And, sure's you're born, they all got off
Afore the smokestacks fell,—

And Bludso's ghost went up alone
In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.

He warn't no saint,-but at jedgement
I'd run my chance with Jim,
'Longside of some pious gentlemen

That wouldn't shook hands with him.
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing,-
And went for it thar and then;
And Christ ain't a goin' to be too hard
On a man that died for men.

BANTY TIM

(Remarks of Sergeant Tilmon Joy to the White Man's Committee of Spunky Point, Illinois)

I reckon I git your drift, gents,-
You 'low the boy sha'n't stay;
This is a white man's country;
You're Dimocrats, you say;

And whereas, and seein', and wherefore,
The times bein' all out o' j'int,

The nigger has got to mosey

From the limits o' Spunky P'int!

Le's reason the thing a minute:

I'm an old-fashioned Dimocrat too,

Though I laid my politics out o' the way
For to keep till the war was through.

But I come back here, allowin'
To vote as I used to do,

Though it gravels me like the devil to train
Along o' sich fools as you.

Now dog my cats ef I kin see,

In all the light of the day,

What you've got to do with the question

Ef Tim shill go or stay.

And furder than that I give notice,

Ef one of you tetches the boy,

He kin check his trunks to a warmer clime

Than he'll find in Illanoy.

Why, blame your hearts, jest hear me!
You know that ungodly day

When our left struck Vicksburg Heights, how ripped

And torn and tattered we lay.

When the rest retreated I stayed behind,

Fur reasons sufficient to me,

With a rib caved in, and a leg on a strike,
I sprawled on that damned glacee.

Lord! how the hot sun went for us,

And br'iled and blistered and burned!
How the Rebel bullets whizzed round us
When a cuss in his death-grip turned!
Till along toward dusk I seen a thing
I couldn't believe for a spell:

That nigger-that Tim-was a crawlin' to me
Through that fire-proof, gilt-edged hell!

The Rebels seen him as quick as me,
And the bullets buzzed like bees;

But he jumped for me, and shouldered me,

Though a shot brought him once to his knees;
But he staggered up, and packed me off,
With a dozen stumbles and falls,
Till safe in our lines he drapped us both,
His black hide riddled with balls.

So, my gentle gazelles, thar's my answer,
And here stays Banty Tim:

He trumped Death's ace for me that day,
And I'm not goin' back on him!

You may rezoloot till the cows come home,
But ef one of you tetches the boy,
He'll wrastle his hash to-night in hell,
Or my name's not Tilmon Joy!

Bret Harte

(Francis) Bret Harte was born August 25, 1839, at Albany, New York. His childhood was spent in various cities of the East. Late in 1853 his widowed mother went to California with a party of relatives, and two months later, when he was fifteen, Bret Harte and his sister followed. He dreamed even at this age of being a poet. During the next few years he was engaged in school-teaching, typesetting, politics, mining and journalism, becoming editor of The Overland Monthly at San Francisco in 1868.

Harte's fame came suddenly. Late in the sixties he had written a burlesque in rhyme of two Western gamblers trying to fleece a guileless Chinaman who claimed to know nothing about cards but who, it turned out, was scarcely as innocent

as he appeared. Harte, in the midst of writing serious poetry, had put the verses aside as too crude and trifling for publication. Some time later, just as The Overland Monthly was going to press, it was discovered that the form was one page short. Having nothing else on hand, Harte had these rhymes set up. Instead of passing unnoticed, the poem was quoted everywhere; it swept the West and captivated the East. When The Luck of Roaring Camp followed, Harte became not only a national but an international figure. England acclaimed him and The Atlantic Monthly paid him $10,000 to write for a year in his Pike County vein.

East and West Poems appeared in 1871; in 1872 he published an enlarged Poetical Works including many earlier pieces. His scores of short stories represent Harte at his best; M'liss," "Tennessee's Partner," "The Outcast of Poker Flat "these are the work of a lesser, transplanted Dickens. His novels are of minor importance; they are carelessly constructed, theatrically conceived; his characters are little more than badly-wired marionettes that betray every movement made by their manipulator.

In 1872 Harte, encouraged by his success, returned to his native East; in 1878 he went to Germany as consul. Two years later he was transferred to Scotland and, after five years there, went to London, where he remained the rest of his life. Harte's later period remains mysteriously shrouded. He never came back to America, not even for a visit; he ceased to correspond with his family; he separated himself from all the most intimate associations of his early life. He died, suddenly, at Camberley, England, May 6, 1902.

"JIM "

Say there! P'r'aps

Some on you chaps

Might know Jim Wild?

Well, no offense:
Thar ain't no sense
In gittin' riled!
Jim was my chum
Up on the Bar:
That's why I come

Down from up yar,

Lookin' for Jim.

Thank ye, sir! You Ain't of that crew,Blest if you are! Money? Not much: That ain't my kind; I ain't no such.

Rum? I don't mind, Seein' it's you.

Well, this yer Jim,Did you know him? Jes' 'bout your size; Same kind of eyes;Well, that is strange: Why, it's two year Since he came here,

Sick, for a change.

Well, here's to us:

Eh?

The h- -you say!
Dead?

That little cuss?