Lord! how the hot sun went for us, And br’iled and blistered and burned! How the Rebel bullets whizzed round us When a cuss in his death-grip turned! Till along toward dusk I seen a thing I couldn’t believe for a spell: That nigger—that Tim—was a crawlin’ to me Through that fire-proof, gilt-edged hell! The Rebels seen him as quick as me, And the bullets buzzed like bees; But he jumped for me, and shouldered me, Though a shot brought him once to his knees; But he staggered up, and packed me off, With a dozen stumbles and falls, Till safe in our lines he drapped us both, His black hide riddled with balls.
So, my gentle gazelles, thar’s my answer, And here stays Banty Tim: He trumped Death’s ace for me that day, And I’m not goin’ back on him! You may rezoloot till the cows come home, But ef one of you tetches the boy, He’ll wrastle his hash to-night in hell, Or my name’s not Tilmon Joy!
(Francis) Bret Harte was born August 25, 1839, at Albany, New York. His childhood was spent in various cities of the East. Late in 1853 his widowed mother went to California with a party of relatives, and two months later, when he was fifteen, Bret Harte and his sister followed. He dreamed even at this age of being a poet. During the next few years he was engaged in school-teaching, typesetting, politics, mining and journalism, becoming editor of _The Overland Monthly_ at San Francisco in 1868.
Harte’s fame came suddenly. Late in the sixties he had written a burlesque in rhyme of two Western gamblers trying to fleece a guileless Chinaman who claimed to know nothing about cards but who, it turned out, was scarcely as innocent as he appeared. Harte, in the midst of writing serious poetry, had put the verses aside as too crude and trifling for publication. Some time later, just as _The Overland Monthly_ was going to press, it was discovered that the form was one page short. Having nothing else on hand, Harte had these rhymes set up. Instead of passing unnoticed, the poem was quoted everywhere; it swept the West and captivated the East. When _The Luck of Roaring Camp_ followed, Harte became not only a national but an international figure. England acclaimed him and _The Atlantic Monthly_ paid him $10,000 to write for a year in his Pike County vein.