If you have already mastered our lessons on Rapunzel or The Mazarin Stone, you are ready for a real challenge. Mark Twain’s “Dick Baker’s Cat” (also known as the story of Tom Quartz) is widely considered one of the best examples of 19th-century American “vernacular”, the raw, unpolished way people actually spoke in the silver mining camps of Nevada. It is a passage from Chapter 61 from Twain’s, “Roughing It.” This video features on-screen subtitles perfectly synced with the narration, making it an excellent resource for English listening practice.
Why this story is a Challenge for advanced learners:
- Decoding Dialect: You will hear sounds and sentence structures that you won’t find in any textbook.
- Cultural Immersion: You aren’t just learning words; you are learning the humor and rhythm of the American Old West.
- The “Sot” Challenge: We have kept specific dialect spellings like “sot” and “ketched” in the transcript to help you map the narrator’s unique pronunciation to the page.
This isn’t just a story about a cat; it’s a test of how well you can navigate the “rough” edges of the English language.
Lesson 1: Navigating the “Old West” Dialect
Before you start the video, you should know that this is one of the most challenging listening exercises on this site. Mark Twain was a master of capturing vernacular—the way people actually spoke in the 19th-century American West.
To help you, I have cleaned up much of the original “eye-dialect” spelling in the on-screen text and transcript (changing words like agin to again or fur to far). This allows you to focus on the pronunciation while seeing the correct modern spelling.
However, I have left a few key words in their original dialect form where the sound is too unique to change. Use the table below as your “decoder” before you listen:
The History: Silver Mines and Storytelling
While Mark Twain is famous for Tom Sawyer, some of his best writing came from his time traveling through the American West. “Dick Baker’s Cat” is a standout passage from his 1872 travel book, “Roughing It.”
The story is told by a pocket-miner named Dick Baker, a character based on a real person Twain met in the mining camps. Baker isn’t just telling a “tall tale”—he is sharing his genuine affection and admiration for his cat, Tom Quartz.
Why Twain Loved this Story:
- A Fellow Cat Lover: Twain was a legendary cat lover! He once said, “If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.” He owned dozens of cats throughout his life with names like Beelzebub and Sour Mash.
- The “Stubborn” Archetype: Tom Quartz isn’t just a pet; he is a “character.” He is independent, clever, and, as the narrator says, incurably “sot” (stubborn) in his ways.
- The Mining Life: The story captures the transition from simple “placer” mining to the dangerous world of “quartz” mining (using explosives), seen through the eyes of a cat who thinks he knows better than the humans.
Vocabulary Spotlight: Mining Slang and Old West Idioms
Because this story takes place in a 1860s mining camp, the vocabulary is a mix of technical mining terms and colorful American idioms.
Mining Terms
- Placer diggins: Surface mining where gold is found in loose gravel or sand (usually near water).
- Pocket mining: Searching for a “pocket” or a small, concentrated area of gold underground.
- Quartz mining: Mining that involves digging deep shafts into hard rock and using explosives.
- Ledges: Veins of gold-bearing quartz located deep in the earth.
Idioms and Unique Expressions
- “Nearly lightnin’ on [something]”: To be incredibly fast or efficient at a task.
- In the story: Tom Quartz was “nearly lightnin’ on superintending.”
- “Shove for home”: To leave quickly or head back to where you live.
- “Hyste his nose”: (Hike/Hoist his nose). To show sudden annoyance or acting like something is beneath you.
- “Like all possessed”: To act in a wild, frantic, or crazy manner—as if possessed by a spirit.
- In the story: After the blast, the cat was “clawin’ and reachin’ for things like all possessed.”
- “Shin out”: To run away very quickly.
- “Orneriest-lookin’ beast”: “Ornery” means bad-tempered, difficult, or stubborn.
- Dig out after (someone): To follow or pursue someone. Twain likely adapted this from the mining term “to dig out” an exit.
- Scatter a glance around: To take a quick look in all directions.
- Lay low and keep dark: To stay out of the way and remain quiet. Twain uses this to make the cat sound like a fugitive or a secret agent!
- Bye and bye: Eventually; after some time has passed.
- Nothin’ would do (someone): Used when someone insists on something and will not accept any other option.
- Down on (something): To strongly disapprove of or be angry about something.
- New-fangled: A skeptical way to describe new technology that seems overly complicated or unnecessary.
- Reconciled a little: To begin to accept a situation you previously disliked.
- Goin’ end over end: To tumble or rotate uncontrollably through the air.
Non-Standard Grammar & Pronunciation
- Remarkablest: The most remarkable. (Twain often adds “-est” to long words for humorous emphasis).
- I ever see: I ever did see / I have ever seen.
- Knowed more: Knew more.
- Couldn’t tell him nothin’: Couldn’t tell him anything. (A “double negative” used for emphasis in dialect).
- Cipher it out: To figure something out (from decipher).
- Tetch off a blast: To “touch off” or ignite (set off) an explosive charge.
Listening Challenge: Test Your Knowledge
How well did you follow the story of Tom Quartz? Answer these questions to see if you mastered the mining dialect and the “remarkablest” cat in the West.
1. True or False: Dick Baker believes that Tom Quartz was a “plain” cat who didn’t know much about mining.
- (Answer: False. Baker says the cat “knowed more about mining than a ginerality of men.”)
2. Why was Tom Quartz “down on” quartz mining at first?
- A) He was afraid of the dark.
- B) He thought it was too much hard work for too little gold.
- C) He didn’t like the “new-fangled” use of explosives and deep shafts.
3. True or False: When the blast went off, Tom Quartz was accidentally left inside the mine shaft.
- (Answer: True. He was “layin’ low and keepin’ dark” and didn’t see the miners run away.)
4. After the explosion, how did Tom Quartz react when he finally found Dick and Jim?
- A) He was happy and purring.
- B) He looked “disgusted” and “sot” in his ways, acting like the miners had made a huge mistake.
- C) He immediately went back into the hole to look for more gold.
5. What does it mean when the narrator says Tom Quartz would “hyste his nose into the air”?
- A) He was smelling for food.
- B) He was acting superior and showing his disapproval.
- C) He was looking at the birds in the trees.
“Gentlemen, I used to have a cat here, by the name of Tom Quartz, which you’d a took an interest in I reckon—most any body would. I had him here eight year—and he was the remarkablest cat I ever see. He was a large gray one of the Tom species, and he had more hard, natural sense than any man in this camp—and a power of dignity—he wouldn’t let the Gov’ner of Californy be familiar with him. He never ketched a rat in his life—’peared to be above it. He never cared for nothing but mining. He knowed more about mining, that cat did, than any man I ever, ever see. You couldn’t tell him nothin’ about placer diggins—and as for pocket mining, why he was just born for it.”
“He would dig out after me and Jim when we went over the hills prospectin’, and he would trot along behind us for as much as five mile, if we went so far. And he had the best judgment about mining ground—why you never see anything like it. When we went to work, he’d scatter a glance around, and if he didn’t think much of the indications, he would give a look as much as to say, ‘Well, I’ll have to get you to excuse me, and without another word he’d hyste his nose into the air and shove for home. But if the ground suited him, he would lay low and keep dark till the first pan was washed, and then he would sidle up and take a look, and if there was about six or seven grains of gold, he was satisfied—he didn’t want no better prospect than that—and then he would lay down on our coats and snore like a steamboat till we’d struck the pocket, and then get up and superintend. He was nearly lightnin’ on
superintending.”
“Well, bye and bye, up comes this year quartz excitement. Everybody was into it—everybody was pickin’ and blastin’ instead of shovelin’ dirt on the hill side—everybody was putin’ down a shaft instead of scrapin’ the surface. Nothin’ would do Jim, but we must tackle the ledges, too, and so we did. We commenced putin’ down a shaft, and Tom Quartz he begin to wonder what in the Dickens it was all about. He hadn’t ever seen any mining like that before, and he was all upset, as you may say—he couldn’t come to a right understanding of it no way—it was too many for him. He was down on it, too, you bet you—he was down on it powerful and always appeared to consider it the cussedest foolishness out. But that cat, you know, was always against new fangled arrangements—somehow he never could abide ’em. You know how it is with old habits. But by and by Tom Quartz begin to get sort of reconciled a little, though he never could altogether understand that eternal sinkin’ of a shaft and never pannin’ out any thing. At last he got to comin’ down in the shaft, hisself, to try to cipher it out. And when he’d git the blues, and feel kind of scruffy, and aggravated and disgusted—knowin’ as he did, that the bills was runnin’ up all the time and we warn’t makin’ a cent—he would curl up on a gunny sack in the corner and go to sleep. Well, one day when the shaft was down about eight foot, the rock got so hard that we had to put in a blast—the first blastin’ we’d ever done since Tom Quartz was born. And then we lit the fuse and climb out and got off about fifty yards—and forgot and left Tom Quartz sound asleep on the gunny sack.”
“In about a minute we seen a puff of smoke bust up out of the hole, and then everything let go with an awful crash, and about four million ton of rocks and dirt and smoke and splinters shot up about a mile and a half into the air, and by George, right in the dead center of it was old Tom Quartz a goin’ end over end, and snortin’ and a sneezin’, and clawin’ and reachin’ for things like all possessed. But it warn’t no use, you know, it warn’t no use. And that was the last we see of him for about two minutes and a half, and then all of a sudden it begin to rain rocks and rubbage, and directly he come down ker-whop about ten foot off from where we stood. Well, I reckon he was perhaps the orneriest lookin’ beast you ever see. One ear was sot back on his neck, and his tail was stove up, and his eye-winkers was swinged off, and he was all blacked up with powder and smoke, and all sloppy with mud and slush from one end to the other.”
“Well sir, it warn’t no use to try to apologize—we couldn’t say a word. He took a sort of a disgusted look at hisself, and then he looked at us—and it was just exactly the same as if he had said—’Gents, may be you think it’s smart to take advantage of a cat that ain’t had no experience of quartz minin’, but I think different—and then he turned on his heel and marched off home without ever saying another word.”
“That was jest his style. And maybe you won’t believe it, but after that you never see a cat so prejudiced against quartz mining as what he was. And by and bye when he did get to goin’ down in the shaft again, you’d have been astonished at his sagacity. The minute we’d tetch off a blast and the fuse’d begin to sizzle, he’d give a look as much as to say: ‘Well, I’ll have to get you to excuse me,’ and it was surprisin’ the way he’d shin out of that hole and go for a tree. Sagacity? It ain’t no name for it. ’Twas inspiration!”
I said, “Well, Mr. Baker, his prejudice against quartz-mining was remarkable, considering how he came by it. Couldn’t you ever cure him of it?”
“Cure him! No! When Tom Quartz was sot once, he was always sot—and you might a blowed him up as much as three million times and you’d never a broken him of his cussed prejudice against quartz mining.”
More English Listening Practice
- Mark Twain: A Fable
- Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone
- Aladdin and the Magic Lamp
- Rumpelstiltskin by The Brothers Grimm
- The Golden Goose
- Snow White and Rose Red
- Puss in Boots
- Sleeping Beauty
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