Journal #6 Bret Harte: The Power of a New Baby!

QUOTE:

“Strange to say, the child thrived. Perhaps the invigorating climate of the mountain camp was compensation for material deficiencies. Nature took the foundling to her broader breast” (Harte 329).


SUMMARY:

Even without his mother, “Tommy Luck” is able to survive in Roaring Camp. All of the men make sure that they give the baby sufficient substitutes for anything the mother would have provided.


RESPONSE:

Baby Tommy probably had a pretty good chance of survival with “Cherokee Sal” gone because he had the whole camp as his fathers. In a way I think he may have had a greater chance of survival (or just a better life), because I’m not sure the men in the camp would have claimed Tommy as their own; especially with Cherokee Sal still alive. It makes me think of those horrible talk shows that give paternity tests to all of the possible fathers of a single baby. Almost every time, the real father ends up saying, “I will do what’s right for the baby, but I don’t want anything to do with the mother.” Without Cherokee Sal still alive, all of the men can feel like Tommy is possibly their own baby, but don’t have to worry about any “right” way of dealing with Cherokee Sal.

That may not have been the only reason why the men want to take such good care of Tommy, however. Since this is the first birth at Roaring Camp, followed by the ”regeneration” in the Camp, the new life seems to show the men that there is a possibility for change. I think this possibility is enough motivation to break the old habits of the men. I also think that the men were probably in need of something or someone to really love. No matter how crude, rough, or unwieldy these men were; I think this experience changed them. It’s not like they were all lazy deadbeat-dads to begin with. They may have been known to shoot men dead in the streets, but their parenting skills were what came through in the end.