Author: Bret Harte

Publisher: General Books

Published: 2012-02

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9781458911971

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907. Excerpt: ... BABY SYLVESTER It was at a little mining camp in the California Sierras that he first dawned upon me in all his grotesque sweetness. I had arrived early in the morning, but not in time to intercept the friend who was the object of my visit. He had gone "prospecting,"--so they told me on the river, --and would not probably return until late in the afternoon. They could not say what direction he had taken; they could not suggest that I would be likely to find him if I followed. But it was the general opinion that I had better wait. I looked around me. I was standing upon the bank of the river; and, apparently, the only other human beings in the world were my interlocutors, who were even then just disappearing from my horizon down the steep bank toward the river's dry bed. I approached the edge of the bank. Where could I wait? Oh, anywhere; down with them on the river-bar, where they were working, if I liked! Or I could make myself at home in any of those cabins that I found lying round loose. Or, perhaps it would be cooler and pleasanter for me in my friend's cabin on the hill. Did I see those three large sugarpines? And, a little to the right, a canvas roof and chimney over the bushes? Well that was my friend's--that was Dick Sylvester's cabin. I could stake my horse in that little hollow, and just hang round there till he came. I would find some books in the shanty; I could amuse myself with them. Or I could play with the baby. Do what? But they had already gone. I leaned over the bank and called after their vanishing figures, --"What did you say I could do?" The answer floated slowly up on the hot sluggish air, --"Pla-a-y with the ba-by." The lazy echoes took it up and tossed it languidly from hill to hill, until Bald Mountain opposite made some incoherent ...