The Luck of Roaring Camp by Bret Harte

I did not particularly like this story. It had too much testosterone in it for me, probably because I’m a girl. Also, the ending was way weird. There’s a flood and it takes away the house where the baby lives and then the town finds the baby and the man who looks after I and the baby is dead and then Kentuck says “”he’s a-taking me with him. Tell the boys I’ve got The Luck with me now” (1491). And then dies. That’s just weird to me.

            I don’t really understand the setting of this story. I get that the town is filled with refugees and people running from the law. The town is filled with only men and then suddenly there is this woman who has a baby and dies during childbirth and the whole thing is like a miracle to the men in this town. Even though the baby is an orphan, the whole town seems to adopt him. The story seems really happy until the end where the child dies, which to me seems really random.

            I did like the part in the story about the baby talking to the birds and how Mother Nature was “his nurse and playfellow” (1490). That was a nice image. It reminds me of the good old days in elementary school, where the neighborhood kids would get together, and play kick ball or capture the flag outside. We would get dirty and have fun outside in the sun. Mother Nature was our playfellow.