How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar

"How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar" by Bret Harte is a charming short story set in a small mining town during the Christmas season. The narrative unfolds in a rough and rugged frontier community, where the arrival of Santa Claus brings warmth and joy amidst the harsh conditions of frontier life. Through Harte's engaging storytelling and vivid descriptions, the tale explores themes of generosity, the spirit of Christmas, and the unexpected magic that can flourish even in unlikely places. The story captures the essence of community, showcasing how the holiday can inspire kindness and connection among its residents.

• Short story

								
It had been raining in the valley of the Sacramento. The North Fork
had overflowed its banks and Rattlesnake Creek was impassable. The few
boulders that had marked the summer ford at Simpson's Crossing were
obliterated by a vast sheet of water stretching to the foothills. The up
stage was stopped at Grangers; the last mail had been abandoned in the
tules, the rider swimming for his life. "An area," remarked the
"Sierra Avalanche," with pensive local pride, "as large as the State of
Massachusetts is now under water."

Nor was the weather any better in the foothills. The mud lay deep on the
mountain road; wagons that neither physical force nor moral objurgation
could move from the evil ways into which they had fallen, encumbered the
track, and the way to Simpson's Bar was indicated by broken-down teams
and hard swearing. And farther on, cut off and inaccessible, rained
upon and bedraggled, smitten by high winds and threatened by high water,
Simpson's Bar, on the eve of Christmas day, 1862, clung like a swallow's
nest to the rocky entablature and splintered capitals of Table Mountain,
and shook in the blast.

As night shut down on the settlement, a few lights gleamed through
the mist from the windows of cabins on either side of the highway now
crossed and gullied by lawless streams and swept by marauding winds.
Happily most of the population were gathered at Thompson's store,
clustered around a red-hot stove, at which they silently spat in some
accepted sense of social communion that perhaps rendered conversation
unnecessary. Indeed, most methods of diversion had long since been
exhausted on Simpson's Bar; high water had suspended the regular
occupations on gulch and on river, and a consequent lack of money and
whiskey had taken the zest from most illegitimate recreation. Even Mr.
Hamlin was fain to leave the Bar with fifty dollars in his pocket,--the
only amount actually realized of the large sums won by him in the
successful exercise of his arduous profession. "Ef I was asked," he
remarked somewhat later,--"ef I was asked to pint out a purty little
village where a retired sport as didn't care for money could exercise
hisself, frequent and lively, I'd say Simpson's Bar; but for a young man
with a large family depending on his exertions, it don't pay." As Mr.
Hamlin's family consisted mainly of female adults, this remark is quoted
rather to show the breadth of his humor than the exact extent of his
responsibilities.

Howbeit, the unconscious objects of this satire sat that evening in the
listless apathy begotten of idleness and lack of excitement. Even the
sudden splashing of hoofs before the door did not arouse them. Dick
Bullen alone paused in the act of scraping out his pipe, and lifted
his head, but no other one of the group indicated any interest in, or
recognition of, the man who entered.

It was a figure familiar enough to the company, and known in Simpson's
Bar as "The Old Man." A man of perhaps fifty years; grizzled and scant
of hair, but still fresh and youthful of complexion. A face full of
ready, but not very powerful sympathy, with a chameleon-like aptitude
for taking on the shade and color of contiguous moods and feelings. He
had evidently just left some hilarious companions, and did not at first
notice the gravity of the group, but clapped the shoulder of the nearest
man jocularly, and threw himself into a vacant chair.

"Jest heard the best thing out, boys! Ye know Smiley, over yar,--Jim
Smiley,--funniest man in the Bar? Well, Jim was jest telling the richest
yarn about--"

"Smiley's a ---- fool," interrupted a gloomy voice.

"A particular ---- skunk," added another in sepulchral accents.

A silence followed these positive statements. The Old Man glanced
quickly around the group. Then his face slowly changed. "That's so,"
he said reflectively, after a pause, "certingly a sort of a skunk and
suthin of a fool. In course." He was silent for a moment as in painful
contemplation of the unsavoriness and folly of the unpopular Smiley.
"Dismal weather, ain't it?" he added, now fully embarked on the current
of prevailing sentiment. "Mighty rough papers on the boys, and no show
for money this season. And tomorrow's Christmas."

There was a movement among the men at this announcement, but whether of
satisfaction or disgust was not plain. "Yes," continued the Old Man in
the lugubrious tone he had, within the last few moments, unconsciously
adopted,--"yes, Christmas, and to-night's Christmas eve. Ye see, boys,
I kinder thought--that is, I sorter had an idee, jest passin' like, you
know--that may be ye'd all like to come over to my house to-night and
have a sort of tear round. But I suppose, now, you wouldn't? Don't feel
like it, may be?" he added with anxious sympathy, peering into the faces
of his companions.

"Well, I don't know," responded Tom Flynn with some cheerfulness.
"P'r'aps we may. But how about your wife, Old Man? What does SHE say to
it?"

The Old Man hesitated. His conjugal experience had not been a happy one,
and the fact was known to Simpson's Bar. His first wife, a delicate,
pretty little woman, had suffered keenly and secretly from the jealous
suspicions of her husband, until one day he invited the whole Bar to his
house to expose her infidelity. On arriving, the party found the shy,
petite creature quietly engaged in her household duties, and retired
abashed and discomfited. But the sensitive woman did not easily recover
from the shock of this extraordinary outrage. It was with difficulty
she regained her equanimity sufficiently to release her lover from the
closet in which he was concealed and escape with him. She left a boy of
three years to comfort her bereaved husband. The Old Man's present wife
had been his cook. She was large, loyal, and aggressive.

Before he could reply, Joe Dimmick suggested with great directness that
it was the "Old Man's house," and that, invoking the Divine Power, if
the case were his own, he would invite whom he pleased, even if in
so doing he imperilled his salvation. The Powers of Evil, he further
remarked, should contend against him vainly. All this delivered with a
terseness and vigor lost in this necessary translation.

"In course. Certainly. Thet's it," said the Old Man with a sympathetic
frown. "Thar's no trouble about THET. It's my own house, built every
stick on it myself. Don't you be afeard o' her, boys. She MAY cut up a
trifle rough,--ez wimmin do,--but she'll come round." Secretly the Old
Man trusted to the exaltation of liquor and the power of courageous
example to sustain him in such an emergency.

As yet, Dick Bullen, the oracle and leader of Simpson's Bar, had not
spoken. He now took his pipe from his lips. "Old Man, how's that yer
Johnny gettin' on? Seems to me he didn't look so peart last time I seed

								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes