The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-09-01
A TALE OF THE SIERRAS.
BENJAMIN THOMPsON's POCKET IN
GAMBLERS GULCH.

and boarded a Train for Boston
with His Carpet-Bag.
Joaquin Miller in san Francisco Call
That his name when he first
same to Redding Springs. afterward
xnown and still known as Shasta City.
And what a splendid mass Of splendid
men in those old days gathered there as
n battle charge against the golden spurs
If knightly and imperious Mount Shasta
Even list Of the cities and towns
would tire you, and each town was a
theater, a colosseum; Aliddletown, Center
Vile. Squawtown. NIuletown. Horsetown,
Texas Springs and dozen more, all there
within an hours ride of Shasta City. The
miners were men of Laconia. They could
and often did put a lot into one little
word
And now, if you are going with me into
the California Sierra, please leave be-
hind your dialect dictionary. There is
not and there never was any dialect in
the mines there. What we have of that
vicious. cheap stuff in our California
literature stepped into it right out of
Dickens. In the Oregon Sierra, the miners
we're not SO clean-cut. There were
many Of them, pioneers of pioneer par
ents, and once had some dialect, but the
man from the eastern states who started
the California mines was, as a rule, from
the richest brightest and best family Of
his region, and was the bravest and bright
est and best-educated member of that
family.
To break still another lance against this
false and needless form of literature,
there is very little dialect outside of the
darkies, in all of the United States. To
insist on so much Of it is to insult the in
telligence of a country that spends more
money on free schools than all of the rest
Of the world together.
But to go on with Benjamin Franklin
Thompson's pocket.
Thompson was a great fiddler. This
know is now counted a great fault in
man; but thare are plenty of men in Shas-
Ia county still who can remember when
Dave Pittit, ignoring nominating conven-
tons, saloons, cliqueS and clans, and all
political parties of all sorts, took his
fiddle under his arm, and on foot and
alone fiddled his way right into the heart
of every man in the mountains.
But to so backto y. F. Thompson's
pocket.
Thompson was a miner from first to last
"a miner exclusively. He was a good
man. True, he would swear, and he was
also a famous liar, especially about mines.
OF course, he played poker, and this also
meant hard drinking and shooting
scrape now and then, in which he put in
some very deadly work at times But,
with these minor exceptions he was an
excellent fellow.
In the spring Of 1856, on the day when
we hanged Alexander Higgins for having
killed his partner and hiding him in a pros
h.n1a II Oh,
ing scrape. 1t was dramatic and pathetic;
too much SO to have full credence at this
remote day, and SO must be passed over
in silence. Enough to say it changed his
whole nature. He drank no more, gambl-
ed no more, did not shoot anybody any
more. In short, he ceased to be sociable.
The boys UP there always liked to play
poker with coin-gold coin. The piles of
golddust in buckskin bags is another fic-
ton that must be perforated. The truth
is, when big game was contemplated
and that was every Saturday night till
Monday morning in each "city''-the boys
would go to the express office with their
bags and put them up for all the coin in
4 sight.
They had curious way of coming to
the center" Now, it seems a silly thing,
but the eagle bird was always kept in
sight. poker player of those days was
the most SuperStitiouS man born. He
would stack most of his money before him,
but there would be loose handful of small
coin pieces right under his nose, and when
he would go to put up, either to ANTE"
''go a blind, buck" or ''straddle blind"
call down." or 'go BETTER" he always put
a forehnger on the eagle bird of a gold
piece and pushed it to the center of the
pot either tenderly, roughly, timidly, or
boldly, as he pleased.
Well, in time this wore both the date
and face from nearly all gold birds in and
about Shasta. If any stranger objected
TO this sort of 'sawed-off" money he got a
bluff that taught him not to do it again.
Inc true gold was there, what little was
left of it, and the eagle bird. He was
made to believe, with an ugly muzzle
across the board, that this was quite
enough. Quite right The gold was there.
The eagle bird, in all his widewinged glo-
~, was there, toe. What mattered the
face and the date?
1t was good deal like that with Thomp-
son after he ceased to shoot and be So
cable. The gold was still there, what was
!eft OF him. You could hear his fiddle al
ms cabin door way up among the man
zanita bushes on the hill at the head of
Gamblers Gulch. You could see the tall,
,1ent man shuttle down on his huge feet
IKE sIedrunners to the store once each
week; and once each spring time, the
seasons surged BIZ, somebody planted
california peoples in a corner of the
graveyard back of the town and made the
pace look restful and quiet like, so that
me quail might pipe and call there and
not feel afraid; but that is all that was
now seen or known of Thompson.
The facetious postmaster once had a
letter for Thompson with only the initials
81 ms Christian names and so he spoke of
"lin as Big Foot Thompson"
The shoe fit him. said the rag-tag
and bobtail end of town. And so Benja-
min FRANKLIN Thompson was soon all
worn off and lost to sight forever in Shas-
"a City, like the date on the gold coin.
ne was only Big Foot Thompson now.
put now that old fiddle used to call out
from that Digger pine hilltop over the
Lhanzanitas! And were I to tell you how
once stole up there in the brush and
saw circle of white-breasted hares stand
ing ABOUT in the white moonlight only a
Iou below his big feet, you would not
quIte believe it, and so I will not tax
sOur credulity. But am glad they came
- MN IN his drear hard life of penance;
-or no man ever darkened his cabin door
low The sight of those timid creatures
-1s1ehlng TO the music of the poor muir
Gerer opened q book to me that has taught
told
. 10 you know ANYTIME abo11f r,oclxaf min