"JIM" GILLIS.

 

            A FORTY-NINER was Jim -- one of the typical ones. From Mississippi, I believe ; a brother of our Stevie Gillis of the Enterprise, in Virginia City. Stevie was younger and came to the coast later. Stevie's first venture was to go from San Francisco to Oregon, about 1858, with Long Primer Hall, and start a secession newspaper. I believe only one edition was published. How Stevie got back to San Francisco I never learned. I asked him once how long his paper lasted. His reply was : "Not very long, but at one time I thought it was liable to outlast me." On returning to San Francisco and, dressed in his best, he went a few clays later to the polls to vote. There was no registration in those days. Almost everybody voted. But on this occasion a big fellow, a Democrat, challenged his vote. Stevie was a little man, his opponent a big one, but the trouble began at once. Instead of stopping the battle, the crowd gathered around the two and began to make wagers on the outcome. Stevie walked home, but did not appear for three or four days. His opponent was carried home and was in retirement for two weeks. When Stevie did appear he came out an intense Republican.

            I asked him what caused the change in his political views, reminding him that the man had a perfect right to challenge him. 'Why, the blankety blank blank drove a scavenger wagon, and I would no longer belong to a party that employed such an agent," was his reply.

            Well, Jim was Stevie's elder brother. When he reached California he went prospecting, and early in the fifties found a placer mine up in Tuolumne country, and bought or pre- empted a cabin that had been built in '49. I said cabin, but it was really a house, or it was when I saw it I suspect that Gillis had made one end of the original '49 cabin a home station and extended it.

            It was a typical '49 house, a board house, set on upright posts, which raised it some twelve inches above the ground.

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            I spent a couple of days and nights in it in the early eighties, and it was well preserved ; the rooms most ingeniously arranged and well furnished.

            I carried a letter from Stevie and was cordially welcomed by Jim. A few minutes later two or three fine dogs came in and introduced themselves and seemed to be trying to convince me that they were glad I had come.

            A little later there was a great commotion under the house, and Gillis explained that his dogs and rabbits were having their usual romp before retiring for the night.

            I asked him if the dogs and rabbits were on friendly terms and he answered, "Oh, yes ; they grew up together and have been running mates all their lives."

            Of course, the placer had been worked out early, but in the meantime Gillis had found a quartz mine near and had been working it in a primitive way several years when I visited him.

            It was what miners call a pockety mine, little bodies of ore interspersed in other bodies that were valueless. When a body of ore was found Gillis was in bonanza and picked up some- times a few hundred, sometimes a few thousand dollars rapidly.

            About once a year he went to San Francisco on a visit ; as he said, "to see the fashions and buy some more books." He had many a rare volume; read them all and knew their substance and was bold enough to dispute any proposition that he found in them where he thought the author had failed in either principle, consistency or logic.

            And he had a way of excusing the authors, explaining that when they wrote they had thought out only half their theme.

            This was intensely interesting, for while talking he seemed unconscious of the fact that he unwittingly was giving away the other fact that he had explored the same theme to its source.

            After dinner on that first clay he asked me to go with him to see his garden.

            He had fenced off about three acres under a big spring and planted a garden.

92 AS I REMEMBER THEM.

            He had a few vegetables, a good deal of fruit and a world of flowers. Along the line of one fence he had planted a great variety of berries, and the bushes were, perhaps, five feet in height.

            Suddenly he stopped in his walk and asked me if I had ever seen a mountain quail on her nest.

            I replied that I had not, and that I had always understood they were untamable. "Oh," said he; "they don't care any- thing about me." With that he went to a near-by shrub, parted the branches with both hands and there, not a foot from his hands, not sixteen inches from his face, a mother quail sat serenely on her nest, looking confidently up into his face, without one symptom of fear.

            A beautiful Gordon setter dog squatted beside him, looking on placidly, showing that he understood that the quail was one of the family and must not be disturbed.

            The cabin was in the big pines, the mountains rose like temples in the background and far away to the east, across the range, the setting sun was turning to purple the crest of Mount Bodie.

            I did not ask him if he was ever lonely, for I knew that he was not. He had his books, his daily papers, his dogs, his rabbits, his birds and his flowers ; his mine, which he worked a little daily, and the murmur of the breeze in the big pines to go to sleep by.

            There was nothing of the hermit's exclusiveness about the place. There were no locks on the doors or the cupboard, all passers-by were welcome and moreover, he was an authority in that region. People brought their troubles and differences to him for advice or adjustment and there were no appeals from his decisions.

            Then, too, though living there alone, he was fully abreast of all current events, as given day by day through the news- papers, and would drop shrewd remarks as he discussed them. If there was a trace of bitterness or prejudice in his soul, he kept it hid.

            On the first night we sat up late discussing all manner of subjects. The conversation finally turned to the writers on

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the coast and to those who had made good. I mentioned the name of Bret Harte, when Gillis said : ; 'Bret Harte is an unpleasant memory to me. He came here once, ragged and hungry, and with that despair upon him which often attends upon genius when every door seems closed and there is no practical talent to forge out an independent path. He remained here a week, and when he was leaving I gave him $50 and told him that the mountains offered him nothing to go to San Francisco and try, that he could forge out a place for himself among the newspapers.

            "Some months later I went to San Francisco. In the meantime Harte had become famous, was at the head of a prosperous journal and praise of his genius was heard every- where.

            "I was sincerely glad and went to his office to congratulate him. He received me very stiffly and coldly and showed very plainly that he was bored by my presence. I was not dressed like a bridegroom and my hands had not been manicured that day.

            "I retired in as good order as I could and all that night was thinking what a deuce of a fraud this old world is.

            "But next day I went back to the newspaper office, walked straight into the presence of Harte and said to him, "I would like that fifty dollars which you got from me, Mr. Harte."

            "He touched a bell, a messenger came, to whom he said, 'Please tell Mr. - - to send me a check for fifty dollars. The messenger soon returned and handed him the check. He endorsed it and handed it to me. I took it and said, "Don't misunderstand me, Mr. Harte ; I was glad to give you that money. I have been glad every time I have thought of it since, thinking that it was a real favor to you. I did not loan it to you. I gave it to you, marking it off my books. I have rejoiced to hear of your success since, and came here yesterday for no purpose except to congratulate you. Your reception changed my mind in some respects.

            'Before I fell asleep last night my soul was saying to me: '"Gillis, is it true that you permitted a dirty scrub to get the

94 AS I REMEMBER THEM.

best of you ?' That is why I came back this morning. We are even now. Good morning, sir."

            The Cabin of Gillis was three miles from Tuttletown. To catch the stage one had to be there at 6 a. m.

            I wanted to go the previous evening, but Gillis said there no hotels worth the name, that he would wake me in time in the morning. So at 3 :30 a. m. I was up, had breakfast and was ready to start. Gillis put on his hat and said : 'The woods are full of trails. You might take a wrong one, besides I want my mail. I will show you the way."

            It was in the late summer and there was no light but the stars, as we took the trail. Gillis strode on in advance on the trail, talking pleasantly until a flash of light shot upward in the east, the first light of the dawn and a bird off through the mighty forest sounded her call.

            Gillis forgot me in a moment, and answered the bird's good morning with a cheery response, calling the singer by name and praising her for being the first bird to awake.

            An instant later from another direction came the second hail from an awakening bird, and Gillis responded, calling her by name, then the calls came oftener and oftener and Gillis named each one, praising some, chiding others, calling others hypocrites for pretending to be early birds. He upbraided the lark for the false reputation she claimed as the first to hail the dawn ; cautioned the mourning clove not to take so sad a view of things considering who her mate was, called the owl, the burglar of the woods going home with his mournful "too who," as though he had merely been out visiting friends, when in truth he had been raiding the woods for field mice all night.

            All this went on until the stars melted away, the shadows fled from the deep woods, the full dawn turned the forest to emerald and gold and the air was resonant with music from the full orchestra of the birds.

            Poor Jim, he has passed on, but if in Summer land there are no birds, no flowers, no music, there is one spirit there sorrowing that it cannot get back to the old cabin in Tuolumne county, where the air is soft, where the flowers bloom and the birds sing all the day long.