When my father, in one of his numerous trades, bought out the only
tinshop and put me in charge he changed my life and endangered my
disposition. The tinsmith left the county and I was left with the tools
and the material, the only tinsmith in Humboldt County. How I struggled
and bungled! I could make stovepipe by the mile, but it was a long time
before I could double-seam a copper bottom onto a tin wash-boiler. I
lived to construct quite a decent traveling oilcan for a Eureka sawmill,
but such triumphs come through mental anguish and burned fingers. No
doubt the experience extended my desultory education.

The taking over of the tinshop was doubly disappointing, since I really
wanted to go into the office of the _Northern Californian_ and become a
printer and journalist. That job I turned over to Bret Harte, who was
clever and cultivated, but had not yet "caught on." Leon Chevret, the
French hotelkeeper, said of him to a lawyer of his acquaintance, "Bret
Harte, he have the Napoleonic nose, the nose of genius; also, like many
of you professional men, his debts trouble him very little."

There were many interesting characters among the residents of the town
and county. At times there came to play the violin at our dances one
Seth Kinman, a buckskin-clad hunter. He became nationally famous when he
fashioned and presented elkhorn chairs to Buchanan and several
succeeding Presidents. They were ingenious and beautiful, and he himself
was most picturesque.

One of our originals was a shiftless and merry Iowan to whose name was
added by courtesy the prefix "Dr." He had a small farm in the outskirts.
Gates hung from a single hinge and nothing was kept in repair. He
preferred to use his time in persuading nature to joke. A single