The introduction of a female nurse in the camp also met with objection. It was argued that no decent woman could be prevailed to accept Roaring Camp as her home, and the speaker urged that they didnt want any more of the other kind. This unkind allusion to the defunct mother, harsh as it may seem, was the first spasm of propriety,the first symptom of the camps regeneration. Stumpy advanced nothing. Perhaps he felt a certain delicacy in interfering with the selection of a possible successor in office. But when questioned, he averred stoutly that he and Jinnythe mammal before alluded tocould manage to rear the child. There was something original, independent, and heroic about the plan that pleased the camp. Stumpy was retained. Certain articles were sent for to Sacramento. Mind, said the treasurer, as he pressed a bag of gold-dust into the expressmans hand, the best that can be got,lace, you know, and filigree-work and frills,damn the cost!
Strange to say, the child thrived. Perhaps the invigorating climate of the mountain camp was compensation for material deficiencies. Nature took the foundling to her broader breast. In that rare atmosphere of the Sierra foothills,that air pungent with balsamic odor, that ethereal cordial at once bracing and exhilarating,he may have found food and nourishment, or a subtle chemistry that transmuted asss milk to lime and phosphorus. Stumpy inclined to the belief that it was the latter and good nursing. Me and that ass, he would say, has been father and mother to him! Dont you, he would add, apostrophizing the helpless bundle before him, never go back on us.
By the time he was a month old the necessity of giving him a name became apparent. He had generally been known as The Kid, Stumpys Boy, The Coyote (an allusion to his vocal powers), and even by Kentucks endearing diminutive of The damned little cuss. But these were felt to be vague and unsatisfactory, and were at last dismissed under another influence. Gamblers and adventurers are generally superstitious, and Oakhurst one day declared that the baby had brought the luck to Roaring Camp. It was certain that of late they had been successful. Luck was the name agreed upon, with the prefix of Tommy for greater convenience. No allusion was made to the mother, and the father was unknown. Its better, said the philosophical Oakhurst, to take a fresh deal all round. Call him Luck, and start him fair. A day was accordingly set apart for the christening. What was meant by this ceremony the reader may imagine who has already gathered some idea of the reckless irreverence of Roaring Camp. The master of ceremonies was one Boston, a noted wag, and the occasion seemed to promise the greatest facetiousness. This ingenious satirist had spent two days in preparing a burlesque of the Church service, with pointed local allusions. The choir was properly trained, and Sandy Tipton was to stand godfather. But after the procession had marched to the grove with music and banners, and the child had been deposited before a mock altar, Stumpy stepped before the expectant crowd. It aint my style to spoil fun, boys, said the little man, stoutly eyeing the faces around him, but it strikes me that this thing aint exactly on the squar. Its playing it pretty low down on this yer baby to ring in fun on him that he aint goin to understand. And ef theres goin to be any godfathers round, Id like to see whos got any better rights than me. A silence followed Stumpys speech. To the credit of all humorists be it said that the first man to acknowledge its justice was the satirist thus stopped of his fun. But, said Stumpy, quickly following up his advantage, were here for a christening, and well have it. I proclaim you Thomas Luck, according to the laws of the United States and the State of California, so help me God. It was the first time that the name of the Deity had been otherwise uttered than profanely in the camp. The form of christening was perhaps even more ludicrous than the satirist had conceived; but strangely enough, nobody saw it and nobody laughed. Tommy was christened as seriously as he would have been under a Christian roof and cried and was comforted in as orthodox fashion.
And so the work of regeneration began in Roaring Camp. Almost imperceptibly a change came over the settlement. The cabin assigned to Tommy Luckor The Luck, as he was more frequently calledfirst showed signs of improvement. It was kept scrupulously clean and whitewashed. Then it was boarded, clothed, and papered. The rose wood cradle, packed eighty miles by mule, had, in Stumpys way of putting it, sorter killed the rest of the furniture. So the rehabilitation of the cabin became a necessity. The men who were in the habit of lounging in at Stumpys to see how The Luck got on seemed to appreciate the change, and in self-defense the rival establishment of Tuttles grocery bestirred itself and imported a carpet and mirrors. The reflections of the latter on the appearance of Roaring Camp tended to produce stricter habits of personal cleanliness. Again Stumpy imposed a kind of quarantine upon those who aspired to the honor and privilege of holding The Luck. It was a cruel mortification to Kentuckwho, in the carelessness of a large nature and the habits of frontier life, had begun to regard all garments as a second cuticle, which, like a snakes, only sloughed off through decayto be debarred this privilege from certain prudential reasons. Yet such was the subtle influence of innovation that he thereafter appeared regularly every afternoon in a clean shirt and face still shining from his ablutions. Nor were moral and social sanitary laws neglected. Tommy, who was supposed to spend his whole existence in a persistent attempt to repose, must not be disturbed by noise. The shouting and yelling, which had gained the camp its infelicitous title, were not permitted within hearing distance of Stumpys. The men conversed in whispers or smoked with Indian gravity. Profanity was tacitly given up in these sacred precincts, and throughout the camp a popular form of expletive, known as Dn the luck! and Curse the luck! was abandoned, as having a new personal bearing. Vocal music was not interdicted, being supposed to have a soothing, tranquilizing quality; and one song, sung by Man-o-War Jack, an English sailor from her Majestys Australian colonies, was quite popular as a lullaby. It was a lugubrious recital of the exploits of the Arethusa, Seventy-four, in a muffled minor, ending with a prolonged dying fall at the burden of each verse, On b-oo-o-ard of the Arethusa. It was a fine sight to see Jack holding The Luck, rocking from side to side as if with the motion of a ship, and crooning forth this naval ditty. Either through the peculiar rocking of Jack or the length of his song,it contained ninety stanzas, and was continued with conscientious deliberation to the bitter end,the lullaby generally had the desired effect. At such times the men would lie at full length under the trees in the soft summer twilight, smoking their pipes and drinking in the melodious utterances. An indistinct idea that this was pastoral happiness pervaded the camp. This ere kind o think, said the Cockney Simmons, meditatively reclining on his elbow, is evingly. It reminded him of Greenwich.
On the long summer days The Luck was usually carried to the gulch from whence the golden store of Roaring Camp was taken. There, on a blanket spread over pine boughs, he would lie while the men were working in the ditches below. Latterly there was a rude attempt to decorate this bower with flowers and sweet-smelling shrubs, and generally some one would bring him a cluster of wild honeysuckles, azaleas, or the painted blossoms of Las Mariposas. The men had suddenly awakened to the fact that there were beauty and significance in these trifles, which they had so long trodden carelessly beneath their feet. A flake of glittering mica, a fragment of variegated quartz, a bright pebble from the bed of the creek, became beautiful to eyes thus cleared and strengthened, and were invariably pat aside for The Luck. It was wonderful how many treasures the woods and hillsides yielded that would do for Tommy. Surrounded by playthings such as never child out of fairyland had before, it is to be hoped that Tommy was content. He appeared to be serenely happy, albeit there was an infantine gravity about him, a contemplative light in his round gray eyes, that sometimes worried Stumpy. He was always tractable and quiet, and it is recorded that once, having crept beyond his corral,a hedge of tessellated pine boughs, which surrounded his bed,he dropped over the bank on his head in the soft earth, and remained with his mottled legs in the air in that position for at least five minutes with unflinching gravity. He was extricated without a murmur. I hesitate to record the many other instances of his sagacity, which rest, unfortunately, upon the statements of prejudiced friends. Some of them were not without a tinge of superstition. I crep up the bank just now, said Kentuck one day, in a breathless state of excitement and dern my skin if he was a-talking to a jay bird as was a-sittin on his lap. There they was, just as free and sociable as anything you please, a-jawin at each other just like two cherrybums. Howbeit, whether creeping over the pine boughs or lying lazily on his back blinking at the leaves above him, to him the birds sang, the squirrels chattered, and the flowers bloomed. Nature was his nurse and playfellow. For him she would let slip between the leaves golden shafts of sunlight that fell just within his grasp; she would send wandering breezes to visit him with the balm of bay and resinous gum; to him the tall redwoods nodded familiarly and sleepily, the bumblebees buzzed, and the rooks cawed a slumbrous accompaniment.