High-Water Mark Page #2

"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

								

How long she slept she could not remember, but she awoke with a dreadful
choking in her throat, and found herself standing, trembling all over,
in the middle of the room, with her baby clasped to her breast, and she
was "saying something." The baby cried and sobbed, and she walked up
and down trying to hush it when she heard a scratching at the door. She
opened it fearfully, and was glad to see it was only old Pete, their
dog, who crawled, dripping with water, into the room. She would like to
have looked out, not in the faint hope of her husband's coming, but to
see how things looked; but the wind shook the door so savagely that she
could hardly hold it. Then she sat down a little while, and then walked
up and down a little while, and then she lay down again a little while.
Lying close by the wall of the little cabin, she thought she heard
once or twice something scrape slowly against the clapboards, like the
scraping of branches. Then there was a little gurgling sound, "like the
baby made when it was swallowing"; then something went "click-click"
and "cluck-cluck," so that she sat up in bed. When she did so she was
attracted by something else that seemed creeping from the back door
toward the center of the room. It wasn't much wider than her little
finger, but soon it swelled to the width of her hand, and began
spreading all over the floor. It was water.

She ran to the front door and threw it wide open, and saw nothing but
water. She ran to the back door and threw it open, and saw nothing
but water. She ran to the side window, and throwing that open, she saw
nothing but water. Then she remembered hearing her husband once say that
there was no danger in the tide, for that fell regularly, and people
could calculate on it, and that he would rather live near the bay than
the river, whose banks might overflow at any time. But was it the tide?
So she ran again to the back door, and threw out a stick of wood. It
drifted away toward the bay. She scooped up some of the water and put it
eagerly to her lips. It was fresh and sweet. It was the river, and not
the tide!

It was then--O God be praised for his goodness! she did neither faint
nor fall; it was then--blessed be the Saviour, for it was his merciful
hand that touched and strengthened her in this awful moment--that fear
dropped from her like a garment, and her trembling ceased. It was then
and thereafter that she never lost her self-command, through all the
trials of that gloomy night.

She drew the bedstead toward the middle of the room, and placed a table
upon it and on that she put the cradle. The water on the floor
was already over her ankles, and the house once or twice moved so
perceptibly, and seemed to be racked so, that the closet doors all flew
open. Then she heard the same rasping and thumping against the wall,
and, looking out, saw that a large uprooted tree, which had lain near
the road at the upper end of the pasture, had floated down to the house.
Luckily its long roots dragged in the soil and kept it from moving as
rapidly as the current, for had it struck the house in its full career,
even the strong nails and bolts in the piles could not have withstood
the shock. The hound had leaped upon its knotty surface, and crouched
near the roots shivering and whining. A ray of hope flashed across her
mind. She drew a heavy blanket from the bed, and, wrapping it about
the babe, waded in the deepening waters to the door. As the tree swung
again, broadside on, making the little cabin creak and tremble, she
leaped on to its trunk. By God's mercy she succeeded in obtaining a
footing on its slippery surface, and, twining an arm about its roots,
she held in the other her moaning child. Then something cracked near the
front porch, and the whole front of the house she had just quitted fell
forward--just as cattle fall on their knees before they lie down--and at
the same moment the great redwood tree swung round and drifted away with
its living cargo into the black night.

For all the excitement and danger, for all her soothing of her crying
babe, for all the whistling of the wind, for all the uncertainty of
her situation, she still turned to look at the deserted and water-swept
cabin. She remembered even then, and she wonders how foolish she was to
think of it at that time, that she wished she had put on another dress
and the baby's best clothes; and she kept praying that the house would
be spared so that he, when he returned, would have something to come to,
and it wouldn't be quite so desolate, and--how could he ever know what
had become of her and baby? And at the thought she grew sick and faint.
But she had something else to do besides worrying, for whenever the
long roots of her ark struck an obstacle, the whole trunk made half a
revolution, and twice dipped her in the black water. The hound, who kept
distracting her by running up and down the tree and howling, at last
fell off at one of these collisions. He swam for some time beside her,
and she tried to get the poor beast up on the tree, but he "acted silly"
and wild, and at last she lost sight of him forever. Then she and her
baby were left alone. The light which had burned for a few minutes
in the deserted cabin was quenched suddenly. She could not then
tell whither she was drifting. The outline of the white dunes on the
peninsula showed dimly ahead, and she judged the tree was moving in a
line with the river. It must be about slack water, and she had
probably reached the eddy formed by the confluence of the tide and the
overflowing waters of the river. Unless the tide fell soon, there was
present danger of her drifting to its channel, and being carried out to
sea or crushed in the floating drift. That peril averted, if she were
carried out on the ebb toward the bay, she might hope to strike one
of the wooded promontories of the peninsula, and rest till daylight.
Sometimes she thought she heard voices and shouts from the river, and
the bellowing of cattle and bleating of sheep. Then again it was only
the ringing in her ears and throbbing of her heart. She found at about
this time that she was so chilled and stiffened in her cramped position
that she could scarcely move, and the baby cried so when she put it to
her breast that she noticed the milk refused to flow; and she was so
frightened at that, that she put her head under her shawl, and for the
first time cried bitterly.

When she raised her head again, the boom of the surf was behind her, and
she knew that her ark had again swung round. She dipped up the water to
cool her parched throat, and found that it was salt as her tears. There
was a relief, though, for by this sign she knew that she was drifting
with the tide. It was then the wind went down, and the great and awful
silence oppressed her. There was scarcely a ripple against the furrowed
sides of the great trunk on which she rested, and around her all was
black gloom and quiet. She spoke to the baby just to hear herself speak,
								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes