High-Water Mark

"High-Water Mark" is a short story by Bret Harte that explores themes of human nature, resilience, and social dynamics in the context of the California Gold Rush. Set against the backdrop of a mining camp, the narrative delves into the experiences of the characters as they navigate the challenges and moral dilemmas that arise in their pursuit of fortune. Harte's signature style blends humor with poignant observations, offering a snapshot of life during a transformative period in American history. Through vivid characterization and rich descriptions, the story captures the essence of hope, ambition, and the complexities of community.

• Short story

								
When the tide was out on the Dedlow Marsh, its extended dreariness
was patent. Its spongy, low-lying surface, sluggish, inky pools, and
tortuous sloughs, twisting their slimy way, eel-like, toward the open
bay, were all hard facts. So were the few green tussocks, with their
scant blades, their amphibious flavor and unpleasant dampness. And if
you choose to indulge your fancy--although the flat monotony of the
Dedlow Marsh was not inspiring--the wavy line of scattered drift gave
an unpleasant consciousness of the spent waters, and made the dead
certainty of the returning tide a gloomy reflection which no present
sunshine could dissipate. The greener meadowland seemed oppressed with
this idea, and made no positive attempt at vegetation until the work of
reclamation should be complete. In the bitter fruit of the low cranberry
bushes one might fancy he detected a naturally sweet disposition curdled
and soured by an injudicious course of too much regular cold water.

The vocal expression of the Dedlow Marsh was also melancholy and
depressing. The sepulchral boom of the bittern, the shriek of the
curlew, the scream of passing brent, the wrangling of quarrelsome
teal, the sharp, querulous protest of the startled crane, and syllabled
complaint of the "killdeer" plover, were beyond the power of written
expression. Nor was the aspect of these mournful fowls at all cheerful
and inspiring. Certainly not the blue heron standing mid-leg deep in the
water, obviously catching cold in a reckless disregard of wet feet
and consequences; nor the mournful curlew, the dejected plover, or
the low-spirited snipe, who saw fit to join him in his suicidal
contemplation; nor the impassive kingfisher--an ornithological
Marius--reviewing the desolate expanse; nor the black raven that went to
and fro over the face of the marsh continually, but evidently couldn't
make up his mind whether the waters had subsided, and felt low-spirited
in the reflection that, after all this trouble, he wouldn't be able to
give a definite answer. On the contrary, it was evident at a glance that
the dreary expanse of Dedlow Marsh told unpleasantly on the birds, and
that the season of migration was looked forward to with a feeling
of relief and satisfaction by the full-grown, and of extravagant
anticipation by the callow, brood. But if Dedlow Marsh was cheerless
at the slack of the low tide, you should have seen it when the tide was
strong and full. When the damp air blew chilly over the cold, glittering
expanse, and came to the faces of those who looked seaward like another
tide; when a steel-like glint marked the low hollows and the sinuous
line of slough; when the great shell-incrusted trunks of fallen trees
arose again, and went forth on their dreary, purposeless wanderings,
drifting hither and thither, but getting no farther toward any goal
at the falling tide or the day's decline than the cursed Hebrew in the
legend; when the glossy ducks swung silently, making neither ripple nor
furrow on the shimmering surface; when the fog came in with the tide and
shut out the blue above, even as the green below had been obliterated;
when boatmen lost in that fog, paddling about in a hopeless way, started
at what seemed the brushing of mermen's fingers on the boat's keel, or
shrank from the tufts of grass spreading around like the floating hair
of a corpse, and knew by these signs that they were lost upon Dedlow
Marsh and must make a night of it, and a gloomy one at that--then you
might know something of Dedlow Marsh at high water.

Let me recall a story connected with this latter view which never failed
to recur to my mind in my long gunning excursions upon Dedlow Marsh.
Although the event was briefly recorded in the county paper, I had the
story, in all its eloquent detail, from the lips of the principal actor.
I cannot hope to catch the varying emphasis and peculiar coloring of
feminine delineation, for my narrator was a woman; but I'll try to give
at least its substance.

She lived midway of the great slough of Dedlow Marsh and a good-sized
river, which debouched four miles beyond into an estuary formed by
the Pacific Ocean, on the long sandy peninsula which constituted the
southwestern boundary of a noble bay. The house in which she lived was
a small frame cabin raised from the marsh a few feet by stout piles, and
was three miles distant from the settlements upon the river. Her husband
was a logger--a profitable business in a county where the principal
occupation was the manufacture of lumber.

It was the season of early spring when her husband left on the ebb of a
high tide, with a raft of logs for the usual transportation to the lower
end of the bay. As she stood by the door of the little cabin when the
voyagers departed she noticed a cold look in the southeastern sky, and
she remembered hearing her husband say to his companions that they must
endeavor to complete their voyage before the coming of the southwesterly
gale which he saw brewing. And that night it began to storm and blow
harder than she had ever before experienced, and some great trees fell
in the forest by the river, and the house rocked like her baby's cradle.

But however the storm might roar about the little cabin, she knew that
one she trusted had driven bolt and bar with his own strong hand, and
that had he feared for her he would not have left her. This, and her
domestic duties, and the care of her little sickly baby, helped to keep
her mind from dwelling on the weather, except, of course, to hope that
he was safely harbored with the logs at Utopia in the dreary distance.
But she noticed that day, when she went out to feed the chickens and
look after the cow, that the tide was up to the little fence of their
garden-patch, and the roar of the surf on the south beach, though miles
away, she could hear distinctly. And she began to think that she would
like to have someone to talk with about matters, and she believed that
if it had not been so far and so stormy, and the trail so impassable,
she would have taken the baby and have gone over to Ryckman's, her
nearest neighbor. But then, you see, he might have returned in the
storm, all wet, with no one to see to him; and it was a long exposure
for baby, who was croupy and ailing.

But that night, she never could tell why, she didn't feel like sleeping
or even lying down. The storm had somewhat abated, but she still "sat
and sat," and even tried to read. I don't know whether it was a Bible or
some profane magazine that this poor woman read, but most probably the
latter, for the words all ran together and made such sad nonsense that
she was forced at last to put the book down and turn to that dearer
volume which lay before her in the cradle, with its white initial leaf
as yet unsoiled, and try to look forward to its mysterious future. And,
rocking the cradle, she thought of everything and everybody, but still
was wide-awake as ever.

It was nearly twelve o'clock when she at last lay down in her clothes.

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