The Luck of Roaring Camp

“Dissolute, abandoned, and irreclaimable, she was yet suffering a martyrdom hard enough to bear even when veiled by sympathizing womanhood, but now terrible in her loneliness. The primal curse had come to her in that original isolation which must have made the punishment of the first transgression so dreadful. It was, perhaps, part of the expiation of her sin that, at a moment when she most lacked her sex’s intuitive tenderness and care, she met only the half-contemptuous faces of her masculine associates.”

This description of Sal introduces two main themes of the story: Christian Redemption with its allusion to original sin and its punishment (“the primal curse”), and Gender Roles and Childrearing. The men are “half-contemptuous” of Sal and her suffering, reaffirming the men’s initial hypermasculinity.

“The assemblage numbered about a hundred men. One or two of these were actual fugitives from justice, some were criminal, and all were reckless. Physically they exhibited no indication of their past lives and character. The greatest scamp had a Raphael face, with a profusion of blonde hair; Oakhurst, a gambler, had the melancholy air and intellectual abstraction of a Hamlet; the coolest and most courageous man was scarcely over five feet in height, with a soft voice and an embarrassed, timid manner.”

The camp’s men are indeed “roughs,” but the reader is warned not to mistake appearances for truths. Their criminality is juxtaposed with tender descriptions, some of which allude to high art like Raphael’s paintings and Shakespeare’s plays. This ties in with the themes of Christian Redemption and Gender Roles and Childrearing, as the men change more profoundly than their appearances would suggest possible.

“The first man entered with his hat on; he uncovered, however, as he looked about him, and so unconsciously set an example to the next. In such communities good and bad actions are catching.”

As they come to view the newborn, the men are already being influenced by this Christlike figure. They form an orderly queue to enter Stumpy’s cabin and show immediate signs of respect for the child, presenting gifts that evoke the Three Kings’ gifts to Mary and Jesus. The idea that good examples are “catching” plays a large role in the story.

“‘The d-d little cuss!’ he said, as he extricated his finger, with perhaps more tenderness and care than he might have been deemed capable of showing. He held that finger a little apart from its fellows as he went out, and examined it curiously. The examination provoked the same original remark in regard to the child. In fact, he seemed to enjoy repeating it. ‘He rastled with my finger,’ he remarked to Tipton, holding up the member, ‘the d-d little cuss!’”

Kentuck’s first interaction with Tommy is a critical point in the story. Kentuck begins to see himself in a different light, capable of “care and tenderness.” He is so affected by this interaction that he recounts it over and over to the other men in the camp and wanders through a sleepless night in contemplation. He is discomfited by the stereotypically feminine emotions he is showing, but his feelings trump this concern, and he seeks out Stumpy’s reassurance about the baby’s health.

“Nature took the foundling to her broader breast. In that rare atmosphere of the Sierra foothills—that air pungent with balsamic odor, that ethereal cordial at once bracing and exhilarating—he may have found food and nourishment, or a subtle chemistry that transmuted ass’s milk to lime and phosphorus. Stumpy inclined to the belief that it was the latter and good nursing. ‘Me and that ass,’ he would say, ‘has been father and mother to him!’”

Contrary to expectation, Tommy is thriving. This passage shows a conflict over who is responsible for Tommy’s survival, contrasting nature’s tenderness and bounty with Stumpy’s care. The struggle between man and nature is one of the story’s major themes.

“Gamblers and adventurers are generally superstitious, and Oakhurst one day declared that the baby had brought ‘the luck’ to Roaring Camp. It was certain that of late they had been successful. ‘Luck’ was the name agreed upon, with the prefix of Tommy for greater convenience. No allusion was made to the mother, and the father was unknown. ‘It’s better,’ said the philosophical Oakhurst, ‘to take a fresh deal all round. Call him Luck, and start him fair.’”

The men are preparing for Tommy’s christening and reveal that his first name is merely a matter of “greater convenience.” The boy’s true name is Luck, aligning him with good fortune and cementing his status in the story as a symbol of luck. The baptism is also symbolic—the Christian sacrament represents purification and entering the religion. With this, the ritual is intended to give Tommy a “fair” entry into the world, and it further aligns him with the story’s religious undertones.

“The form of christening was perhaps even more ludicrous than the satirist had conceived; but strangely enough, nobody saw it and nobody laughed. ‘Tommy’ was christened as seriously as he would have been under a Christian roof, and cried and was comforted in as orthodox fashion.”

Although initially planned as a burlesque, the men carry out a brief, serious ceremony that may have been less like an actual christening than the satire would have been. Nevertheless, it produces a reverent response, emphasizing the role Christian values end up playing in Roaring Camp. This is another moment in which appearances and reality are juxtaposed.

“And so the work of regeneration began in Roaring Camp. Almost imperceptibly a change came over the settlement.”

After the christening, serious change begins. The men begin a new and proper life, demonstrating both Christian values and feminine-coded virtues like cleanliness, and tenderness. By taking good care of Tommy, they are inspired to clean up their camp, and their claim increases as a result.

“Latterly there was a rude attempt to decorate this bower with flowers and sweet-smelling shrubs, and generally someone would bring him a cluster of wild honeysuckles, azaleas, or the painted blossoms of Las Mariposas. The men had suddenly awakened to the fact that there were beauty and significance in these trifles, which they had so long trodden carelessly beneath their feet. A flake of glittering mica, a fragment of variegated quartz, a bright pebble from the bed of the creek, became beautiful to eyes thus cleared and strengthened, and were invariably put aside for The Luck. It was wonderful how many treasures the woods and hillsides yielded that “would do for Tommy.”

The men have become concerned with the welfare of someone other than themselves, and this change has huge implications for them. Formerly oblivious or motivated solely by profit, they now see the beauty around them and eagerly share it with the child. Nature’s bounties expand beyond gold and silver to include mica, quartz, and pebbles—non-precious stones—and flowers. The simplest things being brought to Tommy as gifts mark the profound changes his presence has wrought in the men.

“Surrounded by playthings such as never child out of fairyland had before, it is to be hoped that Tommy was content. He appeared to be serenely happy, albeit there was an infantine gravity about him, a contemplative light in his round gray eyes, that sometimes worried Stumpy.”

Here, Harte inserts the first suggestion of doubt that things will continue as they have. It is “to be hoped” that Tommy is happy, but it is not certain. The child’s “gravity” worries Stumpy, although it is not clear why. Tommy’s melancholy air here foreshadows the camp’s luck turning and his own death.

“Howbeit, whether creeping over the pine boughs or lying lazily on his back blinking at the leaves above him, to him the birds sang, the squirrels chattered, and the flowers bloomed. Nature was his nurse and playfellow. For him she would let slip between the leaves golden shafts of sunlight that fell just within his grasp; she would send wandering breezes to visit him with the balm of bay and resinous gum; to him the tall redwoods nodded familiarly and sleepily, the bumblebees buzzed, and the rooks cawed a slumbrous accompaniment.”

In this passage, Harte presents Tommy’s idyllic relationship with a personified nature. Nature herself seems to celebrate his existence, and Tommy’s connection with the natural world has sublime or divine undertones, underlining his role as a Christlike character.

“Such was the golden summer of Roaring Camp. They were ‘flush times,’ and the luck was with them. The claims had yielded enormously. The camp was jealous of its privileges and looked suspiciously on strangers. No encouragement was given to immigration, and, to make their seclusion more perfect, the land on either side of the mountain wall that surrounded the camp they duly preempted. This, and a reputation for singular proficiency with the revolver, kept the reserve of Roaring Camp inviolate.”

The changes inspired by Tommy are not total, and suddenly, the men need to protect “their privileges.” Their previously “rough” characteristics reappear, including selfishness and a proclivity for shooting guns. Their success is double-edged; idyllic on one hand but requiring isolation and protection to maintain it.

“It was proposed to build a hotel in the following spring, and to invite one or two decent families to reside there for the sake of The Luck, who might perhaps profit by female companionship. The sacrifice that this concession to the sex cost these men, who were fiercely skeptical in regard to its general virtue and usefulness, can only be accounted for by their affection for Tommy. A few still held out. But the resolve could not be carried into effect for three months, and the minority meekly yielded in the hope that something might turn up to prevent it.”

For the first time, the men compromise their adamant refusal to allow women to participate in Tommy’s life. For the men who oppose the idea, it is a costly concession. Their very opposition, based on “affection for Tommy,” shows emotions that would have been suppressed before his arrival. Commonly accepted gender roles are so powerful, however, that most still believe that Tommy would benefit from female influence in his life.