The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales

“Well! well! it needed not the chalked cross which my brother surgeons had left upon the rough board whereon he lay to show how urgent was the relief he sought; it needed not the prophetic words of the Vermonter, nor the damp that mingled with the brown curls that clung to his pale forehead, to show how hopeless it was now. I called him by name. He opened his eyes—larger, I thought, in the new vision that was beginning to dawn upon him—and recognized me. He whispered, ‘I’m glad you are come, but I don’t think you can do me any good.’

“I could not tell him a lie. I could not say anything. I only pressed his hand in mine as he went on.

“‘But you will see father, and ask him to forgive me. Nobody is to blame but myself. It was a long time before I understood why the drum came to me that Christmas night, and why it kept calling to me every night, and what it said. I know it now. The work is done, and I am content. Tell father it is better as it is. I should have lived only to worry and perplex him, and something in me tells me this is right.’

“He lay still for a moment, and then grasping my hand, said,—

“‘Hark!’

“I listened, but heard nothing but the suppressed moans of the wounded men around me. ‘The drum’ he said faintly; ‘don’t you hear it?—the drum is calling me.’

“He reached out his arm to where it lay, as though he would embrace it.

“‘Listen’—he went on—‘it’s the reveille. There are the ranks drawn up in review. Don’t you see the sunlight flash down the long line of bayonets? Their faces are shining—they present arms—there comes the General—but his face I cannot look at for the glory round his head. He sees me; he smiles, it is ‘—and with a name upon his lips that he had learned long ago, he stretched himself wearily upon the planks and lay quite still.

“That’s all.

“No questions now—never mind what became of the drum.

“Who’s that sniveling?

“Bless my soul! where’s my pill-box?”

THE END

1

By the appearance in England several years ago of an edition of the author’s writings as then collected.

2

The delicate reader will appreciate the omission of certain articles for which English synonyms are forbidden.

3

The right of dramatization of this and succeeding chapters is reserved by the writer.

4

NOTE, BY G. A. S.—In the Southwest, any stone larger than a pea is termed “a rock.”

5

I make no pretension to fine writing, but perhaps Mrs. Hardinge can lay over that. Oh, of course! M. McG.

6

The Declaration of Independence grants to each subject “the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.” A fugitive slave may be said to personify “life, liberty, and happiness.” Hence his pursuit is really legal. This is logic. G.A.S.

7

There are two forms of this tale. The earlier one is that printed originally in The Golden Era and afterward and until this time included in Mr. Harte’s collected writings. It is comprised in four chapters and occupies about thirty pages. When the present edition was under consideration, Mr. Harte called his publishers’ attention to the fact that the editor of the same paper proposed to him some time later to continue it as a serial. In order to do this, he found himself obliged to make some changes in the earlier incidents. Accordingly he republished the story in its first form, but with some interpolations and alterations, and then proceeded with other chapters, making ten in all, “concluding it,” he says, “rather abruptly when I found it was inartistically prolonged.” This was in 1863. But even thus the story was not to be let alone. Ten years later, in 1873, another writer took the tale up at the end of the tenth chapter, added fifty more, and issued the whole in The Golden Era. When the continuation had been running some time, Mr. Harte discovered the fraud, and inserted a card in the same paper, advising the public that he had nothing whatever to do with this further amplification of his story. Afterward, when the whole was published in book form, he instituted legal proceedings and suppressed the sale.

The present form is Mr. Harte’s revision and extension of his first, and is reprinted from The Golden Era with his consent. EDITOR.