BRET HARTE'S PIONEER DIALECT
Occasionally Bret Harte uses an archaic word, not because it is archaic,
but because it expresses his meaning better than any other, or gives the
needed stimulus to the imagination of the reader. Thus, in _A First Family
of Tasajara_ we read that "the former daughters of Sion were there,
_burgeoning_ and expanding in the glare of their new prosperity with
silver and gold."
Often, of course, the employment of an archaic expression confers upon the
speaker that air of quaintness which the author wishes to convey.
Johnson's Old Woman, for example, "'Lowed she'd use a doctor, ef I'd fetch
him." The verb to _use_, in this sense, may still be heard in some parts
of New England as well as in the West. "I never use sugar in my tea" is a
familiar example.
Many other words which Bret Harte's Pioneer people employ are still in
service among old-fashioned country folk, although they have long since
passed out of literature, and are never heard in cities. Thus Salomy Jane
was accused by her father of "honeyfoglin' with a hoss-thief"; and the
blacksmith's small boy spoke of Louise Macy as "philanderin'" with Captain
Greyson. These good old English words are still used in the West and
South. In the same category is "'twixt" for between. Dick Spindler spoke
of "this yer peace and good-will 'twixt man and man." "Far" in the sense
of distant is another example: "The far barn near the boundary."
"Mannerly" in the sense of well-mannered has the authority of Shakspere
and of Abner Nott in _A Ship of '49_.
One of Bret Harte's Western girls speaks of hunting for the plant known
as "Old Man" (southernwood), because she wanted it for "smellidge."
"Smellidge" has the appearance of being a good word, and it was formerly
used in New England and the West, but it is excluded from modern
dictionaries.
Some expressions which might be regarded as original with Bret Harte were
really Pioneer terms of Western or Southern use. "Johnson's Old Woman,"
for "Johnson's wife" was the ordinary phrase in Missouri, Indiana,
Alabama, and doubtless all over the West and South. Thus a Missouri farmer
is quoted as saying: "My old woman is nineteen years old to-day." "You
know fust-rate she's dead" is another quaint expression used by Bret
Harte, but not invented by him, for this use of "fust-rate" in the sense
of very well was not uncommon in the West. In the poem called _Jim_, there
are two or three words which the casual reader might suppose to be
inventions of the poet.
What makes you star',
You over thar?
Can't a man drop
'S glass in yer shop
But you must r'ar?
This use of r'ar or rear, meaning to become angry, to rave, was frequent
in Arkansas and Indiana, if not elsewhere.
The next stanza runs:--
Dead!
Poor--little--Jim!
Why, thar was me,
Jones, and Bob Lee,
Harry and Ben,--
No-account men:
Then to take _him_!
"No-account" in this sense was a common Western term; and so was "ornery,"
from ordinary, meaning inferior, which occurs in the next and final
stanza.
When Richelieu Sharpe excused himself for wearing his best "pants" on the
ground that his old ones had "fetched away in the laig," he was amply
justified by the dialect of his place and time. So when little Johnny
Medliker complained of the parson that "he hez been nigh onter pullin' off
my arm," he used the current Illinois equivalent for "nearly." Mr. Hays'
direction to his daughter, "Ye kin put some things in my carpet-bag agin
the time when the sled comes round," was also strictly in the vernacular.
No verbal error is more common than that of using superfluous
prepositions. "To feed up the horses," for instance, may still be heard
almost anywhere in rural New England. On the same principle, Mr. Saunders,
in _The Transformation of Buckeye Camp_, ruefully admits that he and his
companion were thrown out of the saloon, "with two shots into us, like
hounds ez we were." This substitution of into for in, though common in the
West, is probably now extinct in the Eastern States; but a purist, writing
in the year 1814, quoted the following use as current at that time in New
York: "I have the rheumatism into my knees."
A few words were taken by the Pioneers from the Spanish. "Savey," a
corruption of _sabe_, was one of these, and Bret Harte employed it.
"Hedn't no savey, hed Briggs."
The wealth of dialect in Bret Harte's stories is not strange, considering
that it was culled from Pioneers who represented every part of the
country. But, it may be asked, how could there be such a thing as a
California dialect:--all the Pioneers could not have learned to talk
alike, coming as they did from every State in the Union! The answer is,
first, that, in the main, the dialect of the different States was the
same, being derived chiefly from the same source, that is, from England,
directly or indirectly; and, secondly, the dialect of what we now call
the Middle West--of Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois--tended to
predominate on the Pacific Slope, because the Pioneers from that part of
the country were in the majority. It is almost impossible to find a
dialect word used in one Western State, and not in another.
There are, however, some Western, and more especially some Southern words
which never became domiciled in New England. The word allow or 'low, in
the sense of declare or state, is one of these, and Bret Harte often used
it. "Then she _'lowed_ I'd better git up and git, and shet the door to.
Then I _'lowed_ she might tell me what was up--through the door."
And here is another example:--
"Rowley Meade--him ez hed his skelp pulled over his eyes at one stroke,
foolin' with a she-bear over on Black Mountain--_allows_ it would be
rather monotonous in him attemptin' any familiarities with her."
("Rowley Meade," by the way, is an example of Bret Harte's felicity in the
choice of names. No common fate could be reserved for one bearing a name
like that.)
Lowell employs the word allow in its corrupted sense in the "Biglow
Papers"; but he adds in a footnote that it was a use not of New England,
but of the Southern and Middle States; and to prove the antiquity of the
corruption he cites an instance of it in Hakluyt under the date of 1558.
"Cahoots" is another example. When the warlike Jim Hooker said to
Clarence, "Young fel, you and me are cahoots in this thing," he was using
a common Western expression derived remotely from the old English word
cahoot, signifying a company or partnership, but not known, it is
believed, in New England.
"When we rose the hill," "put to" (_i. e._ harness) the horse, "cavortin'
round here in the dew," and "What yer yawpin' at ther'?" are found in
almost every State, East or West. But "I ain't kicked a fut sens I left
Mizzouri" is a Southern expression. "Blue mange" for _blanc mange_ is
probably original with Bret Harte.
One of Bret Harte's most effective dialect words is "gait" in the sense of
habit, or manner. "He never sat down to a square meal but what he said,
'If old Uncle Quince was only here now, boys, I'd die happy.' I leave it
to you, gentlemen, if that wasn't Jackson Wells's gait all the time." And
Rupert Filgee, impatient at Uncle Ben Dabney's destructive use of pens,
exclaimed, "Look here, what you want ain't a pen, but a clothes-pin and
split nail! That'll about jibe with your dilikit gait."
"Gait" is a very old term in thieves' lingo, meaning occupation or
calling, from which the transition to "habit" is easy; and it is
interesting to observe that in one place Bret Harte uses the word in a
sense which is about half-way between the two meanings. Thus, when Mr.
McKinstry was severely wounded in the duel, he apologized for requesting
the attendance of a physician by saying, "I don't gin'rally use a doctor,
but this yer is suthin' outside the old woman's regular gait." Bret
Harte's adoption of the word as a Pioneer expression is confirmed by
Richard Malcolm Johnston, the recognized authority on Georgia dialect, for
he makes one of his characters say:--
"After she got married, seem like he got more and more restless and
fidgety in his mind, and in his gaits in general."
The ridiculous charge has been made that Bret Harte's dialect is not
Californian or even American, but is simply cockney English. The only
reason ever given for this statement is that Bret Harte uses the word
"which" in its cockney sense, and that this use was never known in
America.
Which I wish to remark,
And my language is plain,
is the most familiar instance, and others might be cited. Thus, in _Mr.
Thompson's Prodigal_ we have this dialogue between the father of the
prodigal and a grave-digger:--
"'Did you ever in your profession come across Char-les Thompson?'
"'Thompson be damned,' said the grave-digger, with great directness.
"'Which, if he hadn't religion, I think he is,' responded the old man."
This use of "which" is indeed now identified with the London cockney, but
it may still be heard in the eastern counties of England, whence, no
doubt, it was imported to this country. Though far from common in the
United States, it is used, according to the authorities cited below, in
the mountainous parts of Virginia,[110] in West Virginia,[111] in the
mountain regions of Kentucky,[112] especially in Eastern Kentucky,[113]
and in the western part of Arkansas.[114]
Professor Edward A. Allen of the University of Missouri says that this use
of "which" is "not Southern, but Western."
Moreover, upon this point also we can cite the authority of Richard
Malcolm Johnston, for the cockney use of "which" frequently occurs in his
tales of Middle Georgia; as, for instance, in these sentences:--
"And which I wouldn't have done that nohow in the world ef it could be
hendered."
"Which a man like you that's got no wife."
"Howbeever, as your wife is Nancy Lary, which that she's the own dear
sister o' my wife."
"And which I haven't a single jubous doubt that, soon as the breath got
out o' her body, she went to mansion _in_ the sky same as a bow-'n'-arrer,
or even a rifle-bullet."
Another authority on this point is the well-known writer of stories,
Alfred Henry Lewis, a native of Arkansas. In his tales we find these
expressions:--
"Which his baptismal name is Lafe."
"Which if these is your manners."
"Which, undoubted, the barkeeps is the hardest-worked folks in camp."
"Which it is some late for night before last, but it's jest the shank of
the evening for to-night."
No writer ever knew Virginia better than did the late George W. Bagby, and
he attributes the cockney "which" to a backwoodsman from Charlotte County
in that State. "And what is this part of the country called? Has it any
particular name?"
"To be sho. Right here is Brilses, _which_ it is a presink; but this here
ridge ar' called 'Verjunce Ridge.'"
Mark Twain's authority on a matter of Western dialect will hardly be
questioned, and this same use of "which" is not infrequent in his stories.
Here, for instance, is an example from "Tom Sawyer": "We said it was
Parson Silas, and we judged he had found Sam Cooper drunk in the road,
which he was always trying to reform him." Finally, that well-known
Pioneer, Mr. Warren Cheney, an early contributor to the "Overland,"
testifies that "which" as thus used "is perfectly good Pike."[115]
The rather astonishing fact is that Bret Harte uses dialect words and
phrases to the number, roughly estimated, of three hundred, and a hasty
investigation has served to identify all but a few of these as legitimate
Pioneer expressions. A more thorough search would no doubt account
satisfactorily for every one of them.
However, that dialect should be authentic is not so important as that it
should be interesting. Many story-writers report dialect in a correct and
conscientious form, but it wearies the reader. Dialect to be interesting
must be the vehicle of humor, and the great masters of dialect, such as
Thackeray and Sir Walter Scott, are also masters of humor. Bret Harte had
the same gift, and he showed it, as we have seen, not only in Pioneer
speech, but also in the Spanish-American dialect of Enriquez Saltello and
his charming sister, in the Scotch dialect of Mr. Callender, in the French
dialect of the innkeeper who entertained Alkali Dick, and in the German
dialect of Peter Schroeder. For one thing, a too exact reproduction of
dialect almost always has a misleading and awkward effect. The written
word is not the same as the spoken word, and the constant repetition of a
sound which would hardly be noticed in speech becomes unduly prominent and
wearisome if put before our eyes in print. In the following passage it
will be seen how Bret Harte avoids the too frequent occurrence of "ye"
(which Tinka Gallinger probably used) by alternating it with "you":--
"'No! no! ye shan't go--ye mustn't go,' she said, with hysterical
intensity. 'I want to tell ye something! Listen!--you--you--Mr. Fleming!
I've been a wicked, wicked girl! I've told lies to dad--to mammy--to you!
I've borne false witness--I'm worse than Sapphira--I've acted a big lie.
Oh, Mr. Fleming, I've made you come back here for nothing! Ye didn't find
no gold the other day. There wasn't any. It was all me! I--I--_salted that
pan_!'"
Bret Harte's writings offer a wide field for the study of what might be
called the psychological aspect of dialect, especially so far as it
relates to pronunciation. What governs the dialect of any time and place?
Is it purely accidental that the London cockney says "piper" instead of
paper, and that the Western Pioneer says "b'ar" for bear,--or does some
inner necessity determine, or partly determine, these departures from the
standard pronunciation? This, however, is a subject which lies far beyond
our present scope. Suffice it to say that it would be difficult to
convince the reader of Bret Harte that there is not some inevitable
harmony between his characters and the dialect or other language which
they employ. Who, for example, would hesitate to assign to Yuba Bill, and
to none other, this remark: "I knew the partikler style of damn fool that
you was, and expected no better."