The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1870-01-03
Mark Twain on Mining,
BAKERS CAT.

Speaking ofsagasity it reminds me of
Dick Baker, pocket miner OF Daadhoise
Gnlch. Whenever he was out of luck
and u itt;a down. hearted, he would fall
te mourning oNU- the loss of q wonder
full cat he used 10 own (T~r where wo-
men aud children a;e not, men OF [:-dly
impulses take up with pets, for they
must love sometbIUg.) Aud he always
smoke of the strange ssgacity OF that
cat with the air of q man who believed
in his secret heart that there was some-
thing human about it-msy be even sn-
pernstural.
/ heard him talking about this ami.
NAL once. He said, Gentlemen, | used
to have a cat here, by The name Of Tom
Quartz, which you'd a took an interest
in / reckon-most anybody would. l
had him here years-and he was the
remarkablest cat 1 ever see. He was a
largo gray one Of the Tom specie, aud
he had more hard, narral sense than
any man in this eamp--and o power
of dignity-he wouldn't let the Gov
ner of California be familiar with
him. He never ketched rat In his
Ife-'peared to be above it. He never
cared for nothing but mining. He
knowed more about mining, that cat
did, than any man ever see. You
couldn't tell him nothing about placer
diggings-and as for pocket mining,
why he was just born for it. He would
dig out for me and Jim when we went
over the hills prospecting, and he would
trot along behisd us for as much as five
mile, if we went 50 far. And LIE bad
the best Judgment about mining ground
why you never see anything like IT.
When ne went to work, he'd sCatCer a
glance around, and if be didn't think
much of the indications, he would give
q look as much as TO say, We'll, pll
have to get you to,excuse me- and with
out another word he'd hyste his nose
into the air and shove for home. But
if the ground suited him, he would lay
low and keep dark till the INST pan was
washed, and then he would Glide up aud
take look, and if there was about six
OF seven grains Of gold he was sati,fird
he didn't want no better prospectn
that-and then he would lay down on
our coats aud suore like a steamboat
till we'd struck the pocket, aud then get
I'D and superintend.
"Well, bye aud bye, up comes this
quartz excitement. Everybody was
into it-everybGdy was picking and
blasting, instead Of shOveling Girt on
the hillside-evefyb body was putting
down q shaft, instead Of scraplng the
surface. Nothing would do Jim, but ue
must tackle the lodges, too, and 80 We
did. We commenced putting down .
shaft, and Tom Quartz he begin to won
der what in the Dickens it was all
about He hadn't ever seen any mining
like that before, and he was al upset,
as you may say-he couldn't come to
right understanding of it no way-it
was too many for him. He was down.
on it, too, you bet you-he was down on
it powerful-and always appeared 10
consider il the cussedt ST toOlishness out.
But that cat, you know, he was GluGys
agin new tangled arrsngements-soue
how he never could abide 'em. You
know how it is with old habits. But by
and by Tom Qualtz begin 10 git sort OF
reconciled a little, though he never
could altogether understaud that eternal
sinking of q shaft aud never panning
sut anything.
"At last he got to coming down in
the shaft, bisse, #, to try to cipher it out
And when he'd get the blues, and feel
kind o'scruffy, aggravated and dis.
gusted-knowiDg, as he did that the
bills was running up all the time, and
we waru't making a cenJ-he would
curl up on gunny sack in the corner
and go to sleep. Well, one day when
the shaft was down about eight foot,
the rock got so hard that we had 10 put
in a blast. The first blasting we'd ever
done since Tom Quartz was born. And
then we lit the fuse, and clumb ont, and
got off about fifty yards-and forgot
aud loft Tom Quartz sound asleep on
the gunny sack. In about minute We
seen q puff of smoke bust out of the
hole, and then everything let 60 with
an awful crash, and about feur million
tons of rocks anu dirt and smoke aud
splinters shot up about mile and o
half into the air, and by George, right
in the midst of it was old Tom Quartz
going end over end, end o snOrtiuE,
reaching Tor things like all possessed.
"But 1t warn't No use, You know, it
wsrn't no use. Aud that was the last
we saw of him for abont two inmates and
q bali, and then all of a sudden it began
to rain rocks aad rub0sse, aud directly
Ia S1me down ker-whop about ten feet
off from where he stood, Well, Ieck-
on he was p'raps the Ornriest looking
beast you ever see. One ear was sOt
hack on his neck, and his tail was stove
up. and his eye-wiDkers was swinged off,
and he was al BACKED up with powder
and smoke, and all sloppy with mud
and slush from one ED to the other.
Well sir, it warn't no use to try to spol-
opize-we couldn't say aAword. He
took a sort of disguised look at hisself,
and then he looked at us-and it was
iust exactly az if he had said-"Gents,
may be you think It's smart to take ad-
vantage of q cat thst amt had no ex-
perisnce in quartz mining, but 1 think
di6eent'-and then he turned on his
hsel and marched off home-without ever
saying another word.
THAT was jest his style. And may
be you won't believe it, but after that
you never see cat 80 30 prejudiced