an Ramon Valley,
as tutor in an interesting family. He found the experience agreeable and
valuable.

A letter to his sister Margaret, written soon after his arrival, shows a
delightful relation between them and warm affection on his part. It
tells in a felicitous manner of the place, the people, and his
experiences. He had been to a camp-meeting and was struck with the
quaint, old-fashioned garb of the girls, seeming to make the ugly ones
uglier and the pretty ones prettier. It was raining when he wrote and he
felt depressed, but he sent his love in the form of a charming bit of
verse wherein a tear was borne with the flowing water to testify to his
tender regard for his "peerless sister." This letter, too personal for
publication, his sister lately read to me, and it was a revelation of
the matchless style so early acquired. In form it seemed perfect--not a
superfluous or an ill-chosen word. Every sentence showed rhythm and
balance, flowing easily and pleasantly from beginning to end, leaving an
impression of beauty and harmony, and testifying to a kindly, gentle
nature, with an admiring regard for his seventeen-year-old sister.

From Alamo he seems to have gone directly to Tuolumne County, and it
must have been late in 1856. His delightful sketch "How I Went to the
Mines" is surely autobiographical. He says: "I had been two years in
California before I ever thought of going to the mines, and my
initiation into the vocation of gold-digging was partly compulsory." He
refers to "the little pioneer settlement school, of which I was the
somewhat youthful, and, I fear, not over-competent master." What he did
after the school-teaching episode he does not record. He was a stage
messenger at one time. How long he remained in and around the mines is
not definitely known, but it seems clear that in less than a year of
experience and observation he absorbed the life and local color so
thoroughly that he was able to use it with almost undiminished freshness
for forty years.

It was early in 1857 that Bret Harte came to Humboldt County to visit
his sister Margaret, and for a brief time and to a limited extent our
lives touched. He was twenty-one and I was sixteen, so there was little
intimacy, but he interested and attracted me as a new type of manhood.
He bore the marks of good breeding, education, and refinement. He was
quiet of manner, kindly but not demonstrative, with a certain reserve
and aloofness. He was of medium height