Reaping and threshing were interesting events to us that summer. Mission Indians, scantily clothed, came and cut the grain with long knives and sickles, bound it in small sheaves, and stacked it in the back yard opposite grandma's lookout window, then encircled it with a rustic fence, leaving a wide bare space between the stack and the fence, which they swept clean with green branches from live oak trees.
After many days, Mexican drivers brought a band of wild mares to help with the work. A thick layer of unthreshed grain was pitched on to the bare space surrounding the stack and the mares were driven around and around upon it. From time to time, fresh material was supplied to meet the needs of the threshers. And, at given signals from the men on the stack, the mares were turned out for a short rest, also in order to allow the Indians a chance to throw out the waste straw and to heap the loose grain on the winnowing ground. So they did again and again, until the last sheaf had been trodden under foot.
When the threshing was finished, the Indians rested; then prepared their fires, and feasted on the head, feet, and offal of a bullock which grandpa had slaughtered.
Like buzzards came the squaws and papooses to take what was left of the food, and to claim a share from the pile of worn-out clothes which grandma brought out for distribution. Amid shouts of pleasure, gesticulations, and all manner of begging, the distribution began, and when it ended, our front yard looked as though it were stocked with prize scarecrows.
One big fellow was resplendent in a battered silk hat and a tattered army coat; another was well dressed in a pair of cast-off boots and one of grandma's ragged aprons. Georgia and I tried to help to sort the things as they should be worn, but our efforts were in vain. Wrong hands would reach around and get the articles, and both sexes interchanged suits with apparent satisfaction. Grandma got quite out of patience with one great fellow who was trying to put on a petticoat that his squaw needed, and rushed up to him, jerked it off, gave him a vigorous push, and had the garment on his squaw, before he could do more than grunt. In the end they went away caring more for the clothes that had been given them than for the money they had earned.
Before the summer waned, death claimed one of our own brave women, and immigrants from far and near gathered to do her honor. I do not recollect her name, but know that she was tall and fair, and that grandma, who had watched with her through her last hours, told Georgia and me that when we saw the procession leave the house, we might creep through our back fence and reach the grave before those who should walk around by the road. We were glad to go, for we had watched the growth of the fresh ridge under a large oak tree, not far from our house, and had heard a friend say that it would be "a heavenly resting place for the freed sufferer."
Her family and nearest neighbors left the house afoot, behind the wagon which carried the plain redwood coffin. At the cross-road several fell in line, and at the grave was quite a gathering. A number came in their ox wagons, others on horseback; among them, a father afoot, leading a horse upon whose back sat his wife with an infant in arms and a child behind clinging to her waist; and several old nags, freighted with children, were led by one parent, while the other walked alongside to see that none should lose their balance and fall off.
No minister of the Gospel was within call, so, after the coffin was placed upon the bars above the open grave, and the lid removed, a friend who had crossed the plains with the dead, offered a prayer, and all the listeners said, "Amen."
I might not have remembered all these things, if Georgia and I had not watched over that grave, when all others seemed to have forgotten it. As we brought brush to cover it, in order to keep the cattle from dusting themselves in the loose earth, we talked matters over, and felt as though that mother's grave had been bequeathed to us. Grandma had instructed us that the graveyard is "God's acre," and that it is a sin to live near and not tend it. Still, no matter how often we chased the cattle away, they would return. We could not make them understand that their old resting-place had become sacred ground.
About the middle of October, 1848, the last of the volunteers were mustered out of service, and shortly thereafter the excess of army stores were condemned and sold. Ex-soldiers had preference over settlers, and could buy the goods at Government rates, plus a small cost of transportation to the Pacific coast. Grandma profited by the good-will of those whom she had befriended. They stocked her store-room with salt pork, flour, rice, coffee, sugar, ship-bread, dried fruit, and camp condiments at a nominal figure above what they themselves paid for them.
This was fortunate, for the hotel was still closed, and the homeless and wayfaring appealing to grandma, easily persuaded her to make room for them at her table. The greater the number, the harder she worked, and the more she expected of us. Although we rose at dawn, and rolled our sleeves high as she rolled hers, and like her, turned up our dress skirts and pinned them behind under our long belt aprons, we could not keep pace with her work.
Nevertheless, we were pleasing reminders of little girls whom she had known in her native village, and she was proud of us, and had two little white dresses fashioned to be worn on very special occasions. After they were finished, we also were proud, and made many trips into the room to see how beautiful they looked hanging against the wall under the curtain.
Marvellous accounts of the extent and richness of thegold-diggingswere now brought to town by traffickers in provisions for mining-camps. This good news inspired our home-keepers with renewed courage. They worked faster while planning the comfort they should enjoy after the return of the absent.
The first to come were the unfortunate, who sought to shake off rheumatism, lung trouble, or the stubborn low-grade fever brought on by working in the water, sleeping on damp ground, eating poorly cooked food, or wearing clothing insufficient to guard against the morning and evening chill. Few had much to show for their toil and privation; yet, not disheartened, even in delirium, they clamored to hasten back for the precious treasure which seemed ever beckoning them onward.
When wind and weather drove them home, the robust came with bags of gold rolled in their snug packs. They called each other "lucky dogs," yet looked like grimy beggars, with faces so bewhiskered, and clothing so ragged, or so wonderfully patched, that little children cried when they drew near, and wives threw up their hands, exclaiming, "For the land's sake! can it be?" Yet each home-comer found glad welcome, and messengers were quick to spread the news, and friends gathered to rejoice with the returned.
Now each home-cooked dish was a feast for the camp-fed to contrast with their fare at Coloma, Wood's Camp,[16]and sundry other places, where flour, rice, ship-bread, and coffee were three dollars a pound; salt pork and white beans, two dollars a pound; jerked beef, eight dollars a pound; saleratus, sixteen dollars an ounce; and salt, sugar, and raisins were put on the scales to balance their weight in gold dust; where liquor was fifty cents a tablespoonful, and candles five dollars each. It was not the prices at which they complained, but at the dearth of these staples, which had forced them home to wait until spring should again open the road to supply-trains.
The homeless, who in the evenings found comfort and cheer around grandma's table, would take out their treasure bags and boxes and pour their dust and grains of gold in separate piles, to show the quality and quantity, then pass the nuggets around that all might see what strange figures nature had moulded in secret up among the rocks and ravines of the Sierras.
One Roman Catholic claimed as his choicest prize a perfectly shaped cross of free gold, which he had cradled from the sands in the bed of a creek. Another had an image of the Virgin and Child. A slight stretch of the imagination turned many of the beautifully fretted pieces into miniature birds and other admirable designs for sweetheart brooches. The exhibition over, each would scrape his hoard back into its receptacle, blow the remaining yellow particles on to the floor so that the table should not show stain, and then settle himself to take his part in relating amusing and thrilling incidents of life in the mining camps. Not a window was closed, nor a door locked, nor a wink of sleep lost in those days, guarding bags of gold. "Hands off" was the miners' law, and all knew that death awaited him who should venture to break it.
Heavy purses made willing spenders, and generous impulses were untrammelled. Nothing could be more gratifying or touching than the respect shown by those homeless men to the pioneer women and children. They would walk long distances and suffer delays and inconveniences for the privilege of passing a few hours under home influences, and were ever ready to contribute toward pleasures in which all might participate.
There were so few young girls in the community, and their presence was so greatly desired, that in the early winter, Georgia and I attended as welcome guests some of the social gatherings which began at early candle-light, and we wore the little white dresses that were so precious in our eyes.
GOLD ROCKER, WASHING PAN AND GOLD BORER
GOLD ROCKER, WASHING PAN AND GOLD BORER
SCENE DURING THE RUSH TO THE GOLD MINES FROM SAN FRANCISCO IN 1848
SCENE DURING THE RUSH TO THE GOLD MINES FROM SAN FRANCISCO IN 1848
Before the season was half over, heavy rain was followed by such bitter cold that all the ground and still waters were frozen stiff. Although we were well muffled, and grandma warmed us up with a drink of hot water and sweetened cream before starting us out after the cows, the frost nipped at our feet until the old scars became so angry and painful that we could scarcely hobble about the house. Many remedies were tried, to no purpose, the most severe being the early foot bath with floats of ice in the water. It chilled us through and through, and also made grandma keep us from the fire, lest the heat should undo the benefit expected from the cold. So, while we sat with shivering forms and chattering teeth looking across the room at the blazing logs under the breakfast pots and kettles, our string of cows was coming home in care of a new driver.
We were glad to be together, even in misery, and all things considered, were perhaps as useful in our crippled condition as before, for there was enough to keep our hands busy while our feet rested. Grandma thought she made our work lighter by bringing it to us, yet she came too often for it to seem easy to us.
First, the six brass candlesticks, with hoods, snuffers, and trays had to be brightened; and next, there were the small brass kettles in which she boiled the milk for coffee, to be polished inside and out. However, we did not dread the kettles much, unless burned, for there was always a spoon in the bottom to help to gather the scrapings, of which we were very fond.
But when she would come with a large pan of dried beans or peas to be picked over quickly, so that she could get them soaked for early cooking, we would measure its contents with critical eyes to make sure that it was not more than we had had the previous day. By the time we would get to the bottom of the pan, she would be ready to put before us a discouraging pile of iron knives, forks, and pewter spoons to scour with wood ashes. How we did hate those old black knives and forks! She said her sight was poor—but she could always see when we slighted any.
The redeeming work of the day was sorting the dried fruit for sauce or pies. We could take little nibbles as we handled it, and knew that we should get an extra taste when it was ready for use. And after she had put the upper crust on the pies, she would generally permit us to make the fancy print around the edges with a fork, and then prick a figure in the centre to let the steam escape while baking.
Sometimes she received a dollar apiece for these pies; and she had so many customers for them and for such loaves of bread as she could spare, that she often declared the farm was as good as a gold mine.
We were supposed not to play with dolls, consequently we durst not ask any one to step around and see how our little house in the back yard was weathering the storms, nor how the beloved nine in it were getting along. Though only bottles of different sizes, to us they were dear children, named after great personages whom the soldiers had taught us to honor.
The most distinguished had cork stoppers for heads, with faces marked on the sides, the rest, only wads of paper or cloth fastened on the ends of sticks that reached down into the bodies. A strip of cloth tied around each neck, below the bulge, served as make-believe arms, suitable for all ordinary purposes, and, with a little assistance, capable of saluting an officer or waving to a comrade.
We worried because they were clothed in fragments of cloth and paper too thin for the season; and the very first chance we got, we slipped out and found our darlings in a pitiable plight. Generals Washington and Jackson, and little Van Buren were mired at the foot of a land slide from the overhanging bank. Taylor, Webster, Clay, and Benton had been knocked down and buried almost out of sight. Martha Washington's white shawl and the chicken plumes in her hat were ruined; and Dandy Jim from North Carolina lay at her feet with a broken neck!
Such a shock! Not until we realized that everything could be restored was our grief assuaged—that is, everything but Dandy Jim. He was a serious loss, for he was our only black bottle and had always been kept to wait on Martha Washington.
We worked fast, and had accomplished so much before being called into the house that we might have put everything in order next day, had Georgia not waked up toward morning with a severe cold, and had grandma not found out how she caught it. The outcome was that our treasures were taken to the store-room to become medicine and vinegar bottles, and we mourned like birds robbed of their young.
New duties were opened to me as soon as I could wear my shoes, and by the time Georgia was out again, I was a busy little dairymaid, and quite at home in the corrals. I had been decorated with the regulation salt bag, which hung close to my left side, like a fisherman's basket. I owned a quart cup and could milk with either hand, also knew how to administer the pinch of salt which each cow expected. After a little practice I became able to do all the "stripping." In some cases it amounted to not more than half a pint from each animal. However, much or little, the strippings were of importance, and were kept separate, because grandma considered them "good as cream in the cheese kettle."
When I could sit on the one-legged stool, which Jakie had made me, hold a pail between my knees and milk one or more cows, without help, they both praised my cleverness—a cleverness which fixed more outside responsibilities upon me, and kept me from Georgia a longer while each day. My work was hard, still I remained noticeably taller and stronger than she, who was assigned to lighter household duties. I felt that I had no reason to complain of my tasks, because everybody about me was busy, and the work had to be done.
If I was more helpful than my little sister, I was also a source of greater trouble, for I wore out my clothes faster, and they were difficult to replace, especially shoes.
There was but one shoemaker in the town, and he was kept so busy that he took a generous measure of children's feet and then allowed a size or more, to guard against the shoes being too small by the time he should get them finished.
When my little stogies began to leak, he shook his head thoughtfully, and declared that he had so many orders for men's boots that he could not possibly work for women or children until those orders were filled. Consequently, grandma kept her eye on my shoes, and as they got worse and worse, she became sorely perplexed. She would not let me go barefooted, because she was afraid of "snags" and ensuing lockjaw; she could not loan me her own, because she was saving them for special occasions, and wearing instead the heavy sabots she had brought from her native land. She tried the effect of continually reminding me to pick my way and save my shoes, which made life miserable for us both. Finally she upbraided me harshly for a playful run across the yard with Courage, and I lost my temper, and grumbled.
"I would rather go barefooted and get snags in my feet than have so much bother about old shoes that are worn out and no good anyway!"
I was still crying when Hendrik, a roly-poly Hollander, came along and asked the cause of my distress. Grandma told him that I was out of humor, because she was trying to keep shoes on my feet, while I was determined to run them off. He laughed, bade me cheer up, sang the rollicking sailor song with which he used to drive away storms at sea, then showed me a hole in the heel of the dogskin boots he wore, and told me that, out of their tops, he would make me a beautiful pair of shoes.
No clouds darkened my sky the morning that Hendrik came, wearing a pair of new cowhide boots then squeaked as though singing crickets were between the heavy soles; for he had his workbox and the dogskins under his arm, and we took seats under the oak tree, where he laid out his tools and went to work without more ado.
He had brought a piece of tanned cowhide for the soles of my shoes, an awl, a sailor's thimble, needles, coarse thread, a ball of wax, and a sharp knife. The hair on the inside of the boot legs was thick and smooth, and the colors showed that one of the skins had been taken from the body of a black and white dog, and the other from that of a tawny brindle. As Hendrik modelled and sewed, he told me a wondrous tale of the great North Polar Sea, where he had gone in a whaling vessel, and had stayed all winter among mountains of ice and snow. There his boots had worn out. So he had bought these skins from queer little people there, who live in snow huts, and instead of horses or oxen, use dogs to draw their sleds.
I liked the black and white skin better than the brindle, so he cut that for the right foot, and told me always to make it start first. And when I put the shoes on they felt so soft and warm that I knew I could never forget Hendrik's generosity and kindness.
The longer I wore them the more I became attached to them, and the better I understood the story he had told me; for in my musings they were not shoes, but "Spot" and "Brindle," live Eskimo dogs, that had drawn families of queer little people in sleds over the frozen sea, and had always been hungry and ready to fight over their scanty meals. At times I imagined that they wanted to race and scamper about as happy dogs do, and I would run myself out of breath to keep them going, and always stop with Spot in the lead.
When I needed shoestrings, I was sent to the shoemaker, who only glanced up and replied, "Come to-morrow, and I'll have a piece of leather big enough."
The next day, he made the same answer, "Come to-morrow," and kept pegging away as fast as he could on a boot sole. The third time I appeared before him, he looked up with the ejaculation, "Well, I'll be damned, if she ain't here again!"
I was well aware that he should not have used that evil word, yet was not alarmed, for I had heard grandpa and others use worse, and mean no harm, nor yet intend to be cross. So I stood quietly, and in a trice he was up, had rushed across the shop, brought back two round pieces of leather not larger than cookies, and before I knew what he was about, had turned them into good straight shoestrings. He waxed them, and handed them to me with the remark, "Tell your grandma that since you had to wait so long, I charge her only twenty-five cents for them."
[16]
Now Jamestown.
By the first of March, 1849, carpenters had the frame of grandma's fine new two-story house enclosed, and the floors partly laid. Neighbors were hurrying to get their fields ploughed and planted, those without farming implements following the Mexican's crude method of ploughing the ground with wooden prongs and harrowing in the seed by dragging heavy brush over it.
They gladly turned to any tool that would complete the work by the time the roads to the mountains should be passable, and the diggings clear of snow. Their expectations might have been realized sooner, if a bluff old launch captain, with an eye to business for himself and San Francisco, had not appeared on the scene, shouting, "Ahoy" to everybody.
"I say, a steamship anchored in the Bay of San Francisco two days ago. She's theCalifornia. Steamed out of New York Harbor with merchandise. Stopped at Panama; there took aboard three hundred and fifty waiting passengers that had cut across country—a mixture of men from all parts of the United States, who have come to carry off the gold diggings, root and branch! Others are coming in shiploads as fast as they can. Now mark my words, and mark them well: provisions is going to run mighty short, and if this valley wants any, it had better send for them pretty damn quick!"
By return boat, farmers, shopkeepers, and carpenters hastened to San Francisco. All were eager for supplies from the first steamship that had entered the Golden Gate—the first, it may be added, that most of them, even those of a sea-going past, had ever seen.
During the absence of husbands, we little girls were loaned separately nights to timid wives who had no children to keep them company. Georgia went earlier and stayed later than I, because grandma could not spare me in the evenings until after the cows were turned out, and she needed me in the mornings before sunrise. Those who borrowed us made our stays so pleasant that we felt at home in many different houses.
Once, however, I encountered danger on my early homeward trip.
I had turned the bend in the road, could see the smoke curling out of grandma's chimney, and knew that every nearer house was closed. In order to avoid attracting the attention of a suspicious-looking cow on the road, I was running stealthily along a rail fence, when, unexpectedly, I came upon a family of sleeping swine, and before I was aware of danger from that direction was set upon and felled to the ground by a vicious beast. Impelled, I know not how, but quick as thought, I rolled over and over and over, and when I opened my eyes I was on the other side of the fence, and an angry, noisy, bristling creature was glaring at me through the rails.
Quivering like a leaf and for a time unable to rise, I lay upon the green earth facing the morning sky. With strange sensations and wonderment, I tried to think what might have happened, if I had not rolled. What if that space between fence and ground had been too narrow to let my body through; what if, on the other hand, it had been wide enough for that enraged brute to follow?
Too frightened to cry, and still trembling, I made my way to the end of the field and climbed back over the fence near home. Grandma was greatly startled by my blanched face, and the rumpled and soiled condition of my clothes. After I related my frightful experience, she also felt that had it not been for that fence, I should have been torn to pieces. She explained, however, that I probably would not have been attacked had I not startled the old mother so suddenly that she believed her young in danger.
When our menfolk returned from San Francisco, they were accompanied by many excited treasure-seekers, anxious to secure pack animals to carry their effects to the mines. They were made welcome, and in turn furnished us news of the outer world, and distributed worn copies of American and foreign newspapers, which our hungry-minded pioneers read and re-read so long as the lines held together.
Those light-hearted newcomers, who danced and gayly sang,
O Susannah, don't you cry for me!I'm bound to Californy with a tin pan on my knee,
were the first we saw of that vast throng of gold-seekers, who flocked to our shores within a twelvemonth, and who have since become idealized in song and story as the "Argonauts," "the Boys of '49."
They were unlike either our pioneer or our soldier friends in style of dress and manner. Nor had they come to build homes or develop the country. They wanted gold to carry back to other lands. Some had expected to find it near the Bay of San Francisco; some, to scoop it up out of the river beds that crossed the valleys; and others, to shovel it from ravines and mountain-sides. When told of the difficulties before them, their impatience grew to be off, that they might prove to Western plodders what could be done by Eastern pluck and muscle.
Such packing as those men did! Mother's Bible, and wife and baby's daguerreotype not infrequently started to the mines in the coffee pot, or in the miner's boots, hanging across the mule's pack. The sweetheart's lock of hair, affectionately concealed beneath the hat lining of its faithful wearer, caught the scent of the old clay pipe stuck in the hat-band.
With the opening season all available Indians of both sexes were hired as gold-diggers, and trudged along behind their employers, and our town was again reduced to a settlement of white women and children. But what a difference in the feeling of our people! We now heard regularly from the Bay City, and entertained transients from nearly every part of the globe; and these would loan us books and newspapers, and frequently store unnecessary possessions with us until they should return from the mines.
San Francisco had a regular post office. One day its postmaster forwarded a letter, addressed to ex-GovernorBoggs, which the latter brought out and read to grandma. She did not, as usual, put her head out of the window and call us, but came from the house wiping her eyes, and asked if we wanted to be put in a big ship and sent away from her and grandma and Jakie.
Greatly alarmed, we exclaimed, "No, no, grandma, no!"
Taking us by the hand, she led us into the house, seated herself and drew one of us to each side, then requested the Governor to read the letter again. We two did not understand all it said, but enough to know that it had been written by our own dear aunt,Elizabeth Poor, who wanted Governor Boggs to find her sister's three little orphaned girls and send them back to her by ship to Massachusetts. It contained the necessary directions for carrying out her wish.
POST OFFICE, CORNER OF CLAY AND PIKE STREETS, SAN FRANCISCO, 1849
POST OFFICE, CORNER OF CLAY AND PIKE STREETS, SAN FRANCISCO, 1849
OLD CITY HOTEL, 1846, CORNER OF KEARNEY AND CLAY STREETS, THE FIRST HOTEL IN SAN FRANCISCO
OLD CITY HOTEL, 1846, CORNER OF KEARNEY AND CLAY STREETS, THE FIRST HOTEL IN SAN FRANCISCO
Grandma assured the Governor that we did not want to leave her, nor would she give us up. She said she and her husband and Jakie had befriended us when we were poor and useless, and that we were now beginning to be helpful. Moreover, that they had prospered greatly since we had come into their home, and that their luck might change if they should part from us. She further stated that she already had riches in her own right, which we should inherit at her death.
The Governor spoke of schools and divers matters pertaining to our welfare, then promised to explain by letter to Aunt Elizabeth how fortunately we were situated.
This event created quite a flutter of excitement among friends. Grandpa and Jakie felt just as grandma did about keeping us. Georgia and I were assured that in not being allowed to go across the water, we had escaped great suffering, and, perhaps, drowning by shipwreck. Still, we did wish that it were possible for us to see Aunt Elizabeth, whom mother had taught us to love, and who now wanted us to come to her.
I told Georgia that I would learn to write as fast as I could, and send her a letter, so she would know all about us.
We now imagined that we were quite large girls, for grandma usually said before going away, "Children, you know what there is to do and I leave everything in your care." We did not realize that this was her little scheme, in part, to keep us out of mischief; but we knew that upon her return she would see, and call attention to what was left undone.
Once, when we were at home alone and talking about "endless work and aching bones," as we had heard grown-up folks complain of theirs, we were interrupted by a bareback rider who did not "tie up" under the live oak, but came to the shade of the white oak in front of us at the kitchen door. After a cheery "Howdy do" and a hand shake, he exclaimed,
"I heard at Napa that you lived here, and my pony has made a hard run to give me this sight of you."
We were surprised and delighted, for the speaker wasJohn Baptistewho had wintered with us in the Sierras. We asked him to dismount, take a seat under the tree, and let us bring him a glass of milk. He declined graciously, then with a pleased expression, drew a small brown-paper parcel from his trousers pocket and handed it to us, leaned forward, clasped his arms about his pony, rested his head on its neck, and smilingly watched Georgia unwrap it, and two beautiful bunches of raisins come to view,—one for each. He would not touch a single berry, nor let us save any. He asked us to eat them then and there so that he could witness our enjoyment of the luxury he had provided for this, our first meeting in the settlement.
Never had we seen raisins so large, translucent, and delicious. They seemed far too choice for us to have, and John was so poorly dressed and pinched in features that we hesitated about eating them. But he would have his way, and in simple language told us that he wanted them to soften the recollection of the hungry time when he came into camp empty-handed and discouraged. Also to fulfil his assurance to our mother that he would try to keep us in sight, and give us of the best that he could procure. His last injunctions were, "Be good little girls; always remember your mother and father; and don't forget John Baptiste."
He was gone when grandma got back; and she was very serious when told what had occurred in her absence. She rarely spoke to us of our mother, and feared it might lessen our affection for herself, if others kept the memory of the dead fresh in our minds.
There were many other happenings before the year closed, that caused me to think a great deal. Grandpa spent less time at the shop; he bought himself a fleet-footed horse which he named Antelope, and came home oftener to talk to grandma about money they had loaned Major Prudon to send to China for merchandise, also about a bar-room which he was fitting up near the butcher-shop, for a partner. Next, he bought faithful Charlie, a large bay horse, with friendly eyes, and long black mane and tail; also a small blue farm wagon in which Georgia and I were to drive about the fields, when sent to gather loose bark and dry branches for baking fires.
We were out for that purpose the day that we saw grandpa ride away to the mines, but we missed seeing Jakie steal off, with his bunch of cows. He felt too badly to say good-bye to us.
I was almost heart-broken when I learned that he was not coming back. He had been my comforter in most of my troubles, had taught me to ride and drive the horse, shown me the wood duck's nest in the hollow of our white oak tree, and the orioles' pretty home swinging from a twig in the live oak, also where the big white-faced owls lived. He had helped me to gather wild flowers, made me whistles from branches cut from the pussy willows, and had yodeled for me as joyfully as for loved ones in his Alpine home. Everything that he had said and done meant a great deal more to me now, and kept him in mind, as I went about alone, or with grandma, doing the things that had been his to do. She now moulded her cheeses in smaller forms, and we had fewer cows to milk.
When the season for collecting and drying herbs came, Georgia and I had opportunity to be together considerably. It was after we had picked the first drying of sage and were pricking our fingers on the saffron pods, that grandma, in passing, with her apron full of Castilian rose petals, stopped and announced that if we would promise to work well, and gather the sage leaves and saffron tufts as often as necessary, she would let us go to a "real school" which was about to open in town.
Oh, dear! to go to school, to have books and slate and pencil! What more could be wished? Yes, we would get up earlier, work faster before time to go, and hurry home after lessons were over. And I would carry the book Aunt Lucy had given me. It was all arranged, and grandma went to town to buy slates, pencils, speller, and a stick of wine-colored ribbon to tie up our hair.
When the anticipated hour came, there were great preparations that we might be neat and clean and ready on time. Our hair was parted in four equal divisions; the front braids, tied with ribbon, formed a U at the back of the neck; and we wore new calico dresses and sun-bonnets, and carried lunch for two in a curious little basket, which grandma must have brought with her from Switzerland. Joyfully we started forth to thefirst American schoolopened in Sonoma.
Alas! it was not what our anticipations had pictured. The schoolroom was a dreary adobe, containing two rows of benches so high that, when seated, we could barely touch the earthen floor with our toes. The schoolmaster told us that we must hold our slates on our laps, and our open books in the right hand, and not look at the pictures, but study all the time, and not speak, even to each other, without permission. His face was so severe, his eyes so keen, and his voice so sharp that I was afraid of him.
He had a chair with a back to it, and a table to hold his books; yet he spent most of his time walking about with a narrow strap of rawhide in his hand, and was ever finding some one whose book drooped, or who was whispering; and the stinging bite of that strap would call the erring to order.
The Misses Boggs, Lewis, Smith, and Bone were pretty young ladies, and brought their own chairs and a table to sit around; and when they whispered, the master never saw them; and when they missed in lessons, he didn't keep them in, nor make them stand on the floor.
I learned my lessons well enough, but grandma was terribly shocked because I got strapped nearly every day. But then, I sat between Georgia and the other little girls in our row, and had to deliver messages from those on both sides of me, as well as to whisper a little on my own account. Finally, grandma declared that if I got a whipping next day, she would give me a second one after reaching home. So I started in the morning with the intention of being the best girl in school; but we had hardly settled in line for our first lesson, when Georgia whispered behind her book, "Eliza, see! Mary Jane Johnson has got my nice French card, with the double queens on it, and I can't get it."
Forgotten were my good resolutions. I leaned out of line, and whispered louder than I meant, "Mary Jane Johnson, that is my sister's card, and you must give it back to her."
She saw the master watching, but I did not, until he called me to hold out my hand. For once, I begged, "Please excuse me; I won't do it again." But he wouldn't, and I felt greatly humiliated, because I knew the large girls had heard me and were smiling.
After recess, a new boy arrived, little Willie McCracken, whom we had seen on the plains, and known at Sutter's Fort, and he knew us as soon as he reached his seat and looked around. In a short time, I nudged Georgia, and asked her if I hadn't better roll him the little knot of dried apples that grandma had put in the basket for my lunch. She said, yes, if I wanted to. So I wiggled the basket from under the seat with my foot, and soon thereafter, my bit of hospitality was on its way to the friend I was glad to see again.
Instead of his getting it, however, the master stepped down and picked it up, with the hand that didn't have the strap in it. So, instead of being the best, I was the worst child in school, for not one had ever before received two strappings in a forenoon.
It must have been our bad day, for Georgia felt her very first bite from the strap that afternoon, and on the way home volunteered not to tell on me, if grandma did not ask. Yet grandma did, the first thing. And when Georgia reluctantly said, "Yes," grandma looked at me and shook her head despairingly; but when I announced that I had already had two strappings, and Georgia one, she burst out laughing, and said she thought I had had enough for one day.
A few weeks later, the large boys drove the master out of school on account of his cruelty to a little fellow who had played truant.
In that dingyschoolroom, Georgia and I later attended the first Protestant Sunday school and church service held in Sonoma.
A short experience in the mines cured grandpa's "mining fever," but increased his rheumatism. The accounts he brought of sufferings he had witnessed in the camps prepared us for the approaching autumn's work, when many of the happy fellows who had started to the gold-fields in vigorous health and with great expectations returned haggard, sick, and out of luck.
Then was noble work done by the pioneer women. No door was closed against the needy. However small the house might be, its inmates had some comfort to offer the stranger. Many came to grandma, saying they had places to sleep but begging that she would give them food and medicine until they should be able to proceed to San Francisco.
Weary mortals dragged their aching limbs to the benches under her white oak tree, dropped upon them, with blankets still across their shoulders, declaring they could not go another rod. Often, she turned her face aside and murmured, "God help the poor wanderers"; but to them she would say encouragingly, "You be not very sick, you will soon be rested. There be straw in the stack that we will bring for your bed, and me and the children will let you not go hungry."
Ere long, beds had to be made on the floor of the unfinished house. More were needed, and they were spread under the great white oak.
On a block beside each fever patient stood a tin cup, which Georgia and I were charged to keep full of cold water, and it was pitiful to see the eyes of the sick watch the cooling stream we poured. Our patients eagerly grasped the cup with unsteady hands, so that part of its contents did not reach the parched lips. Often, we heard the fervid prayer, "God bless the women of this land, and bless the children too!"
Soon we learned to detect signs of improvement, and were rejoiced when the convalescents smiled and asked for more to eat. Grandma carried most of the food to them and sent us later for the empty dishes.
Of the many who came to us that season, there was but one who never proceeded on his way. He was a young German, fair of face, but terribly wasted by disease. His gentle, boyish manner at once made him a favorite, and we not only gave him our best care, but when a physician drifted into town, grandma sent for him and followed his directions. I remember well the day that John seemed almost convalescent, relished his breakfast, wanted to talk a while, and before we left him, had us bring him a basin of warm water and his beflowered carpet bag, from which he took a change of clothing and his shaving outfit.
When we saw him later, his hair was smoothly combed; he looked neat and felt encouraged, and was sure that he should soon be up and doing for himself. At nightfall, grandma bade us wipe the dishes quickly as possible, at which Georgia proposed a race to see whether she could wash fast enough to keep us busy, and we got into a frolicsome mood, which grandma put an end to with the sobering remark:
"Oh, be not so worldly-minded. John ist very bad to-night. I be in a hurry to go back to him, and you must hold the candle."
We passed out into the clear cold starlight, with the burning candle sheltered by a milk pan, and picked our way between the lumber to the unfinished room where John lay. I was the last to enter, and saw grandma hurriedly give the candle to Georgia, drop upon her knees beside the bed, touch his forehead, lift his hand, and call him by name. The damp of death was on his brow, the organs of speech had lost their power. One long upward look, a slight quivering of the muscles of the face, and we were alone with the dead. I was so awed that I could scarcely move, but grandma wept over him, as she prepared his body for burial.
The next afternoon, we three and grandpa and a few friends followed him to his final resting-place. After he was gone, grandma remembered that she did not know his name in full, the land of his birth, nor the address of his people. Expecting his recovery, she had not troubled him with questions, and the few trinkets in his carpet bag yielded no identifying clue. So he lies in a nameless grave, like countless other youth of that period.
We had patients of every type, those who were appreciative and grateful, and those who rebelled against confinement, and swore at the pain which kept sleep from their eyes, and hurled their things about regardless of consequences. The most trying were the chronic grumblers, who did not know what they wanted, nor what they ought to have, and adopted the moody refrain:
But the happy times are over,I've only grief and pain,For I shall never, never seeSusannah dear again.
The entrance of Georgia and myself would occasionally turn their thoughts into homeward channels, and make them reminiscent of their little children and loved ones "back in the States." Then, again, our coming would set them to talking about our early disaster and such horrible recounts of happenings in the snow-bound camps that we would rush away, and poor Georgia would have distressing crying spells over what we had heard.
At first no tears dimmed my eyes, for I felt, with keen indignation, that those wounding tales were false; but there came hours of suffering for me later, when an unsympathetic soldier, nicknamed "Picayune Butler," engaged me in conversation and set me to thinking.
He was a great big man with eyes piercing as a hawk's, and lips so thin that they looked like red lines on his face, parting and snapping together as he repeated the horrible things he had read inThe California Star.He insisted that theDonner Partywas responsible for its own misfortune; that parents killed their babies and ate their bodies to keep themselves alive; cut off the heads of companions and called them good soup bones; and were as thievish as sneaking Indians, even stealing the strings from the snowshoes of those who had come to their rescue. He maintained thatKeseberghad murdered my mother and mutilated my dead father's body; and that he himself felt that the miserable wretches brought from starvation were not worth the price it had cost to save them.
Too young, too ignorant, and too distressed to disprove the accusations or resent his individual view, I could only take refuge behind what I had heard and seen in camp, and declare, "I know it is not true; they were good people, and loved their babies, and were sorry for everybody."
How could I believe his cruel words? While I had come from the mountains remembering most clearly the sufferings from cold, hunger, thirst, and pitiful surroundings, I had also brought from there a child's mental picture of tenderest sympathies and bravest self-denials, evinced by the snow-bound in my father's camp, and of Mrs. Murphy's earnest effort to soothe and care for us three little sisters after we had been deserted at the lake cabins by Cady and Stone; also her motherly watchfulness over Jimmie Eddy, Georgia Foster, and her own son Simon, and of Mr. Eddy's constant solicitude for our safety on the journey over the mountains to Sutter's Fort. Vain, however, my efforts to speak in behalf of either the dead or the absent; every attempt was met by the ready assertion, "You can't prove anything; you were not old enough to remember or understand what happened."
Oh, how I longed to be grown, to have opportunities to talk with those of the party who were considered old enough to remember facts, and would answer the questions I wanted to ask; and how firmly I resolved that when I grew to be a woman I would tell the story of my party so clearly that no one could doubt its truth!