Brown of Calaveras

"Brown of Calaveras" is a short story by Bret Harte, set during the California Gold Rush. It centers on the character of Brown, a resourceful and good-natured man who faces a series of challenges in the rough and often unpredictable mining town of Calaveras. The narrative explores themes of camaraderie, resilience, and the complexities of human relationships in a frontier society. Harte’s vivid portrayal of the characters and their interactions offers a glimpse into the American West, capturing both its harsh realities and its moments of humor and humanity.

• Short story

								
A subdued tone of conversation, and the absence of cigar smoke and boot
heels at the windows of the Wingdam stagecoach, made it evident that
one of the inside passengers was a woman. A disposition on the part
of loungers at the stations to congregate before the window, and some
concern in regard to the appearance of coats, hats, and collars, further
indicated that she was lovely. All of which Mr. Jack Hamlin, on the
box seat, noted with the smile of cynical philosophy. Not that he
depreciated the sex, but that he recognized therein a deceitful element,
the pursuit of which sometimes drew mankind away from the equally
uncertain blandishments of poker--of which it may be remarked that Mr.
Hamlin was a professional exponent.

So that when he placed his narrow boot on the wheel and leaped down,
he did not even glance at the window from which a green veil was
fluttering, but lounged up and down with that listless and grave
indifference of his class, which was, perhaps, the next thing to good
breeding. With his closely buttoned figure and self-contained air he
was a marked contrast to the other passengers, with their feverish
restlessness and boisterous emotion; and even Bill Masters, a graduate
of Harvard, with his slovenly dress, his overflowing vitality, his
intense appreciation of lawlessness and barbarism, and his mouth filled
with crackers and cheese, I fear cut but an unromantic figure beside
this lonely calculator of chances, with his pale Greek face and Homeric
gravity.

The driver called "All aboard!" and Mr. Hamlin returned to the coach.
His foot was upon the wheel, and his face raised to the level of the
open window, when, at the same moment, what appeared to him to be the
finest eyes in the world suddenly met his. He quietly dropped down
again, addressed a few words to one of the inside passengers, effected
an exchange of seats, and as quietly took his place inside. Mr. Hamlin
never allowed his philosophy to interfere with decisive and prompt
action.

I fear that this irruption of Jack cast some restraint upon the other
passengers--particularly those who were making themselves most agreeable
to the lady. One of them leaned forward, and apparently conveyed to
her information regarding Mr. Hamlin's profession in a single epithet.
Whether Mr. Hamlin heard it, or whether he recognized in the informant
a distinguished jurist from whom, but a few evenings before, he had won
several thousand dollars, I cannot say. His colorless face betrayed no
sign; his black eyes, quietly observant, glanced indifferently past the
legal gentleman, and rested on the much more pleasing features of
his neighbor. An Indian stoicism--said to be an inheritance from his
maternal ancestor--stood him in good service, until the rolling wheels
rattled upon the river gravel at Scott's Ferry, and the stage drew up at
the International Hotel for dinner. The legal gentleman and a member of
Congress leaped out, and stood ready to assist the descending goddess,
while Colonel Starbottle, of Siskiyou, took charge of her parasol and
shawl. In this multiplicity of attention there was a momentary confusion
and delay. Jack Hamlin quietly opened the OPPOSITE door of the coach,
took the lady's hand--with that decision and positiveness which a
hesitating and undecided sex know how to admire--and in an instant had
dexterously and gracefully swung her to the ground, and again lifted her
to the platform. An audible chuckle on the box, I fear, came from
that other cynic, "Yuba Bill," the driver. "Look keerfully arter that
baggage, Kernel," said the expressman, with affected concern, as he
looked after Colonel Starbottle, gloomily bringing up the rear of the
triumphant procession to the waiting-room.

Mr. Hamlin did not stay for dinner. His horse was already saddled, and
awaiting him. He dashed over the ford, up the gravelly hill, and
out into the dusty perspective of the Wingdam road, like one leaving
pleasant fancy behind him. The inmates of dusty cabins by the roadside
shaded their eyes with their hands and looked after him, recognizing the
man by his horse, and speculating what "was up with Comanche Jack." Yet
much of this interest centered in the horse, in a community where
the time made by "French Pete's" mare in his run from the Sheriff of
Calaveras eclipsed all concern in the ultimate fate of that worthy.

The sweating flanks of his gray at length recalled him to himself. He
checked his speed, and, turning into a by-road, sometimes used as a
cutoff, trotted leisurely along, the reins hanging listlessly from
his fingers. As he rode on, the character of the landscape changed and
became more pastoral. Openings in groves of pine and sycamore disclosed
some rude attempts at cultivation--a flowering vine trailed over the
porch of one cabin, and a woman rocked her cradled babe under the roses
of another. A little farther on Mr. Hamlin came upon some barelegged
children wading in the willowy creek, and so wrought upon them with a
badinage peculiar to himself that they were emboldened to climb up
his horse's legs and over his saddle, until he was fain to develop an
exaggerated ferocity of demeanor, and to escape, leaving behind some
kisses and coin. And then, advancing deeper into the woods, where all
signs of habitation failed, he began to sing--uplifting a tenor so
singularly sweet, and shaded by a pathos so subduing and tender, that I
wot the robins and linnets stopped to listen. Mr. Hamlin's voice was not
cultivated; the subject of his song was some sentimental lunacy borrowed
from the Negro minstrels; but there thrilled through all some occult
quality of tone and expression that was unspeakably touching. Indeed, it
was a wonderful sight to see this sentimental blackleg, with a pack of
cards in his pocket and a revolver at his back, sending his voice before
him through the dim woods with a plaint about his "Nelly's grave" in a
way that overflowed the eyes of the listener. A sparrow hawk, fresh from
his sixth victim, possibly recognizing in Mr. Hamlin a kindred spirit,
stared at him in surprise, and was fain to confess the superiority of
man. With a superior predatory capacity, HE couldn't sing.

But Mr. Hamlin presently found himself again on the highroad, and at his
former pace. Ditches and banks of gravel, denuded hillsides, stumps,
and decayed trunks of trees, took the place of woodland and ravine, and
indicated his approach to civilization. Then a church steeple came in
sight, and he knew that he had reached home. In a few moments he was
clattering down the single narrow street that lost itself in a chaotic
ruin of races, ditches, and tailings at the foot of the hill, and
dismounted before the gilded windows of the "Magnolia" saloon. Passing
through the long barroom, he pushed open a green-baize door, entered a
dark passage, opened another door with a passkey, and found himself in
a dimly lighted room whose furniture, though elegant and costly for the

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