Cressy

Bret Harte is best known for his stories about pioneering life in California. Harte moved to California in 1853 where he worked as a miner, journalist, teacher and messenger. Cressy takes place in a small country school in rural California. The schoolmaster is just twenty. An excerpt form the book reads, "Cressy McKinstry, who was sixteen years old, had been one of the pupils he had found at the school when he first came. But as he had also found that she was there in the extraordinary attitude of being "engaged" to one Seth Davis, a ellow-pupil of nineteen, and as most of the courtship was carried on freely and unceremoniously during school-hours with the full permission of the master's predecessor, the master had been obliged to point out to the parents of the devoted couple the embarrassing effects of this association on the discipline of the school. The result had been the withdrawal of the lovers, and possibly the good-will of the parents. The return of the young lady was consequently a matter of some significance. Had the master's protest been accepted, or had the engagement itself been broken off?'