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, rather slight of figure, with strongly marked features and an aquiline nose.  He seemed clever rather than forcible, and presented a pathetic figure as of one who had gained no foothold on success.  He had a very pleasant voice and a modest manner, and never talked of himself.  He was always the gentleman, exemplary as to habits, courteous and good-natured, but a trifle aristocratic in bearing.  He was dressed in good taste, but was evidently in need of income.  He was willing to do anything, but with little ability to help himself.  He was simply untrained for doing anything that needed doing in that community.

He found occasional work in the drugstore, and for a time he had a small private school.  His surviving pupils speak warmly of his sympathy and kindness.  He had little mechanical ability.  I recall seeing him try to build a fence one morning.  He bravely dug postholes, but they were pretty poor, and the completed fence was not so very straight.  He was genial and uncomplaining, and he made a few good friends.  He was an agreeable guest, and at our house was fond of a game of whist.  He was often facetious, with a neatness that was characteristic.  One day, on a stroll, we passed a very primitive new house that was wholly destitute of all ornaments or trimming, even without eaves.  It seemed modeled after a packing-box.  “That,” he remarked, “must be of the Iowan order of architecture.”