Bret Harte

“ The fact was that Polly, after the fashion of her sex, took it into her pretty head, against all consistency and logic, suddenly to make an exception to her general attitude toward mankind in favour of one individual. The reason-seeking masculine reader will rashly conclude that this individual was the cause as well as the object; but I am satisfied that every fair reader of these pages will instinctively know better. Miss Polly had simply selected the new guest, Mr. Starbuck, to show others, particularly Larry Hawkins, what she could do if she were inclined to be civil. ”

“ He had imparted the secret to Starbuck, another half-breed, son of a Yankee missionary and Hawaiian wife, who had evidently conceived this plan of seeking Buena Vista with an accomplice, and secretly removing such gold as was still accessible. The accomplice—afterwards identified by Harry as the wandering tramp—failed to discover the secret entrance from the garden, and Starbuck was consequently obliged to attempt it from the hotel—for which purpose he had introduced himself as a boarder—by opening the disused well secretly at night. ”

“ No one had ever known Polly to "fix up" for anybody, yet no one ever doubted the effect, if she had. No one had ever rebuked her charming petulance, or wished to.
Larry gave a weak, vague laugh. Colonel Swinger as ineffectively assumed a mock parental severity. "When you see two gentlemen, miss, discussin' politics together, it ain't behavin' like a lady to interrupt. Better run away and tidy yourself before the stage comes." ”

“ It was an advertisement, too, of the hotel and a promise of its future fortunes. "Gentlemen having propahty interests at the Gulch, sah, prefer to stay at Buena Vista with another man of propahty, than to trust to those new-fangled, papah-collared, gingerbread booths for traders that they call 'hotels' there," he had remarked to some of "the boys." In his preoccupation with the new guest he also became a little neglectful of his old chum and dependent, Larry Hawkins. ”

“ A few days after Raintree took it over, he was lookin' round the garden, which old Sobriente had always kept shut up agin strangers, and he finds a lot of dried-up 'slumgullion' [1] scattered all about the borders and beds, just as if the old man had been using it for fertilising. Well, Raintree ain't no fool; he allowed the old man wasn't one, either; and he knew that slumgullion wasn't worth no more than mud for any good it would do the garden. ”

“ This was more than the little heart-breaker of Buena Vista was accustomed to!
"Oh, Mister Starbuck!" she called in her laziest voice.
He turned almost impatiently.
"Since you're so civil and pressing, I thought I'd tell you I was just runnin' over to Aunt Chloe's," she said drily.
"I should think it was hardly the proper thing for a young lady to do at this time of night," he said superciliously. "But you know best—you know the people here."
Polly's cheeks and eyes flamed. "Yes, I reckon I do," she said crisply; "it's only a stranger here would think of being rude. Good-night, Mr. ”

“ When the boys were whoopin' up the place and finding the colour everywhere, and there was a hundred men working down there in the gulch, he was either ridin' round lookin' up the wild horses he owned, or sitten' with two or three lazy peons and Injins that was fed and looked arter by the priests. Gosh! now I think of it, it was mighty like you when you first kem here with your niggers. ”