Bret Harte

Under the Redwoods Bret Harte

As the night blew up from the valley that stormy afternoon, Sawyer's Ledge was at first quite blotted out by wind and rain, but now reappeared in little nebulous star-like spots along the side of the mountain, as the strolling cabins of the settlement, were illuminated one by one by the miners returning from the tunnel and claiming. These stars were of varying brightness that evening, two in particular so-one that eventually resolved into a multi-candle illumination of a cabin of manifest festivity; the other into a shimmering taper in the window of a silent one. They may have reflected the extreme mutants of fortune in the settlement that night: the celebration of a strike by Robert Falloner, a lucky miner; and Dick Lasham's sickbed, an unlucky one. Nevertheless, the latter was not all alone. He has ministered to Daddy Folsom, a frail but emotional and fiercely an optimistic neighbour who was sitting beside the wooden bunk where the invalid stood. There was, however, something perfunctory in his attitude: his eyes were constantly straying to the window, from which the illuminated Falloner festivities could be seen between the leaves, and his ears were more focused on the songs and laughter that came softly from a distance than on the feverish breathing and intelligible moans of the sufferer.