Sierra Nevada Mountains
Learning Targets:
I can cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
I can determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.
I can analyze the impact of the author's choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed).
I can determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful.
Essential question: Does one's profession define one's character?
Coming up: Vocabulary quiz on "The Outcasts" this Thursday. February 1. Handed out last Friday; another copy at the end of today's blog.
I have a class handout, but you must submit electronically. Most folks already sent me theirs, and the grades / comments are in parent connect.
In class: reading Bret Harte's "The Outcasts of Poker Flat"
We are reading the short story as a class. (class handout / copy below). You also have a short, accompanying graphic organizer to help with organizing your thoughts in terms of literary elements: characters, setting, themes and literary devices that you encounter.
The Outcasts of Poker
Flat by Bret Harte
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AS Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main
street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he
was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night.
Two or three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he approached, and
exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath lull in the air, which, in
a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous.
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Mr. Oakhurst’s calm,
handsome face betrayed small concern in these indications. Whether he was
conscious of any predisposing cause, was another question. “I reckon they’re
after somebody,” he reflected; “likely it’s me.” He returned to his pocket
the handkerchief with which he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker
Flat from his neat boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further
conjecture.
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In point of fact,
Poker Flat was “after somebody.” It had lately suffered the loss of several
thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a prominent citizen. It was
experiencing a spasm of virtuous reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable
as any of the acts that had provoked it. A secret committee had determined to
rid the town of all improper persons. This was done permanently in regard of
two men who were then hanging from the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch, and
temporarily in the banishment of certain other objectionable characters. I
regret to say that some of these were ladies. It is but due to the sex,
however, to state that their impropriety was professional, and it was only in
such easily established standards of evil that Poker Flat ventured to sit in
judgment.
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Mr. Oakhurst was right
in supposing that he was included in this category. A few of the committee
had urged hanging him as a possible example, and a sure method of reimbursing
themselves from his pockets of the sums he had won from them. “It’s agin
justice,” said Jim Wheeler, “to let this yer young man from Roaring Camp—an
entire stranger—carry away our money.” But a crude sentiment of equity
residing in the breasts of those who had been fortunate enough to win from
Mr. Oakhurst overruled this narrower local prejudice.
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Mr. Oakhurst received
his sentence with philosophic calmness, none the less coolly that he was
aware of the hesitation of his judges. He was too much of a gambler not to
accept Fate. With him life was at best an uncertain game, and he recognized
the usual percentage in favor of the dealer.
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A body of armed men
accompanied the deported wickedness of Poker Flat to the outskirts of the
settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was known to be a coolly desperate man,
and for whose intimidation the armed escort was intended, the expatriated
party consisted of a young woman familiarly known as “The Duchess”; another,
who had won the title of “Mother Shipton”; and “Uncle Billy,” a suspected
sluice-robber and confirmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no comments from
the spectators, nor was any word uttered by the escort. Only, when the gulch
which marked the uttermost limit of Poker Flat was reached, the leader spoke
briefly and to the point. The exiles were forbidden to return at the peril of
their lives.
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As the escort
disappeared, their pent-up feelings found vent in a few hysterical tears from
the Duchess, some bad language from Mother Shipton, and a Parthian volley of
expletives from Uncle Billy. The philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent.
He listened calmly to Mother Shipton’s desire to cut somebody’s heart out, to
the repeated statements of the Duchess that she would die in the road, and to
the alarming oaths that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle Billy as he rode
forward. With the easy good-humor characteristic of his class, he insisted
upon exchanging his own riding-horse, “Five Spot,” for the sorry mule which
the Duchess rode. But even this act did not draw the party into any closer
sympathy. The young woman readjusted her somewhat draggled plumes with a
feeble, faded coquetry; Mother Shipton eyed the possessor of “Five Spot” with
malevolence, and Uncle Billy included the whole party in one sweeping
anathema.
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The road to Sandy
Bar—a camp that, not having as yet experienced the regenerating influences of
Poker Flat, consequently seemed to offer some invitation to the emigrants—lay
over a steep mountain range. It was distant a day’s severe travel. In that
advanced season, the party soon passed out of the moist, temperate regions of
the foot-hills into the dry, cold, bracing air of the Sierras. The trail was
narrow and difficult. At noon the Duchess, rolling out of her saddle upon the
ground, declared her intention of going no farther, and the party halted.
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The spot was
singularly wild and impressive. A wooded amphitheatre, surrounded on three
sides by precipitous cliffs of naked granite, sloped gently toward the crest
of another precipice that overlooked the valley. It was, undoubtedly, the
most suitable spot for a camp, had camping been advisable. But Mr. Oakhurst
knew that scarcely half the journey to Sandy Bar was accomplished, and the
party were not equipped or provisioned for delay. This fact he pointed out to
his companions curtly, with a philosophic commentary on the folly of
“throwing up their hand before the game was played out.” But they were
furnished with liquor, which in this emergency stood them in place of food,
fuel, rest, and prescience. In spite of his remonstrances, it was not long
before they were more or less under its influence. Uncle Billy passed rapidly
from a bellicose state into one of stupor, the Duchess became maudlin, and
Mother Shipton snored. Mr. Oakhurst alone remained erect, leaning against a
rock, calmly surveying them.
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Mr. Oakhurst did not
drink. It interfered with a profession which required coolness,
impassiveness, and presence of mind, and, in his own language, he “couldn’t
afford it.” As he gazed at his recumbent fellow-exiles, the loneliness
begotten of his pariah-trade, his habits of life, his very vices, for the
first time seriously oppressed him. He bestirred himself in dusting his black
clothes, washing his hands and face, and other acts characteristic of his
studiously neat habits, and for a moment forgot his annoyance. The thought of
deserting his weaker and more pitiable companions never perhaps occurred to
him. Yet he could not help feeling the want of that excitement which,
singularly enough, was most conducive to that calm equanimity for which he
was notorious. He looked at the gloomy walls that rose a thousand feet sheer above
the circling pines around him; at the sky, ominously clouded; at the valley
below, already deepening into shadow. And, doing so, suddenly he heard his
own name called.
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A horseman slowly
ascended the trail. In the fresh, open face of the new-comer Mr. Oakhurst
recognized Tom Simson, otherwise known as “The Innocent” of Sandy Bar. He had
met him some months before over a “little game,” and had, with perfect
equanimity, won the entire fortune—amounting to some forty dollars—of that
guileless youth. After the game was finished, Mr. Oakhurst drew the youthful
speculator behind the door and thus addressed him: “Tommy, you’re a good
little man, but you can’t gamble worth a cent. Don’t try it over again.” He
then handed him his money back, pushed him gently from the room, and so made
a devoted slave of Tom Simson.
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There was a
remembrance of this in his boyish and enthusiastic greeting of Mr. Oakhurst.
He had started, he said, to go to Poker Flat to seek his fortune. “Alone?”
No, not exactly alone; in fact (a giggle), he had run away with Piney Woods.
Didn’t Mr. Oakhurst remember Piney? She that used to wait on the table at the
Temperance House? They had been engaged a long time, but old Jake Woods had
objected, and so they had run away, and were going to Poker Flat to be
married, and here they were. And they were tired out, and how lucky it was
they had found a place to camp and company. All this the Innocent delivered
rapidly, while Piney, a stout, comely damsel of fifteen, emerged from behind
the pine-tree, where she had been blushing unseen, and rode to the side of
her lover.
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Mr. Oakhurst seldom
troubled himself with sentiment, still less with propriety; but he had a
vague idea that the situation was not fortunate. He retained, however, his
presence of mind sufficiently to kick Uncle Billy, who was about to say
something, and Uncle Billy was sober enough to recognize in Mr. Oakhurst’s
kick a superior power that would not bear trifling. He then endeavored to
dissuade Tom Simson from delaying further, but in vain. He even pointed out
the fact that there was no provision, nor means of making a camp. But,
unluckily, the Innocent met this objection by assuring the party that he was
provided with an extra mule loaded with provisions, and by the discovery of a
rude attempt at a log-house near the trail. “Piney can stay with Mrs.
Oakhurst,” said the Innocent, pointing to the Duchess, “and I can shift for
myself.”
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Nothing but Mr.
Oakhurst’s admonishing foot saved Uncle Billy from bursting into a roar of
laughter. As it was, he felt compelled to retire up the cañon until he could
recover his gravity. There he confided the joke to the tall pinetrees, with
many slaps of his leg, contortions of his face, and the usual profanity. But
when he returned to the party, he found them seated by a fire—for the air had
grown strangely chill and the sky overcast—in apparently amicable
conversation. Piney was actually talking in an impulsive, girlish fashion the
Duchess, who was listening with an interest and animation she had not shown
for many days.
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The Innocent was holding
forth, apparently with equal effect, to Mr. Oakhurst and Mother Shipton, who
was actually relaxing into amiability. “Is this yer a d—d picnic?” said Uncle
Billy, with inward scorn, as he surveyed the sylvan group, the glancing
firelight, and the tethered animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea
mingled with the alcoholic fumes that disturbed his brain. It was apparently
of a jocular nature, for he felt impelled to slap his leg again and cram his
fist into his mouth.
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As the shadows crept
slowly up the mountain, a slight breeze rocked the tops of the pine-trees,
and moaned through their long and gloomy aisles. The ruined cabin, patched
and covered with pine-boughs, was set apart for the ladies. As the lovers
parted, they unaffectedly exchanged a kiss, so honest and sincere that it
might have been heard above the swaying pines. The frail Duchess and the
malevolent Mother Shipton were probably too stunned to remark upon this last
evidence of simplicity, and so turned without a word to the hut. The fire was
replenished, the men lay down before the door, and in a few minutes were
asleep.
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Mr. Oakhurst was a
light sleeper. Toward morning he awoke benumbed and cold. As he stirred the
dying fire, the wind, which was now blowing strongly, brought to his cheek
that which caused the blood to leave it,—snow!
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He started to his feet
with the intention of awakening the sleepers, for there was no time to lose.
But turning to where Uncle Billy had been lying, he found him gone. A
suspicion leaped to his brain and a curse to his lips. He ran to the spot
where the mules had been tethered; they were no longer there. The tracks were
already rapidly disappearing in the snow.
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The momentary
excitement brought Mr. Oakhurst back to the fire with his usual calm. He did
not waken the sleepers. The Innocent slumbered peacefully, with a smile on
his good-humored, freckled face; the virgin Piney slept beside her frailer
sisters as sweetly as though attended by celestial guardians, and Mr. Oakhurst,
drawing his blanket over his shoulders, stroked his mustaches and waited for
the dawn. It came slowly in a whirling mist of snow-flakes, that dazzled and
confused the eye. What could be seen of the landscape appeared magically
changed. He looked over the valley, and summed up the present and future in
two words,—“snowed in!” A careful inventory of the provisions, which,
fortunately for the party, had been stored within the hut, and so escaped the
felonious fingers of Uncle Billy, disclosed the fact that with care and
prudence they might last ten days longer. “That is,” said Mr. Oakhurst, sotto
voce to the Innocent, “if you’re willing to board us. If you
ain’t—and perhaps you’d better not—you can wait till Uncle Billy gets back
with provisions.” For some occult reason, Mr. Oakhurst could not bring
himself to disclose Uncle Billy’s rascality, and so offered the hypothesis
that he had wandered from the camp and had accidentally stampeded the
animals. He dropped a warning to the Duchess and Mother Shipton, who of
course knew the facts of their associate’s defection. “They’ll find out the
truth about us all when they find out anything,” he added,
significantly, “and there’s no good frightening them now.”
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Tom Simson not only
put all his worldly store at the disposal of Mr. Oakhurst, but seemed to
enjoy the prospect of their enforced seclusion. “We’ll have a good camp for a
week, and then the snow’ll melt, and we’ll all go back together.” The cheerful
gayety of the young man, and Mr. Oakhurst’s calm infected the others. The
Innocent, with the aid of pine-boughs, extemporized a thatch for the roofless
cabin, and the Duchess directed Piney in the rearrangement of the interior
with a taste and tact that opened the blue eyes of that provincial maiden to
their fullest extent. “I reckon now you’re used to fine things at Poker
Flat,” said Piney. The Duchess turned away sharply to conceal something that
reddened her cheeks through its professional tint, and Mother Shipton
requested Piney not to “chatter.” But when Mr. Oakhurst returned from a weary
search for the trail, he heard the sound of happy laughter echoed from the
rocks. He stopped in some alarm, and his thoughts first naturally reverted to
the whiskey, which he had prudently cachéd. “And yet it
don’t somehow sound like whiskey,” said the gambler. It was not until he
caught sight of the blazing fire through the still-blinding storm and the
group around it that he settled to the conviction that it was “square fun.”
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Whether Mr. Oakhurst
had cachéd his cards with the whiskey as something debarred
the free access of the community, I cannot say. It was certain that, in
Mother Shipton’s words, he “didn’t say cards once” during that evening. Haply
the time was beguiled by an accordion, produced somewhat ostentatiously by
Tom Simson from his pack. Notwithstanding some difficulties attending the
manipulation of this instrument, Piney Woods managed to pluck several
reluctant melodies from its keys, to an accompaniment by the Innocent on a
pair of bone castinets. But the crowning festivity of the evening was reached
in a rude campmeeting hymn, which the lovers, joining hands, sang with great
earnestness and vociferation. I fear that a certain defiant tone and Covenanter’s
swing to its chorus, rather than any devotional quality, caused it speedily
to infect the others, who at last joined in the refrain:—
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The pines rocked, the
storm eddied and whirled above the miserable group, and the flames of their
altar leaped heavenward, as if in token of the vow.
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At midnight the storm
abated, the rolling clouds parted, and the stars glittered keenly above the
sleeping camp. Mr. Oakhurst, whose professional habits had enabled him to
live on the smallest possible amount of sleep, in dividing the watch with Tom
Simson, somehow managed to take upon himself the greater part of that duty.
He excused himself to the Innocent, by saying that he had “often been a week
without sleep.” “Doing what?” asked Tom. “Poker!” replied Oakhurst,
sententiously; “when a man gets a streak of luck,—nigger-luck,—he don’t get
tired. The luck gives in first. Luck,” continued the gambler, reflectively,
“is a mighty queer thing. All you know about it for certain is that it’s
bound to change. And it’s finding out when it’s going to change that makes
you. We’ve had a streak of bad luck since we left Poker Flat,—you come along,
and slap you get into it, too. If you can hold your cards right along you’re
all right. For,” added the gambler, with cheerful irrelevance,—
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The third day came,
and the sun, looking through the white-curtained valley, saw the outcasts
divide their slowly decreasing store of provisions for the morning meal. It
was one of the peculiarities of that mountain climate that its rays diffused
a kindly warmth over the wintry landscape, as if in regretful commiseration
of the past. But it revealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the
hut,—a hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below the rocky
shores to which the castaways still clung. Through the marvellously clear air
the smoke of the pastoral village of Poker Flat rose miles away. Mother
Shipton saw it, and from a remote pinnacle of her rocky fastness, hurled in
that direction a final malediction. It was her last vituperative attempt, and
perhaps for that reason was invested with a certain degree of sublimity. It
did her good she privately informed the Duchess. “Just you go out there and
cuss, and see.” She then set herself to the task of amusing “the child,” as
she and the Duchess were pleased to call Piney. Piney was no chicken, but it
was a soothing and original theory of the pair thus to account for the fact
that she didn’t swear and wasn’t improper.
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When night crept up
again through the gorges, the reedy notes of the accordion rose and fell in
fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by the flickering camp-fire. But music
failed to fill entirely the aching void left by insufficient food, and a new
diversion was proposed by Piney,—story-telling. Neither Mr. Oakhurst nor his
female companions caring to relate their personal experiences, this plan
would have failed, too, but for the Innocent. Some months before he had
chanced upon a stray copy of Mr. Pope’s ingenius translation of the Iliad. He
now proposed to narrate the principal incidents of that poem—having
thoroughly mastered the argument and fairly forgotten the words—in the
current vernacular of Sandy Bar. And so for the rest of that night the
Homeric demigods again walked the earth. Trojan bully and wily Greek wrestled
in the winds, and the great pines in the cañon seemed to bow to the wrath of
the son of Peleus. Mr. Oakhurst listened with quiet satisfaction. Most
especially was he interested in the fate of “Ash-heels,” as the Innocent
persisted in denominating the “swift-footed Achilles.”
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So with small food and
much of Homer and the accordion, a week passed over the heads of the
outcasts. The sun again forsook them, and again from leaden skies the
snow-flakes were sifted over the land. Day by day closer around them drew the
snowy circle, until at last they looked from their prison over drifted walls
of dazzling white, that towered twenty feet above their heads. It became more
and more difficult to replenish their fires, even from the fallen trees
beside them, now half hidden in the drifts. And yet no one complained. The
lovers turned from the dreary prospect and looked into each other’s eyes, and
were happy. Mr. Oakhurst settled himself coolly to the losing game before
him. The Duchess, more cheerful than she had been, assumed the care of Piney.
Only Mother Shipton—once the strongest of the party—seemed to sicken and
fade. At midnight on the tenth day she called Oakhurst to her side. “I’m
going,” she said, in a voice of querulous weakness, “but don’t say anything
about it. Don’t waken the kids. Take the bundle from under my head and open
it.” Mr. Oakhurst did so. It contained Mother Shipton’s rations for the last
week, untouched. “Give ’em to the child,” she said, pointing to the sleeping
Piney. “You’ve starved yourself,” said the gambler. “That’s what they call
it,” said the woman, querulously, as she lay down again, and, turning her
face to the wall, passed quietly away.
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The accordion and the
bones were put aside that day, and Homer was forgotten. When the body of
Mother Shipton had been committed to the snow, Mr. Oakhurst took the Innocent
aside, and showed him a pair of snow-shoes, which he had fashioned from the
old pack-saddle. “There ’s one chance in a hundred to save her yet,” he said,
pointing to Piney; “but it’s there,” he added, pointing toward Poker Flat.
“If you can reach there in two days she’s safe.” “And you?” asked Tom Simson.
“I’ll stay here,” was the curt reply.
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The lovers parted with
a long embrace. “You are not going, too?” said the Duchess, as she saw Mr.
Oakhurst apparently waiting to accompany him. “As far as the cañon,” he
replied. He turned suddenly, and kissed the Duchess, leaving her pallid face
aflame, and her trembling limbs rigid with amazement.
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Night came, but not
Mr. Oakhurst. It brought the storm again and the whirling snow. Then the
Duchess, feeding the fire, found that some one had quietly piled beside the
but enough fuel to last a few days longer. The tears rose to her eyes, but
she hid them from Piney.
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The women slept but
little. In the morning, looking into each other’s faces, they read their
fate. Neither spoke; but Piney, accepting the position of the stronger, drew
near and placed her arm around the Duchess’s waist. They kept this attitude
for the rest of the day. That night the storm reached its greatest fury, and,
rending asunder the protecting pines, invaded the very hut.
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Toward morning they
found themselves unable to feed the fire, which gradually died away. As the
embers slowly blackened, the Duchess crept closer to Piney, and broke the
silence of many hours: “Piney, can you pray?” “No, dear,” said Piney, simply.
The Duchess, without knowing exactly why, felt relieved, and, putting her
head upon Piney’s shoulder, spoke no more. And so reclining, the younger and
purer pillowing the head of her soiled sister upon her virgin breast, they
fell asleep.
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The wind lulled as if
it feared to waken them. Feathery drifts of snow, shaken from the long
pine-boughs, flew like white-winged birds, and settled about them as they
slept. The moon through the rifted clouds looked down upon what had been the
camp. But all human stain, all trace of earthly travail, was hidden beneath
the spotless mantle mercifully flung from above.
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They slept all that day
and the next, nor did they waken when voices and footsteps broke the silence
of the camp. And when pitying fingers brushed the snow from their wan faces,
you could scarcely have told from the equal peace that dwelt upon them, which
was she that had sinned. Even the law of Poker Flat recognized this, and
turned away, leaving them still locked in each other’s arms.
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But at the head of the
gulch, on one of the largest pinetrees, they found the deuce of clubs pinned
to the bark with a bowie-knife. It bore the following, written in pencil, in
a firm hand:—
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Name_____________________________ Short Graphic organizer
Accompanying organizer for Bret Harte’s short story “The
Outcasts of Poker Flat”
Please complete the following:
1. Name of character Textual descriptors
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2.
Write 6 scenic details associated with the old
West from the text
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3.
List two possible controlling ideas or themes
that are applicable to the story
_____________________________
________________________________
4.
List three literary techniques or rhetorical
devices that used to develop the themes
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
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Vocabulary- for "The Outcasts" quiz on Thursday, February 1
1 1. promiscuous- (adj) a person having many transient relationships
2. garret- (noun)attic room
3. slovenliness-(adj) marked by negligence
4. cupidity- (noun) greed
5. maxim-(noun) saying
6. to augur- to portend or foretell
7. rumpus- noisy disturbance or commotion
8. perambulate- to walk
9. hegira - a flight to escape danger
10. turpitude- moral depravity
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