The Outcasts of Poker Flat

Tom’s fiancée and Jake Woods’s daughter. She and Tom fall in with the group of outcasts while on their way to Poker Flat to elope and begin a new life. At 15 years old, Piney is on the cusp of womanhood, though her timidity and gentleness make her seem much younger, which is perhaps why Mother Shipton takes to affectionately calling her “the child.” Tom and Piney’s love is “so honest and sincere” that it has a deep impact on Mother Shipton and the Duchess—both prostitutes—and the women become maternal figures that comfort and protect her. Piney maintains her innocence and goodness throughout the story, and even seems to bring out those qualities in Mother Shipton and the Duchess. Within days of meeting Piney, Mother Shipton quietly begins to starve herself—ultimately to death—so that “the child” can have more to eat. And later, when they appear to be only hours away from death, the Duchess and Piney cling to one another tenderly. At this point, Piney “accept[s] the position of the stronger” of the two women and wraps her arms around the Duchess, as if the Duchess is the young, innocent one in need of comfort and protection. Indeed, when the two women die, the rescuers are unable to tell who is who; they both assume a look of “equal peace” and it’s impossible to tell “which was she that had sinned.” It thus seems that Piney, the embodiment of purity and goodness, has a redemptive quality to her, as her friendship ensures that both the Duchess and Mother Shipton can shed their tarnished reputations. Because of Piney, Mother Shipton leaves the world in an astounding act of self-sacrifice, while the Duchess is imbued with a “peace” that seems to overwrite her reputation as a sinner. Piney Woods’s name, which seems all too fitting for an Old West story that takes place in the mountains, is a reference to Piney Woods Tavern; or, Sam Slick in Texas, an 1858 book by Samuel Adams Hammett (“Philip Paxton”), a southwestern humorist known for his distinctively Western tall tales.