Barker's Luck Page #5

"Barker's Luck" is a short story by Bret Harte, set in the American West during the Gold Rush era. The narrative follows the character of Jim Barker, a down-and-out miner who experiences a series of misadventures while trying to strike it rich. With Harte's signature blend of humor and poignant insights into human nature, the story explores themes of luck, perseverance, and the complexities of fortune. As Barker navigates the challenges of life in a boomtown, he ultimately learns important lessons about failure, friendship, and the unpredictable nature of luck.

• Short story

								


Barker had halted with the chair he was dragging toward her and sat
down.

"Now," said Miss Kitty, withdrawing her eyes and looking straight before
her, "I believe everything you say; perhaps I oughtn't to--or at least
SAY it--but I do. There! But because I do believe you--it seems to me
all wrong! For the very reasons that you give for not having spoken to
me BEFORE, if you really felt as you say you did, are the same reasons
why you should not speak to me now. You see, all this time you have let
nobody but yourself know how you felt toward me. In everybody's eyes
YOU and your partners have been only the three stuck-up, exclusive,
college-bred men who mined a poor claim in the Gulch, and occasionally
came here to this hotel as customers. In everybody's eyes I have been
only the rich hotel-keeper's popular daughter who sometimes waited upon
you--but nothing more. But at least we were then pretty much alike,
and as good as each other. And now, as soon as you have become suddenly
rich, and, of course, the SUPERIOR, you rush down here to ask me to
acknowledge it by accepting you!"

"You know I never meant that, Miss Kitty," burst out Barker vehemently,
but his protest was drowned in a rapid roulade from the young lady's
fingers on the keys. He sank back in his chair.

"Of course you never MEANT it," she said with an odd laugh; "but
everybody will take it in that way, and you cannot go round to everybody
in Boomville and make the pretty declaration you have just made to me.
Everybody will say I accepted you for your money; everybody will say
it was a put-up job of my father's. Everybody will say that you threw
yourself away on me. And I don't know but that they would be right. Sit
down, please! or I shall play again.

"You see," she went on, without looking at him, "just now you like to
remember that you fell in love with me first as a pretty waiter girl,
but if I became your wife it's just what you would like to FORGET. And
I shouldn't, for I should always like to think of the time when you came
here, whenever you could afford it and sometimes when you couldn't, just
to see me; and how we used to make excuses to speak with each other over
the dishes. You don't know what these things mean to a woman who"--she
hesitated a moment, and then added abruptly, "but what does that matter?
You would not care to be reminded of it. So," she said, rising up with a
grave smile and grasping her hands tightly behind her, "it's a good deal
better that you should begin to forget it now. Be a good boy and take my
advice. Go to San Francisco. You will meet some girl there in a way
you will not afterward regret. You are young, and your riches, to say
nothing," she added in a faltering voice that was somewhat inconsistent
with the mischievous smile that played upon her lips, "of your kind
and simple heart, will secure that which the world would call unselfish
affection from one more equal to you, but would always believe was only
BOUGHT if it came from me."

"I suppose you are right," he said simply.

She glanced quickly at him, and her eyebrows straightened. He had risen,
his face white and his gray eyes widely opened. "I suppose you are
right," he went on, "because you are saying to me what my partners said
to me this morning, when I offered to share my wealth with them, God
knows as honestly as I offered to share my heart with you. I suppose
that you are both right; that there must be some curse of pride or
selfishness upon the money that I have got; but I have not felt it yet,
and the fault does not lie with me."

She gave her shoulders a slight shrug, and turned impatiently toward the
window. When she turned back again he was gone. The room around her was
empty; this room, which a moment before had seemed to be pulsating with
his boyish passion, was now empty, and empty of HIM. She bit her lips,
rose, and ran eagerly to the window. She saw his straw hat and brown
curls as he crossed the road. She drew her handkerchief sharply away
from the withered shrub over which she had thrown it, and cast the once
treasured remains in the hearth. Then, possibly because she had it
ready in her hand, she clapped the handkerchief to her eyes, and sinking
sideways upon the chair he had risen from, put her elbows on its back,
and buried her face in her hands.

It is the characteristic and perhaps cruelty of a simple nature to make
no allowance for complex motives, or to even understand them! So it
seemed to Barker that his simplicity had been met with equal directness.
It was the possession of this wealth that had in some way hopelessly
changed his relations with the world. He did not love Kitty any the
less; he did not even think she had wronged him; they, his partners and
his sweetheart, were cleverer than he; there must be some occult quality
in this wealth that he would understand when he possessed it, and
perhaps it might even make him ashamed of his generosity; not in the way
they had said, but in his tempting them so audaciously to assume a wrong
position. It behoved him to take possession of it at once, and to take
also upon himself alone the knowledge, the trials, and responsibilities
it would incur. His cheeks flushed again as he thought he had tried to
tempt an innocent girl with it, and he was keenly hurt that he had not
seen in Kitty's eyes the tenderness that had softened his partners'
refusal. He resolved to wait no longer, but sell his dreadful stock at
once. He walked directly to the bank.

The manager, a shrewd but kindly man, to whom Barker was known already,
received him graciously in recognition of his well-known simple honesty,
and respectfully as a representative of the equally well-known poor but
"superior" partnership of the Gulch. He listened with marked attention
to Barker's hesitating but brief story, only remarking at its close:

"You mean, of course, the 'SECOND Extension' when you say 'First'?"

"No," said Barker; "I mean the 'First'--and it said First in the
Boomville paper."

"Yes, yes!--I saw it--it was a printer's error. The stock of the 'First'
was called in two years ago. No! You mean the 'Second,' for, of course,
you've followed the quotations, and are likely to know what stock you're
holding shares of. When you go back, take a look at them, and you'll see
I am right."

"But I brought them with me," said Barker, with a slight flushing as
he felt in his pocket, "and I am quite sure they are the 'First'." He
brought them out and laid them on the desk before the manager.

The words "First Extension" were plainly visible. The manager glanced
curiously at Barker, and his brow darkened.

"Did anybody put this up on you?" he said sternly. "Did your partners
send you here with this stuff?"

"No! no!" said Barker eagerly. "No one! It's all MY mistake. I see it
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