The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-05-26

thoughts on paper. LII seemed an ASSIST
ance to thinking more clearly. We may
think more things in sixty seconds than
we can write out in sixty minutes. The
time occupied in putting our thoughts
down on paper seems as sort Of gov
ernor to regulate the outflow Of our
mental steam or idea. If you could do
this without the aid of pen and ink to
keep from thinking too fast you might
live for hours in an extempore poem,
fancy or fiction of your own.
The first article I ever had published
appeared in the columns Of The Union
Democrat, of Sonora, Tuolumne county,
Cal. It was an account Of the yearly
fall spree held by the river miners when
the TuOlumme rose in its wrath two
months earlier than was expected five
years out of six and swept away all our
summers work, dams, fumes, wheels,
sluices and other river mining machinery.
1t was not SO much an account OF the
spree as of the results Of it, and the feel
ings, mental and physical, remorse and
repentance, contrition and headache, re-
alZeQ Cno Gay aIIeT.
The article struck sympathetic chord
throughout the entire county. Four
fifths of the population had been there
themselves.
wrote this sketch one Sunday after
noon under big pine tree near my
cabin. 1t was in a little gulch, and
through the gulch flowed little brook.
A hundred yards distant the muddy cur
rent of the Tuolumne roared and rushed
and howled through the Willow Bar and
over prosperous claim.
There came floating in its current a
log or part of fume or sluice box
or wreck of water wheel, which the
mad river tossed about as if in derision
Of mans puny work, and perhaps flung
it on a half submerged rock and crashed
it to splinters. I know not why, but
the picture Of the birthplace Of my first
article has remained firmly imprinted
in my brain.
For about three years between whites
of mining, prospecting, teaching school,
running for Office, lecturing and organ
izing gigantic mining enterprises, all of
which persisted prematurely, wrote al
most gratuitously for The Democrat over
the signature of "Dogberry." By that
name | became pretty well known in
Tuolumne and the adjoining counties.
had no ambition to become known
as writer. My highest aspiration was
the possession of a gold claim which
would pay four or five dollars day.
AS such aspiration increased the daily
income of such ''diggings" as 1 took hold
of diminished. At last such income de-
scended to the scale of seventy-fve cents
per diem. All my worldly goods were
an old gun, saddle, pair of blankets,
an enfeebled suit of clothes and trunk
with abundant room for many things
not in it.
At this crisis in the early fall of 1866
l received an unexpected letter from Mr..
Joseph Lawrence, publisher of The Col
den Era, then the leading literary week
ly paper of San Francisco, asking me to
take place on it. To San Francisco I
went straightway, and a more forlorn,
seedy specimen of literary impecuniosity
never set foot in that city. Mr.. Law
hotels, were he lived, and by the agency
of some fresh apparel made me in a
measure presentable. I felt very much
out of place among the stylish people
with whom found myself.
However, l filed my position on The
7 Ial;ara r.
at certain times. with pen in my hand,
that / felt raised above my average
shabby, inassertiye mental level. was
called modest and retiring. That was
not it at all l was cowardly, and
thought almost every one met who had
pretentious air was in some way to me
unknown my superior.
Bret Harte had then a local California
reputation. So had Mark Twain. Imet
both of these gentlemen frequently in
The Era Office. Charles Warren Stod-
dard, Ralph Keller, who died so mystic
riously in Cuba; Newell (Orpheus c.
Kerr. Artemus Ward, Adah Menken
and several other bright people were
regular or occasional contributors to The
Era.
l remained on The Era about a year.
Mr.. Lawrence went to the eastern states.
/ left the paper soon after his departure,
and sustained myself on a meager in
come by peddling my contributions TO
various papers. l wrote good deal for
The Dramatic Chronicle, theater pro-
gramme sheet about as large as ban
dana handkerchief, and the Seeding on
which its publisher Charles De Young
founded, IN 1869 or 1870, the San Fran
cisco Chronicle. De Young was always
predicting that he would start a great
morning paper. Almost every one
augned at the idea. But one morning
lie did start il. Then they stopped
aughlng.
One morning while correcting my
,roof in The Dramatic Chronicle COM
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