A young man follows the Gold Rush to California. When the expected fortune fails to materialize, he drifts to a small town somewhere in the state which is apparently populated by hillbillies who speak in dialect. There he takes on the role of schoolmaster. Cressy is a 16 year old girl/woman who returns to the school tricked out in town clothes from Sacramento after breaking her engagement. She is a vacuous individual. Her father is a shrewd oaf in search of "kam" (he pronounces "calm" the Scots way) and her mother, described as man-like, has few thoughts in her head beyond vendettas. The schoolmaster is baffled by the whole thing. Cressy's extreme vapidity made me fear that it was contagious; just reading her dialogue, I felt my brains try to leak out my ears. I did not finish the book. ( )