on his sleeve-"you see it's sort of rough on his pardner. And now, gentlemen," he added abruptly, picking up his long-handled shovel, "the fun'l's over; and my thanks, and Tennessee's thanks, to you for your trouble."

Resisting any proffers of assistance, he began to fill in the grave, turning his back upon the crowd, which after a few moments' hesitation gradually withdrew. As they crossed the little ridge that hid Sandy Bar from view, some, looking back, thought they could see Tennessee's Partner, his work done, sitting upon the grave, his shovel between his knees, and his face buried in his red bandana handkerchief. But it was argued by others that you couldn't tell his face from his handkerchief at that distance, and this point remained undecided.

In the reaction that followed the feverish excitement of that day, Tennessee's Partner was not forgotten. A secret investigation had cleared him of any 'complicity in Tennessee's guilt, and left only a suspicion of his general sanity. Sandy Bar made a point of calling on him and proffering various uncouth but well-meant kindnesses. But from that day his rude health and great strength seemed visibly to decline; and when the rainy season fairly set in, and the tiny grass-blades were beginning to peep from the rocky mound above Tennessee's grave, he took to his bed.

One night, when the pines beside the cabin were swaying in the storm and trailing their slender fingers over the roof, and the roar and rush of the swollen river were heard

below, Tennessee's Partner lifted his head from the pillow, saying, "It is time to go for Tennessee; I must put Jinny in the cart;" and would have risen from his bed but for the restraint of his attendant. Struggling, he still pursued his singular fancy: "There, now, steady, Jinny

steady, old girl. How dark it is! Look out for the ruts - and look out for him, too, old gal. Sometimes, you know, when he's blind drunk, he drops down right in the trail. Keep on straight up to the pine on the top of the hill. Thar! I told you so! - thar he is coming this way, too - all by himself, sober, and his face a-shining. Tennessee! Pardner!"

And so they met.

BRET HARTE.

NOTES

The main interest in this story is not in the plot, which is simple, but in the characters, and, particularly, in the setting. Bret Harte made his fame by introducing to the world the then unknown life of the Western mining-camps. California at that time was not an orderly country, with a regular government, but an assemblage of mining-camps where such law as there was was administered by the miners themselves. It was a strange life, and Harte's accounts of it at once brought him prominence as a writer. The author is skillful in blending pathos and humor into the setting of the California of long ago.

The plot of the story concerns the trial and execution of a robber by a community of gold-miners. All grave crimes were punished then by lynching after a trial in which the accused man was pretty certain to be found guilty.

Observe the lack of ceremony in the mining-camps as described in "Tennessee's Partner." The life is exceedingly crude and rough; there are few women to lend refinement, and the miners live in tents and huts. The men, as might be expected from such a life, are hard, though capable of good feeling. They do not use ordinary names, but nicknames, like boys at school; their sole interest is gold-hunting; their homes are far away.

It is in such a setting that the simple action of the story takes place. The leading figure is the pathetic miner who has so little individuality that he is merely known as "Tennessee's Partner." In reality, he is a simple-minded being, ruled by love and loyalty. He makes a pathetic effort to save his friend, and when he fails, does the last sad offices for that friend. The story of "Tennessee's Partner "—of the simple, faithful, illiterate miner is one of the finest bits of American literature.

WORDS AND PHRASES

Weppings: Weapons.

Chaparral: A dense thicket of shrubs.

Two bowers and an ace : Terms used in the game of euchre, popular in the mining-camp.

Red Dog Clarion: Bret Harte gives his newspapers quaint and humorous names.

THE CHURCH WITH AN OVERSHOT WHEEL

Lakelands is not to be found in the catalogue of fashionable summer resorts. It lies on a low spur of the Cumberland range of mountains on a little tributary of the Clinch River. Lakelands proper is a contented village of two dozen houses situated on a forlorn, narrow-gauge railroad line. You wonder whether the railroad lost itself in the pine woods and ran into Lakelands from fright and loneliness, or whether Lakelands got lost and huddled itself along the railroad to wait for the cars to carry it home.

Half a mile from the village stands the Eagle House, a big, roomy old mansion run by Josiah Rankin for the accommodation of visitors who desire the mountain air at inexpensive rates. The Eagle House is delightfully mismanaged. It is full of ancient instead of modern improvements, and it is altogether as comfortably neglected and pleasingly disarranged as your own home. But you are furnished with clean rooms and good and abundant fare; yourself and the piny woods must do the rest. Nature has provided a mineral spring, grape-vine swings, and croquet even the wickets are wooden. You have art to thank only for the fiddle-and-guitar music twice a week at the hop in the rustic pavilion.

A quarter of a mile from the Eagle House was what would have been described to its guests as "an object of interest” in the catalogue, had the Eagle House issued a

catalogue. This was an old, old mill that was no longer a mill. In the words of Josiah Rankin, it was "the only church in the United States with an overshot-wheel; and the only mill in the world with pews and a pipe organ." The guests of the Eagle House attended the old mill church each Sabbath, and heard the preacher liken the purified Christian to bolted flour ground to usefulness between the millstones of experience and suffering.

Every year about the beginning of autumn there came to the Eagle House one Abram Strong, who remained for a time an honored and beloved guest. In Lakelands he was called "Father Abram," because his hair was so white, his face so strong and kind and florid, his laugh so merry, and his black clothes and broad hat so priestly in appearance.

Father Abram came a long way to Lakelands. He lived in a big, roaring town in the Northwest where he owned mills, not little mills with pews and an organ in them, but great, ugly, mountain-like mills that the freight trains crawled around all day like ants around an ant-heap. And now you must be told about Father Abram and the mill that was a church, for their stories run together.

In the days when the church was a mill, Abram Strong was the miller. There was no jollier, dustier, busier, happier miller in all the land than he. He lived in a little cottage across the road from the mill. His hand was heavy, but his toll was light, and the mountaineers brought their grain to him across many weary miles.