More of a symbol than a character in his own right, baby Luck represents the idea that luck comes and goes quickly, often without warning. The story opens with Cherokee Sal giving birth to the Luck in a gold-mining settlement called Roaring Camp. One of the men, Stumpy, goes into a cabin to assist with the birth, but readers aren’t privy to the details of Sal’s labor, as the narration shifts to giving backstories and descriptions for the other men in the camp. And then the Luck appears into the world quite suddenly: “Above the swaying and moaning of the pines, the swift rush of the river, and the crackling of the fire, rose a sharp, querulous cry,—a cry unlike anything heard before in the camp.” This description of the Luck’s first cry, which suddenly pierces the normal sounds of the camp, indicates that the baby comes into the world seemingly in an instant. And the story implies that good fortune is much the same way: luck appears suddenly and without warning. After the Luck’s birth, the men of Roaring Camp begin finding more and more gold, and they decide that baby Luck was what brought them this unexpected windfall—and that baby Luck was an unexpected windfall too, hence why they name him Tom Luck, or “the Luck” for short.
But the Luck’s life is brief, and his death happens as unexpectedly and swiftly as his birth. In the winter of 1851, the rivers overflow, and a massive flood rushes through Roaring Camp. Much of the settlement is reduced to debris; Stumpy’s cabin is swept away entirely; and Stumpy, Kentuck, and the Luck all die. But readers aren’t given any details surrounding how the Luck gets swept away. The story narrates the confusing rush of water that suddenly overtakes the camp in the middle of the night and the sound of cracking timer as trees snap—and the next thing readers know, “the pride, the hope, the joy, the Luck, of Roaring Camp had disappeared.” Just like his birth, the Luck’s death isn’t detailed and drawn out but happens swiftly. Of course, baby Luck’s sudden disappearance and death coincides with the sudden disappearance of Roaring Camp’s luck more broadly: in an instant, the flood has robbed them of their beloved good luck charm, two important members of their community, and many of their structures.
Tommy Luck (“The Luck”) Quotes in The Luck of Roaring Camp
[…] [T]he name of a woman was frequently repeated. It was a name familiar enough in the camp,—“Cherokee Sal.”
Perhaps the less said of her the better. She was a coarse, and, it is to be feared, a very sinful woman. […] 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.
Within an hour she had climbed, as it were, that rugged road that led to the stars, and so passed out of Roaring Camp, its sin and shame forever. I do not think that the announcement disturbed them much, except in speculation as to the fate of the child. “Can he live now?” was asked of Stumpy. The answer was doubtful. The only other being of Cherokee Sal’s sex and maternal condition in the settlement was an ass. There was some conjecture as to fitness, but the experiment was tried. It was less problematical than the ancient treatment of Romulus and Remus, and apparently as successful.
The introduction of a female nurse in the camp also met with objection. It was argued that no decent woman could be prevailed to accept Roaring Camp as her home, and the speaker urged that “they didn’t want any more of the other kind.” This unkind allusion to the defunct mother, harsh as it may seem, was the first spasm of propriety,—the first symptom of the camp’s regeneration. […] But when questioned, [Stumpy] averred stoutly that he and “Jinny”—the mammal before alluded to—could manage to rear the child. There was something original, independent, and heroic about the plan that pleased the camp.
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.
Stumpy imposed a kind of quarantine upon those who aspired to the honor and privilege of holding “The Luck.” It was a cruel mortification to Kentuck—who, in the carelessness of a large nature and the habits of frontier life, had begun to regard all garments as a second cuticle, which, like a snake’s, only sloughed off through decay—to be debarred this privilege from certain prudential reasons. Yet such was the subtle influence of innovation that he thereafter appeared regularly every afternoon in a clean shirt, and face still shining from his ablutions.
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 gums; to him the tall red-woods nodded familiarly and sleepily, the bumble-bees buzzed, and the rooks cawed a slumbrous accompaniment.
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 expressman—their only connecting link with the surrounding world—sometimes told wonderful stories of the camp. He would say, “They’ve a street up there in ‘Roaring,’ that would lay over any street in Red Dog. They’ve got vines and flowers round their houses, and they wash themselves twice a day. But they’re mighty rough on strangers, and they worship an Ingin baby.”
The winter of 1851 will long be remembered in the foothills. The snow lay deep on the Sierras, and every mountain creek became a river, and every river a lake. Each gorge and gulch was transformed into a tumultuous watercourse that descended the hillsides, tearing down giant trees and scattering its drift and debris along the plain. Red Dog had been twice under water, and Roaring Camp had been forewarned. “Water put the gold into them gulches,” said Stumpy. “It’s been here once and will be here again!” And that night the North Fork suddenly leaped over its banks, and swept up the triangular valley of Roaring Camp.
In the confusion of rushing water, crushing trees, and crackling timber, and the darkness which seemed to flow with the water and blot out the fair valley, but little could be done to collect the scattered camp. When the morning broke, the cabin of Stumpy nearest the river-bank was gone. Higher up the gulch they found the body of its unlucky owner; but the pride, the hope, the joy, the Luck, of Roaring Camp had disappeared.
Kentuck opened his eyes. “Dead?” he repeated feebly. “Yes, my man, and you are dying too.” A smile lit the eyes of the expiring Kentuck. “Dying,” he repeated, “he’s a taking me with him,—tell the boys I’ve got the Luck with me now”; and the strong man, clinging to the frail babe as a drowning man is said to cling to a straw, drifted away into the shadowy river that flows forever to the unknown sea.