and Clapp was much to blame;
     Likewise was Jack, in after-years, for shootin' of that same.
 
 
     The nights was kinder lengthenin' out, the rains had jest begun,
     When all the camp came up to Pete's to have their usual fun;
     But we all sot kinder sad-like around the bar-room stove
     Till Smith got up, permiskiss-like, and this remark he hove:
     "Thar's a new game down in Frisco, that ez far ez I can see
     Beats euchre, poker, and van-toon, they calls the 'Spellin' Bee.'"
 
 
     Then Brown of Calaveras simply hitched his chair and spake,
     "Poker is good enough for me," and Lanky Jim sez, "Shake!"
     And Bob allowed he warn't proud, but he "must say right thar
     That the man who tackled euchre hed his education squar."
     This brought up Lenny Fairchild, the schoolmaster, who said
     He knew the game, and he would give instructions on that head.
 
 
     "For instance, take some simple word," sez he, "like 'separate:'
     Now who can spell it?"  Dog my skin, ef thar was one in eight.
     This set the boys all wild at once.  The chairs was put in row,
     And at the head was Lanky Jim, and at the foot was Joe,
     And high upon the bar itself the schoolmaster was raised,
     And the bar-keep put his glasses down, and sat and silent gazed.
 
 
     The first word out was "parallel," and seven let it be,
     Till Joe waltzed in his "double l" betwixt the "a" and "e;"
     For since he drilled them Mexicans in San Jacinto's fight
     Thar warn't no prouder man got up than Pistol Joe that night—
     Till "rhythm" came!  He tried to smile, then said "they had him
        there,"
     And Lanky Jim, with one long stride, got up and took his chair.
 
 
     O little kids, my pretty kids, 'twas touchin' to survey
     These bearded men, with weppings on, like schoolboys at their play.
     They'd laugh with glee, and shout to see each other lead the van,
     And Bob sat up as monitor with a cue for a rattan,
     Till the Chair gave out "incinerate," and Brown said he'd be durned
     If any such blamed word as that in school was ever learned.
 
 
     When "phthisis" came they all sprang up, and vowed the man who rung
     Another blamed Greek word on them be taken out and hung.
     As they sat down again I saw in Bilson's eye a flash,
     And Brown of Calaveras was a-twistin' his mustache,
     And when at last Brown slipped on "gneiss," and Bilson took his chair,
     He dropped some casual words about some folks who dyed their hair.
 
 
     And then the Chair grew very white, and the Chair said he'd adjourn,
     But Poker Dick remarked that HE would wait and get his turn;
     Then with a tremblin' voice and hand, and with a wanderin' eye,
     The Chair next offered "eider-duck," and Dick began with "I",
     And Bilson smiled—then Bilson shrieked!  Just how the fight begun
     I never knowed, for Bilson dropped, and Dick, he moved up one.
 
 
     Then certain gents arose and said "they'd business down in camp,"
     And "ez the road was rather dark, and ez the night was damp,
     They'd"—here got up Three-fingered Jack and locked the door and
        yelled:
     "No, not one mother's son goes out till that thar word is spelled!"
     But while the words were on his lips, he groaned and sank in pain,
     And sank with Webster on his chest and Worcester on his brain.
 
 
     Below the bar dodged Poker Dick, and tried to look ez he
     Was huntin' up authorities thet no one else could see;
     And Brown got down behind the stove, allowin' he "was cold,"
     Till it upsot and down his legs the cinders freely rolled,
     And several gents called "Order!" till in his simple way
     Poor Smith began with "O-r"—"Or"—and he was dragged away.
 
 
     O little kids, my pretty kids, down on your knees and pray!
     You've got your eddication in a peaceful sort of way;
     And bear in mind thar may be sharps ez slings their spellin' square,
     But likewise slings their bowie-knives without a thought or care.
     You wants to know the rest, my dears?  Thet's all!  In me you see
     The only gent that lived to tell about the Spellin' Bee!
 

                                 –

 
     He ceased and passed, that truthful man; the children went their way
     With downcast heads and downcast hearts—but not to sport or play.
     For when at eve the lamps were lit, and supperless to bed
     Each child was sent, with tasks undone and lessons all unsaid,
     No man might know the awful woe that thrilled their youthful frames,
     As they dreamed of Angels Spelling Bee and thought of Truthful James.
 

ARTEMIS IN SIERRA

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

 
     Poet.  Philosopher.  Jones of Mariposa.
 

POET

 
     Halt!  Here we are.  Now wheel your mare a trifle
       Just where you stand; then doff your hat and swear
     Never yet was scene you might cover with your rifle
       Half as complete or as marvelously fair.
 

PHILOSOPHER

 
     Dropped from Olympus or lifted out of Tempe,
       Swung like a censer betwixt the earth and sky!
     He who in Greece sang of flocks and flax and hemp,—he
       Here might recall them—six thousand feet on high!
 

POET

 
     Well you may say so.  The clamor of the river,
       Hum of base toil, and man's ignoble strife,
     Halt far below, where the stifling sunbeams quiver,
       But never climb to this purer, higher life!
 
 
     Not to this glade, where Jones of Mariposa,
       Simple and meek as his flocks we're looking at,
     Tends his soft charge; nor where his daughter Rosa—
         (A shot.)
       Hallo!  What's that?
 

PHILOSOPHER

 
                             A—something thro' my hat—
     Bullet, I think.  You were speaking of his daughter?
 

POET

 
     Yes; but—your hat you were moving through the leaves;
       Likely he thought it some eagle bent on slaughter.
     Lightly he shoots—  (A second shot.)
 

PHILOSOPHER

 
                          As one readily perceives.
      Still, he improves!  This time YOUR hat has got it,
     Quite near the band!  Eh? Oh, just as you please—
       Stop, or go on.
 

POET

 
                       Perhaps we'd better trot it
     Down through the hollow, and up among the trees.
 

BOTH

 
     Trot, trot, trot, where the bullets cannot follow;
       Trot down and up again among the laurel trees.
 

PHILOSOPHER

 
     Thanks, that is better; now of this shot-dispensing
       Jones and his girl—you were saying—
 

POET

 
                                             Well, you see—
     I—hang it all!—Oh! what's the use of fencing!
       Sir, I confess it!—these shots were meant for ME.
 

PHILOSOPHER

 
     Are you mad!
 

POET

 
                   God knows, I shouldn't wonder!
       I love this coy nymph, who, coldly—as yon peak
     Shines on the river it feeds, yet keeps asunder—
       Long have I worshiped, but never dared to speak.
 
 
     Till she, no doubt, her love no longer hiding,
       Waked by some chance word her father's jealousy;
     Slips her disdain—as an avalanche down gliding
       Sweeps flocks and kin away—to clear a path for ME.
 
 
     Hence his attack.
 

PHILOSOPHER

 
                        I see.  What I admire
       Chiefly, I think, in your idyl, so to speak,
     Is the cool modesty that checks your youthful fire,—
       Absence of self-love and abstinence of cheek!
 
 
     Still, I might mention, I've met the gentle Rosa,—
       Danced with her thrice, to her father's jealous dread;
     And, it is possible, she's happened to disclose a—
       Ahem!  You can fancy why he shoots at ME instead.
 

POET

 
YOU?
 

PHILOSOPHER

 
          Me.  But kindly take your hand from your revolver,
       I am not choleric—but accidents may chance.
     And here's the father, who alone can be the solver
       Of this twin riddle of the hat and the romance.
     Enter JONES OF MARIPOSA.
 

POET

 
     Speak, shepherd—mine!
 

PHILOSOPHER

 
                            Hail!  Time-and-cartridge waster,
       Aimless exploder of theories and skill!
     Whom do you shoot?
 

JONES OF MARIPOSA

 
                        Well, shootin' ain't my taste, or
       EF I shoot anything—I only shoot to kill.
 
 
     That ain't what's up.  I only kem to tell ye—
       Sportin' or courtin'—trot homeward for your life!
     Gals will be gals, and p'r'aps it's just ez well ye
       Larned there was one had no wish to be—a wife.
 

POET

 
     What?
 

PHILOSOPHER

 
           Is this true?
 

JONES OF MARIPOSA

 
                          I reckon it looks like it.
       She saw ye comin'.  My gun was standin' by;
     She made a grab, and 'fore I up could strike it,
       Blazed at ye both!  The critter is SO shy!
 

POET

 
     Who?
 

JONES OF MARIPOSA

 
           My darter!
 

PHILOSOPHER

 
                       Rosa?
 

JONES OF MARIPOSA

 
                              Same!  Good-by!
 

JACK OF THE TULES

(SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA)

 
     Shrewdly you question, Senor, and I fancy
     You are no novice.  Confess that to little
     Of my poor gossip of Mission and Pueblo
          You are a stranger!
 
 
     Am I not right?  Ah! believe me, that ever
     Since we joined company at the posada
     I've watched you closely, and—pardon an old priest—
          I've caught you smiling!
 
 
     Smiling to hear an old fellow like me talk
     Gossip of pillage and robbers, and even
     Air his opinion of law and alcaldes
          Like any other!
 
 
     Now!—by that twist of the wrist on the bridle,
     By that straight line from the heel to the shoulder,
     By that curt speech,—nay! nay! no offense, son,—
          You are a soldier?
 
 
     No?  Then a man of affairs?  San Sebastian!
     'Twould serve me right if I prattled thus wildly
     To—say a sheriff?  No?—just caballero?
          Well, more's the pity.
 
 
     Ah! what we want here's a man of your presence;
     Sano, Secreto,—yes, all the four S's,
     Joined with a boldness and dash, when the time comes,
          And—may I say it?—
 
 
     One not TOO hard on the poor country people,
     Peons and silly vaqueros, who, dazzled
     By reckless skill, and, perchance, reckless largesse,
        Wink at some queer things.
 
 
     No?  You would crush THEM as well as the robbers,—
     Root them out, scatter them?  Ah you are bitter—
     And yet—quien sabe, perhaps that's the one way
          To catch their leader.
 
 
     As to myself, now, I'd share your displeasure;
     For I admit in this Jack of the Tules
     Certain good points.  He still comes to confession—
          You'd "like to catch him"?
 
 
     Ah, if you did at such times, you might lead him
     Home by a thread.  Good!  Again you are smiling:
     You have no faith in such shrift, and but little
          In priest or penitent.
 
 
     Bueno!  We take no offense, sir; whatever
     It please you to say, it becomes us, for Church sake,
     To bear in peace.  Yet, if you were kinder—
          And less suspicious—
 
 
     I might still prove to you, Jack of the Tules
     Shames not our teaching; nay, even might show you,
     Hard by this spot, his old comrade, who, wounded,
          Lives on his bounty.
 
 
     If—ah, you listen!—I see I can trust you;
     Then, on your word as a gentleman—follow.
     Under that sycamore stands the old cabin;
          There sits his comrade.
 
 
     Eh!—are you mad?  You would try to ARREST him?
     You, with a warrant?  Oh, well, take the rest of them:
     Pedro, Bill, Murray, Pat Doolan.  Hey!—all of you,
          Tumble out, d—n it!
 
 
     There!—that'll do, boys!  Stand back!  Ease his elbows;
     Take the gag from his mouth.  Good!  Now scatter like devils
     After his posse—four straggling, four drunken—
          At the posada.
 
 
     You—help me off with these togs, and then vamos!
     Now, ole Jeff Dobbs!—Sheriff, Scout, and Detective!
     You're so derned 'cute!  Kinder sick, ain't ye, bluffing
          Jack of the Tules!
 

IV. MISCELLANEOUS

A GREYPORT LEGEND

(1797)

 
     They ran through the streets of the seaport town,
     They peered from the decks of the ships that lay;
     The cold sea-fog that came whitening down
     Was never as cold or white as they.
       "Ho, Starbuck and Pinckney and Tenterden!
       Run for your shallops, gather your men,
         Scatter your boats on the lower bay."
 
 
     Good cause for fear!  In the thick mid-day
     The hulk that lay by the rotting pier,
     Filled with the children in happy play,
     Parted its moorings and drifted clear,
       Drifted clear beyond reach or call,—
       Thirteen children they were in all,—
         All adrift in the lower bay!
 
 
     Said a hard-faced skipper, "God help us all!
     She will not float till the turning tide!"
     Said his wife, "My darling will hear MY call,
     Whether in sea or heaven she bide;"
       And she lifted a quavering voice and high,
       Wild and strange as a sea-bird's cry,
         Till they shuddered and wondered at her side.
 
 
     The fog drove down on each laboring crew,
     Veiled each from each and the sky and shore:
     There was not a sound but the breath they drew,
     And the lap of water and creak of oar;
       And they felt the breath of the downs, fresh blown
       O'er leagues of clover and cold gray stone,
         But not from the lips that had gone before.
 
 
     They came no more.  But they tell the tale
     That, when fogs are thick on the harbor reef,
     The mackerel fishers shorten sail—
     For the signal they know will bring relief;
       For the voices of children, still at play
       In a phantom hulk that drifts alway
         Through channels whose waters never fail.
 
 
     It is but a foolish shipman's tale,
     A theme for a poet's idle page;
     But still, when the mists of Doubt prevail,
     And we lie becalmed by the shores of Age,
       We hear from the misty troubled shore
       The voice of the children gone before,
         Drawing the soul to its anchorage.
 

A NEWPORT ROMANCE

 
     They say that she died of a broken heart
       (I tell the tale as 'twas told to me);
     But her spirit lives, and her soul is part
       Of this sad old house by the sea.
 
 
     Her lover was fickle and fine and French:
       It was nearly a hundred years ago
     When he sailed away from her arms—poor wench!—
       With the Admiral Rochambeau.
 
 
     I marvel much what periwigged phrase
       Won the heart of this sentimental Quaker,
     At what gold-laced speech of those modish days
       She listened—the mischief take her!
 
 
     But she kept the posies of mignonette
       That he gave; and ever as their bloom failed
     And faded (though with her tears still wet)
       Her youth with their own exhaled.
 
 
     Till one night, when the sea-fog wrapped a shroud
       Round spar and spire and tarn and tree,
     Her soul went up on that lifted cloud
       From this sad old house by the sea.
 
 
     And ever since then, when the clock strikes two,
       She walks unbidden from room to room,
     And the air is filled that she passes through
       With a subtle, sad perfume.
 
 
     The delicate odor of mignonette,
       The ghost of a dead-and-gone bouquet,
     Is all that tells of her story; yet
       Could she think of a sweeter way?
     I sit in the sad old house to-night,—
       Myself a ghost from a farther sea;
     And I trust that this Quaker woman might,
       In courtesy, visit me.
 
 
     For the laugh is fled from porch and lawn,
       And the bugle died from the fort on the hill,
     And the twitter of girls on the stairs is gone,
       And the grand piano is still.
 
 
     Somewhere in the darkness a clock strikes two:
       And there is no sound in the sad old house,
     But the long veranda dripping with dew,
       And in the wainscot a mouse.
 
 
     The light of my study-lamp streams out
       From the library door, but has gone astray
     In the depths of the darkened hall. Small doubt
       But the Quakeress knows the way.
 
 
     Was it the trick of a sense o'erwrought
       With outward watching and inward fret?
     But I swear that the air just now was fraught
       With the odor of mignonette!
 
 
     I open the window, and seem almost—
       So still lies the ocean—to hear the beat
     Of its Great Gulf artery off the coast,
       And to bask in its tropic heat.
 
 
     In my neighbor's windows the gas-lights flare,
       As the dancers swing in a waltz of Strauss;
     And I wonder now could I fit that air
       To the song of this sad old house.
 
 
     And no odor of mignonette there is,
       But the breath of morn on the dewy lawn;
     And mayhap from causes as slight as this
       The quaint old legend is born.
 
 
     But the soul of that subtle, sad perfume,
       As the spiced embalmings, they say, outlast
     The mummy laid in his rocky tomb,
       Awakens my buried past.
 
 
     And I think of the passion that shook my youth,
       Of its aimless loves and its idle pains,
     And am thankful now for the certain truth
       That only the sweet remains.
 
 
     And I hear no rustle of stiff brocade,
       And I see no face at my library door;
     For now that the ghosts of my heart are laid,
       She is viewless for evermore.
 
 
     But whether she came as a faint perfume,
       Or whether a spirit in stole of white,
     I feel, as I pass from the darkened room,
       She has been with my soul to-night!
 

SAN FRANCISCO

(FROM THE SEA)

 
     Serene, indifferent of Fate,
     Thou sittest at the Western Gate;
 
 
     Upon thy height, so lately won,
     Still slant the banners of the sun;
 
 
     Thou seest the white seas strike their tents,
     O Warder of two continents!
 
 
     And, scornful of the peace that flies
     Thy angry winds and sullen skies,
 
 
     Thou drawest all things, small, or great,
     To thee, beside the Western Gate.
 
 
     O lion's whelp, that hidest fast
     In jungle growth of spire and mast!
 
 
     I know thy cunning and thy greed,
     Thy hard high lust and willful deed,
 
 
     And all thy glory loves to tell
     Of specious gifts material.
 
 
     Drop down, O Fleecy Fog, and hide
     Her skeptic sneer and all her pride!
 
 
     Wrap her, O Fog, in gown and hood
     Of her Franciscan Brotherhood.
 
 
     Hide me her faults, her sin and blame;
     With thy gray mantle cloak her shame!
 
 
     So shall she, cowled, sit and pray
     Till morning bears her sins away.
 
 
     Then rise, O Fleecy Fog, and raise
     The glory of her coming days;
 
 
     Be as the cloud that flecks the seas
     Above her smoky argosies;
 
 
     When forms familiar shall give place
     To stranger speech and newer face;
 
 
     When all her throes and anxious fears
     Lie hushed in the repose of years;
 
 
     When Art shall raise and Culture lift
     The sensual joys and meaner thrift,
 
 
     And all fulfilled the vision we
     Who watch and wait shall never see;
 
 
     Who, in the morning of her race,
     Toiled fair or meanly in our place,
 
 
     But, yielding to the common lot,
     Lie unrecorded and forgot.
 

THE MOUNTAIN HEART'S-EASE

 
     By scattered rocks and turbid waters shifting,
         By furrowed glade and dell,
     To feverish men thy calm, sweet face uplifting,
         Thou stayest them to tell
 
 
     The delicate thought that cannot find expression,
         For ruder speech too fair,
     That, like thy petals, trembles in possession,
         And scatters on the air.
 
 
     The miner pauses in his rugged labor,
         And, leaning on his spade,
     Laughingly calls unto his comrade-neighbor
         To see thy charms displayed.
 
 
     But in his eyes a mist unwonted rises,
         And for a moment clear
     Some sweet home face his foolish thought surprises,
         And passes in a tear,—
 
 
     Some boyish vision of his Eastern village,
         Of uneventful toil,
     Where golden harvests followed quiet tillage
         Above a peaceful soil.
 
 
     One moment only; for the pick, uplifting,
         Through root and fibre cleaves,
     And on the muddy current slowly drifting
         Are swept by bruised leaves.
 
 
     And yet, O poet, in thy homely fashion,
         Thy work thou dost fulfill,
     For on the turbid current of his passion
         Thy face is shining still!