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 oar 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-Governor Boggs, 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.
[Illustration: POST OFFICE, CORNER OF CLAY AND PIKE STREETS, SAN FRANCISCO, 1849]
[Illustration: 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 was John Baptiste who 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 the first American school opened 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 dingy schoolroom, Georgia and I later attended the first Protestant Sunday school and church service held in Sonoma.
CHAPTER XXV
FEVER PATIENTS FROM THE MINES–UNMARKED GRAVES–THE TALES AND TAUNTS THAT WOUNDED MY YOUNG HEART.
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 see
Susannah 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 in _The California Star._ He insisted that the Donner Party was 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 that Keseberg had 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!
CHAPTER XXVI
THANK OFFERINGS–MISS DOTY’S SCHOOL–THE BOND OF KINDRED–IN JACKET AND TROUSERS–CHUM CHARLIE.
Grandma had a fixed price for table board, but would not take pay for medicines, nor for attendance on the sick; consequently, many of her patients, after reaching San Francisco, sent thank offerings of articles useful and pleasing to her. Thus, also, Sister Georgia and I came into possession of pretty calico, Swiss, and delaine dresses, and shoes that filled our hearts with pride, for they were of Morocco leather, a red and a green pair for each. We had seen finely dressed Spanish children wear such shoes, but never supposed that we should be so favored.
After the first dresses were finished, there came a Sunday when I was allowed to go to the Mission Church with Kitty Purcell, the baker’s little daughter, and I felt wonderfully fine in my pink calico frock, flecked with a bird’s-eye of white, a sun-bonnet to match, and green shoes.
The brilliantly lighted altar, decked with flowers, the priests in gorgeous vestments, the acolyte with the swinging censer, and the intoned service in foreign tongue, were bewildering to me. My eyes wandered from the clergy to the benches upon which sat the rich and the great, then back to the poor, among whom I was kneeling. Each humble worshipper had spread a bright-bordered handkerchief upon the bare floor as a kneeling mat. I observed the striking effect, then recollecting my shoes, put my hand back and drew up the hem of my dress, that my two green beauties might be seen by the children behind me. No seven-year-old child ever enjoyed finery more than I did those little shoes.
Gifts which grandma considered quite unsuitable came one day in two neat wooden boxes about thirty inches in length, and eight in width and depth. They were addressed to us individually, but in grandma’s care. When she removed the cover and a layer of cotton batting from Georgia’s, a beautiful French lady-doll was revealed, exquisitely dressed, with a spray of flowers in her hair, and another that looped one side of her lovely pink skirt sufficiently high to display an elaborately trimmed petticoat. She was so fine in lace and ribbons, yes, even watch and chain, that grandma was loath to let us touch her, and insisted she should be handled in the box.
My gift was a pretty young Swiss matron in holiday attire, really more picturesque, and quite as costly as Georgia’s, but lacking that daintiness which made the lady-doll untouchable. I had her to hug and look at only a few moments; then both boxes with their precious contents were put away for safe keeping, and brought forth only on state occasions, for the inspection of special visitors.
Grandma did not want any nonsense put into our heads. She wished us to be practical, and often quoted maxims to the effect that, “As the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined”; “All work is ennobling if well done”; “Much book-learning for girls is not conducive to happiness or success”; and “The highest aim of a girl should be honesty, chastity, and industry.”
Still, she was so pleased when I could write a little with ink and quill, that she dictated several letters to Jakie, who was in the dairy business near Stockton; and in an unguarded moment she agreed that I should attend Miss Doty’s school. Then she hesitated. She wished to treat us exactly alike, yet could not spare both at the same time. Finally, as a way out of the difficulty, she decided that we should attend school alternate months, during the summer; and that my sister, being the elder, should begin the course.
It seemed to me that Georgia’s month at school would never end. My own sped faster than I wished. Miss Doty helped me with my lessons during part of the noon hour, and encouragingly said, “Be patient, keep trying, and you will gain your reward.”
While still her pupil, I wrote my long-planned letter to Aunt Elizabeth. Georgia helped to compose it, and when finished, we carried it to our friend, the postmaster. He banteringly held it in his hand, until we told its contents and begged that it go to Aunt Elizabeth as fast as possible. He must have seen that it was incorrectly addressed, yet he readily promised that if an answer should come addressed to “Miss Georgia Ann Donner,” or to “Miss Eliza Poor Donner,” he would carefully save it for us.
After many fruitless trips to the post-office, we were one day handed a letter for grandma. It was not from our aunt, however, but from our sister Elitha, and bore the sad news that her husband, while on the range, had been thrown from his horse, and lived but a few moments after she reached him. She also stated that her little daughter Elisabeth and her sister Leanna were with her on the ranch, and that she was anxious to learn how Georgia and I were getting on.
By advice of short-sighted friends, grandma sent a very formal reply to the letter, and told us that she did not want Elitha to write again. Moreover, that we, in gratitude for what she had done for us, should take her name and call her “mother.”
This endeavor to destroy personal identity and family connection, met with pathetic opposition. Of our own accord, we had called her grandma. But “mother”–that name was sacred to her who had taught our infant lips to give it utterance! We would bestow it on no other.
Under no circumstance was there difficulty in finding some one ready to advise or help to plan our duties. With the best of intentions? Yes, but often, oh, how trying to us, poor little waifs of misfortune!
One, like a thorn in the flesh, was apportioned to me at the approach of the Winter of 1849 and 1850. We needed more help in the dairy, but could get no one except Mr. Marsh, who lived in bachelor quarters half a mile south on the creek bank. He drove in the bunch of cows found in the mornings grazing on their homeward way, but was too old to follow after those on the range. Moreover, he did not know how to milk. Grandma, therefore, was obliged to give up going after the cows herself. She hesitated about sending us alone, for of late many stragglers had been seen crossing the valley, and also Indians loitering about. Furthermore, Georgia was again coughing badly.
At a loss what to do, she discussed the situation with a neighbor, who after reflection asked,
“Why not dress Eliza in boy’s clothes and put her on old Charlie?”
Grandma threw up her hands at the bare suggestion. It was scandalous, improper! Why, she had even taught me to shun the boys of the village. However, she felt differently later in the day when she called me to her. But in vain was coaxing, in vain was scolding, I refused positively to don boy’s clothing.
Then she told in strictest confidence that Georgia was very frail, would probably die young, certainly would not reach twenty-five; and I ought not to hesitate at what would make her life easier. Still, if I had no regard for my sister’s comfort, she would be compelled to send us together afoot after the cows, and the exposure might be very bad for Georgia. This was enough. I would wear the hated clothes and my little sister should never learn from me the seriousness of her condition, lest it should hasten her death.
My suit of brown twill, red flannel shirt, boots, and sou’wester, with ear muffs attached, were ready for me before the heaviest winter storm. The jacket and trousers were modelled for a boy of nine, instead of a girl not yet eight, but grandma assured me that being all wool, the rain would soon shrink them to my size, also that the boots, which were too wide in the heel and hurt my toes, would shape themselves to my feet and prevent the old frost bites from returning.
I was very unhappy while she helped me to dress, and pinned up my braids, and hid them under my storm hat; and I was absolutely wretched when she kissed me and said,
“It would be hard to find a prettier little boy than you are.”
After again admonishing me to let no one on the range know I was a girl, and to answer all questions civilly and ride on quickly after my string of cows, she promised that if I helped her thus through the short days of the rainy season, she would give back my “girl clothes” in the Spring, and never again ask me to wear others.
She led me to where Charlie was tied to a tree. I stepped on to a block, from there to a stump, put my foot into the stirrup, and clumsily raised myself into the seat of an old dragoon saddle. My eyes were too full of tears to see, but grandma put the reins in my hand and started me away. Away where? To drive up the cows? Yes,–and into wider fields of thought than she recked.
After I got beyond our road, I stopped Charlie, and made him turn his face toward mine, and told him all that had happened, and just how I felt. The good old horse seemed to understand, for no friend could be more faithful than Charlie thenceforth proved to me. He learned to separate our cows from the many strange ones on the plain; to move faster when it rained; to choose the crossings that were safe; and to avoid the branches that might scrape me from his back. Grandma was pleased to learn that drivers on the range, when inquiring about strays, addressed me as “Bubbie.” My humiliation, however, was so great that, though Georgia and I were room-mates, and had secret day meetings, I never went near her when others were by.
She was allowed to play oftener with neighbors’ children, and occasionally spent a week or more with Mrs. Bergwald, helping her to care for her little daughter. While away, she learned fine needlework, had fewer crying spells, and was more contented than at home with grandma.
This happiness in her life added much to mine, and it came to pass that the duty which had seemed such a bitter task, became a pleasure. As the days lengthened, chum Charlie and I kept earlier hours, and crept closer to the heart of nature. We read the signs of the day in the dawn tints; watched the coyotes and other night prowlers slink back to their lairs; saw where the various birds went to housekeeping, and how they cared for their young; knew them also by their call and song. We could show where Johnnie-jump-ups and baby-blue-eyes grew thickest; where the cream cups were largest; and where the wild forget-me-nots blossomed. We explored each nook and corner for miles around, and felt that everything that God had made and man had not put his mark upon was ours.
The aged boughs heaped by the wind in wild confusion about the maimed and storm-beaten tree-trunks seemed to assume fantastic shapes and expressions as we approached from different directions, or viewed them under light and shadow of changing weather. Gnarled and twisted, they became elves and goblins, and the huge piles of storm wreckage were transformed into weird old ruins and deserted castles like those which grandma had described to me in legends of the Rhine. At twilight I was often afraid to pass, lest giants and ghosts should show themselves between uncanny arches. Then all that was needed was a low cluck to Charlie, and off he would start on a run past imaginary dangers.
It was late in the Spring when grandma gave back my “girl clothes” and wearily told me she had hired a boy to drive in the cows, and a man to help to milk; and that Georgia was to look after the house, and I to take her own place in the corrals, because she was sick and would have to be cupped and bled before she could be better.
Grandpa came home early next day and everything was ready for the treatment immediately after the noon meal. Grandma looked so grave, and gave so many instructions about household and dairy matters, that Georgia and I feared that we might lose her. I verily believe we would have slipped away during the operation, had grandpa not commanded us to stay near, as he might need assistance. In dread we watched every movement, saw what made grandma’s face pale, and where the sore spots were. Indeed our sympathies were so strained, our fingers fumbled awkwardly as we adjusted the covers about her weakened form.
As soon as her illness became known, neighbors came from far and near to help with the dairy work or nursing; and keen was their disappointment when she replied, “I thank you for your kind offers, but the children are handy and know my ways.”
Regularly she asked me about the cows, and if the goats had been milked, the eggs gathered, and the pigs fed. She remembered and planned the work, but did not regain strength as rapidly as she wished; nor did she resume her place in the corrals, even after she was up and around, but had a way of coming unexpectedly to see if her instructions were being carried out.
One day she became quite angry on finding me talking with a stranger. He was well dressed and spoke like a gentleman, touched his hat as she drew near and remarked, “This little girl tells me she is an orphan, and that you have been very kind to her.” Grandma was uncivil in her reply, and he went away. Then she warned me, “Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing,” and insisted that no man wearing such fine clothes and having such soft hands could earn an honest living. I did not repeat what he had told me of his little daughter, who lived in a beautiful home in New York, and was about my age, and had no sister; and his wish that I were there with her. I could not understand what harm there was in his questions or my answers. Did I not remind him of his own little girl? And had I not heard lonely miners tell of times when they gladly would have walked ten miles to shake hands and talk a few moments with a child?
CHAPTER XXVII
CAPT. FRISBIE–WEDDING FESTIVITIES–THE MASTERPIECE OF GRANDMA’S YOUTH–SENORA VALLEJO–JAKIE’S RETURN–HIS DEATH–A CHEROKEE INDIAN WHO HAD STOOD BY MY FATHER’S GRAVE.
Captain Frisbie spent much time in Sonoma after Company H was disbanded, and observing ones remarked that the attraction was Miss Fannie Vallejo. Yet, not until 1851 did the General consent to part with his first-born daughter. Weeks before the marriage day, friends began arriving at the bride’s home, and large orders came to grandma for dairy supplies.
She anticipated the coming event with interest and pleasure, because the prolonged and brilliant’ festivities would afford her an opportunity to display her fancy and talent in butter modelling. For the work, she did not charge, but simply weighed the butter for the designs and put it into crocks standing in cold water in the adobe store-house where, in the evenings, after candle-light, we three gathered.
Her implements were a circular hardwood board, a paddle, a set of small, well pointed sticks, a thin-bladed knife, and squares of white muslin of various degrees of fineness. She talked and modelled, and we listening watched the fascinating process; saw her take the plastic substance, fashion a duck with ducklings on a pond, a lamb curled up asleep, and a couched lion with shaggy head resting upon his fore-paws. We watched her press beads of proper size and color into the eye sockets; skilfully finish the base upon which each figure lay; then twist a lump of butter into a square of fine muslin, and deftly squeeze, until it crinkled through the meshes in form of fleece for the lamb’s coat, then use a different mesh to produce the strands for the lion’s mane and the tuft for the end of his tail.
In exuberant delight we exclaimed, “Oh, grandma, how did you learn to make such wonderful things?”
“I did not learn, it is a gift,” she replied.
Then she spoke of her modelling in childhood, and her subsequent masterpiece, which had won the commendation of Napoleon and Empress Josephine.
At that auspicious time, she was but eighteen years of age, and second cook in the principal tavern of Neuchatel, Switzerland. Georgia and I sat entranced, as with animated words and gestures she pictured the appearance of the buglers and heralds who came weeks in advance to announce the date on which the Emperor and Empress would arrive in that town and dine at the tavern; then the excitement and enthusiastic preparations which followed. She described the consultations between the _Herr Wirth_ and the _Frau Wirthin_ and their maids; and how, finally, Marie’s butter-piece for the christening feast of the child of the Herr Graf was remembered; and she, the lowly second cook, was told that a corner in the cellar would be set apart for her especial use, and that she should have her evenings to devote to the work, and three _groschen_ (seven and a half cents) added to her week’s wages, if she would produce a fitting centrepiece for the Emperor’s table.
Five consecutive nights, she designed and modelled until the watchman’s midnight cry drove her from work, and at three o’clock in the morning of the sixth day, she finished. And what a centrepiece it was! It required the careful handling of no less than three persons to get it in place on the table, where the Emperor might see at a glance the groups of figures along the splendid highway, which was spanned by arches and terminated with a magnificently wrought gateway, surmounted by His Majesty’s coat of arms.
We scarcely winked as we listened to the rest of the happenings on that memorable day. She recounted how she had dropped everything at the sound of martial music and from the tiny open space at the window caught glimpses of the passing pageant–of the royal coaches, of the maids of honor, of Josephine in gorgeous attire, of the snow-white poodle snuggled close in the Empress’s arms. Then she told how she heard a heavy thud by the kitchen fire, which made her rush back, only to discover that the head cook had fallen to the floor in a faint!
She gave the quick call which brought the Frau Wirthin to the scene of confusion, where in mute agony, she looked from servant to servant, until, with hands clasped, and eyes full of tears, she implored, “Marie, take the higher place for the day, and with God’s help, make no mistake.”
Then she went on to say that while the dinner was being served, the Emperor admired the butter-piece, and on hearing that it was the work of a young maidservant in the house, commanded that she be brought in to receive commendation of himself and the Empress. Again the Frau Wirthin rushed to the kitchen in great excitement, and–knowing that Marie’s face was red from heat of the fire, that she was nervous from added responsibilities, and not dressed for presentation–cried with quivering lips:
“Ah, Marie! the butter-piece is so grand, it brings us into trouble. The great Emperor asks to see thee, and thou must come!”
She told how poor, red-faced, bewildered Marie dropped her ladle and stared at the speaker, then rolled down her sleeves while the Frau Wirthin tied her own best white apron around her waist, at the same time instructing her in the manner in which she must hold her dress at the sides, between thumb and forefinger, and spread the skirt wide, in making a low, reverential bow. But Marie was so upset that she realized only that her heart was beating like a trip-hammer, and her form shaking like an aspen leaf, while being led before those august personages. Yet, after it was all over, she was informed that the Emperor and Empress had spoken kindly to her, and that she, herself, had made her bow and backed out of the room admirably for one in her position, and ought to feel that the great honor conferred upon her had covered with glory all the ills and embarrassments she had suffered.
To impress us more fully with the importance of that event, grandma had Georgia and me stand up on our cellar floor and learn to make that deferential bow, she by turns, taking the parts of the Frau Wirthin, the Emperor, and the Empress.
She now finished her modelling with a dainty centrepiece for the bride’s table, and let me go with her when she carried it to the Vallejo mansion. It gave great satisfaction; and while the family and guests were admiring it, Senora Vallejo took me by the hand, saying in her own musical tongue, “Come, little daughter, and play while you wait.”
She led me to a room that had pictures on the walls, and left me surrounded by toys. But I could not play. My eyes wandered about until they became riveted on one corner of the room, where stood a child’s crib which looked like gold. Its head and foot boards were embellished with figures of angels; and a canopy of lace like a fleecy cloud hovered over them. The bed was white, but the pillows were covered with pink silk and encased in slips of linen lawn, exquisite with rare needlework. I touched it before I left the room, wondering what the little girl dreamed in that beautiful bed; and on the way home, grandma and I discussed all these things.
The linen pillow-slips were as fine as those Senorita Isabella Fitch showed me, when she gave me the few highly prized lessons in simple drawn-work; and her cousin, Senorita Leese, had taught me hemming. These young ladies were related to the Vallejos and also lived in large houses facing the plaza, and were always kind to Georgia and me. In fact, some of my sweetest memories of Sonoma are associated with these three Spanish homes. Their people never asked unfeeling questions, nor repeated harrowing tales; and I did not learn until I was grown that they had been among the large contributors to the fund for the relief of our party.
I have a faint recollection of listening to the chimes of the wedding bells, and later, of hearing that Captain Frisbie had taken his bride away; but that is all, for about that time dear old Jakie returned to us in ill health, and our thoughts and care turned to him. He was so feeble and wasted that grandma sent for the French physician who had recently come among us. Even he said that he feared that Jakie had stayed away too long. After months of treatment, the doctor shook his head saying: “I have done my best with the medicines at hand. The only thing that remains to be tried is a tea steeped from the nettle root. That may give relief.”
As soon as we could get ready after the doctor uttered those words, Georgia and I, equipped with hoe, large knife, and basket were on our way to the Sonoma River. We had a full two miles and a half to walk, but did not mind that, because we were going for something that might take Jakie’s pains away. Georgia was to press down the nettle stems with a stick, while I cut them off and hoed up the roots.
The plants towered luxuriantly above our heads, making the task extremely painful. No sooner would I commence operations than the branches, slipping from under the stick, would brush Georgia’s face, and strike my hands and arms with stinging force, and by the time we had secured the required number of roots, we were covered with fiery welts. We took off our shoes and stockings, waded into the stream and bathed our faces, hands, and arms, then rested and ate the lunch we had brought with us.
As we turned homeward, we observed several Indians approaching by the bushy path, the one in front staggering, and his squaw behind, making frantic motions to us to hurry over the snake fence near-by. This we did as speedily as possible, and succeeded none too soon; for as we reached the ground on the safe side, he stopped us, and angrily demanded the contents of our basket. We opened it, and when he saw what it contained he stamped his wabbling foot and motioned us to be off. We obeyed with alacrity, for it was our first experience with a drunken Indian, and greatly alarmed us.
The tea may have eased Jakie’s pain, but it did not accomplish what we had hoped. One morning late in Summer, he asked grandpa to bring a lawyer and witnesses so that he could make his will. This request made us all move about very quietly and feel very serious. After the lawyer went away, grandma told us that Jakie had willed us each fifty dollars in gold, and the rest of his property to grandpa and herself. A few weeks later, when the sap ceased flowing to the branches of the trees, and the yellow leaves were falling, we laid Jakie beside other friends in the oak grove within sight of our house.
Grandma put on deep mourning, but Georgia and I had only black sun-bonnets, which we wore with heartfelt grief. The following Spring grandpa had the grave enclosed with a white paling; and we children planted Castilian rose bushes at the head and foot of the mound, and carried water to them from the house, and in time their branches met and the grave was a bed of fragrant blossoms.
One day as I was returning from it with my empty pail, a tidy, black-eyed woman came up to me and said,
“I’m a Cherokee Indian, the wife of one of the three drovers that sold the Brunners them long-horned cattle that was delivered the other day. I know who you are, and if you’ll sit on that log by me, I’ll tell you something.”
We took the seats shaded by the fence and she continued with unmistakable pride: “I can read and write quite a little, and me and the men belong to the same tribe. We drove our band of cattle across the plains and over the Sierras, and have sold them for more than we expected to get. We are going back the same road, but first I wanted to see you little girls. I heard lots about your father’s party, and how you all suffered in the mountains, and that no one seems to remember what became of his body. Now, child, I tell the truth. I stood by your father’s grave and read his name writ on the headboard, and come to tell you that he was buried in a long grave near his own camp in the mountains. I’m glad at seeing you, but am going away, wishing you wasn’t so cut off from your own people.”
So earnest was she, that I believed what she told me, and was sorry that I could not answer all her questions. We parted as most people did in those days, feeling that the meeting was good, and the parting might be forever.
CHAPTER XXVIII
ELITHA, FRANCES, AND MR. MILLER VISIT US–MRS. BRUNNER CLAIMS US AS HER CHILDREN–THE DAGUERREOTYPE.
The spring-tide of 1852 was bewitchingly beautiful; hills and plain were covered with wild flowers in countless shapes and hues. They were so friendly that they sprang up in dainty clusters close to the house doors, or wherever an inch of ground would give them foothold.
They seemed to call to me, and I looked into their bright faces, threw myself among them, and hugged as many as my arms could encircle, then laid my ear close to the ground to catch the low sound of moving leaf and stem, or of the mysterious ticking in the earth, which foretells the coming of later plants. Sometimes in my ecstasy, I would shut my eyes and lie still for a while, then open them inquiringly, to assure myself that all my favorites were around me still, and that it was not all a day-dream.
This lovely season mellowed into the Summer which brought a most unexpected letter from our sister Frances, who had been living all these years with the family of Mr. James F. Reed, in San Jose. Childlike, she wrote:
I am happy, but there has not been a day since I left Sutter’s Fort that I haven’t thought of my little sisters and wanted to see them. Hiram Miller, our guardian, says he will take me to see you soon, and Elitha is going too.
After the first few days of wondering, grandma rarely mentioned our prospective visitors, nor did she show Georgia or me the letter she herself had received from Elitha, but we re-read ours until we knew it by heart, and were filled with delightful anticipations. We imagined that our blue-eyed sister with the golden curls would look as she did when we parted, and recalled many things that we had said and done together at the Fort.
I asked grandma what “guardian” meant, and after she explained, I was not pleased with mine, and dreaded his coming, for I had not forgotten how Mr. Miller had promised me a lump of sugar that night in the Sierras, and then did not have it for me after I had walked the required distance; nor could I quite forgive the severe punishment he administered next morning because I refused to go forward and cried to return to mother when he told me that I must walk as far as Georgia and Frances did that day.
Autumn was well advanced before the lumbering old passenger coach brought our long-expected guests from the _embarcadero_, and after the excitement of the meeting was over, I stealthily scanned each face and figure. Mr. Miller’s stocky form in coarse, dark clothes, his cold gray eyes, uneven locks, stubby beard, and teeth and lips browned by tobacco, chewing, were not unfamiliar; but lie looked less tired, more patient, and was a kindlier spoken man than I had remembered.
Elitha, well dressed, tall, slender, and regular of feature, had the complexion and sparkling black eyes which mark the handsome brunette. I was more surprised than disappointed, however, to see that the girl of twelve, who slipped one arm around Georgia and the other around me in a long, loving embrace, had nothing about her that resembled our little sister Frances, except her blue eyes and motherly touch.
The week of their visit was joyous indeed. Many courtesies were extended by friends with whom we had travelled from time to time on the plains. One never-to-be-forgotten afternoon was spent with the Boggs family at their beautiful home amid orchard and vineyard near the foothills.
On Sunday, the bell of the South Methodist Church called us to service. In those days, the men occupied the benches on one side of the building, and the women and children on the other; and I noticed that several of the young men found difficulty in keeping their eyes from straying in our direction, and after service, more than one came to inquire after grandma’s health.
Mr. Miller passed so little time in our company that I remember only his arrival and his one serious talk with grandma, when he asked her the amount due her on account of the trouble and expense we two children had been since she had taken us in charge. She told him significantly that there was nothing to pay, because we were her children, and that she was abundantly able to take care of us. In proof, she handed him a daguerreotype taken the previous year.
It pictured herself comfortably seated, and one of us standing at either side with an elbow resting upon her shoulder, and a chubby face leaning against the uplifted hand. She was arrayed in her best cap, handsome embroidered black satin dress and apron, lace sleeve ruffs, kerchief, watch and chain. We were twin-like in lace-trimmed dresses of light blue dimity, striped with a tan-colored vine, blue sashes and hair ribbons; and each held a bunch of flowers in her hand. It was a costly trinket, in a case inlaid with pink roses, in mother of pearl, and she was very proud of it.
Grandma’s answer to Mr. Miller was a death-knell to Elitha’s hopes and plans in our behalf. Her little daughter had been dead more than a year. Sister Leanna had recently married and gone to a home of her own, and the previous week the place made vacant by the marriage had been given to Frances, with the ready approval of Hiram Miller and Mr. and Mrs. Reed. She had now come to Sonoma hoping that if Mr. Miller should pay grandma for the care we had been to her, she would consent to give us up in order that we four sisters might be reunited in one home. Elitha now foresaw that such a suggestion would not only result in failure, but arouse grandma’s antagonism, and cut off future communication between us.
CHAPTER XXIX
GREAT SMALLPOX EPIDEMIC–ST. MARY’S HALL–THANKSGIVING DAY IN CALIFORNIA–ANOTHER BROTHER-IN-LAW.
“Mrs. Brunner has become too childish to have the responsibility of young girls,” had been frequently remarked before Elitha’s visit; and after her departure, the same friends expressed regret that she had not taken us away with her.
These whispered comments, which did not improve our situation, suddenly ceased, for the smallpox made its appearance in Sonoma, and helpers were needed to care for the afflicted. Grandma had had the disease in infancy and could go among the patients without fear. In fact, she had such confidence in her method of treating it, that she would not have Georgia and me vaccinated while the epidemic prevailed, insisting that if we should take the disease she could nurse us through it without disfigurement, and we would thenceforth be immune. She did not expose us during what she termed the “catching-stage,” but after that had passed, she called us to share her work and become familiar with its details, and taught us how to brew the teas, make the ointments, and apply them.
I do not remember a death among her patients, and only two who were badly disfigured. One was our pretty Miss Sallie Lewis, who had the dread disease in confluent form. Grandma was called hurriedly in the night, because the afflicted girl, in delirium, had loosened the straps which held her upon her bed, and while her attendant was out of the room had rushed from the house into the rain, and was not found until after she had become thoroughly drenched. Grandma had never before treated such serious conditions, yet strove heroically, and helped to restore Miss Sallie to health, but could not keep the cruel imprints from her face.
The other was our arch-enemy, Castle, who seemed so near death that one night as grandma was peering into the darkness for signal lights from the homes of the sick, she exclaimed impulsively, “Hark, children! there goes the Catholic bell. Count its strokes. Castle is a Catholic, and was very low when I saw him to-day.” Together we slowly counted the knells until she stopped us, saying, “It’s for somebody else; Castle is not so old.”
She was right. Later he came to us to recuperate, and was the most exacting and profane man we ever waited on. He conceived a special grudge against Georgia, whom he had caught slyly laughing when she first observed the change in his appearance. Yet months previous, he had laid the foundation for her mirth.
[Illustration: MRS. BRUNNER, GEORGIA AND ELIZA DONNER]
[Illustration: S.O. HOUGHTON, Member of Col. J.D. Stevenson’s First Regiment of N.Y. Volunteers]
[Illustration: ELIZA P. DONNER]
He was then a handsome, rugged fellow, and particularly proud of the shape of his nose. Frequently had he twitted my sensitive sister about her little nose, and had once made her very angry in the presence of others, by offering to tell her a story, then continuing: “God and the devil take turns in shaping noses. Now, look at mine, large and finely shaped. This is God’s work; but when yours was growing, it was the devil’s turn, and he shaped that little dab on your face and called it a nose.”
Georgia fled, and cried in anger over this indignity, declaring that she hated Castle and would not be sorry if something should happen to spoil his fine nose. So when he came to us from the sick-room, soured and crestfallen because disease had deeply pitted and seamed that feature which had formerly been his pride, she laughingly whispered, “Well, I don’t care, my nose could never look like his, even if I had the smallpox, for there is not so much of it to spoil.”
Our dislike of the man became intense; and later, when we discovered that he was to be bartender at grandpa’s bar, and board at our house, we held an indignation meeting in the back yard. This was more satisfaction to Georgia than to me, for she had the pleasure of declaring that if grandma took that man to board, she would be a Schweitzer child no longer, she would stop speaking German, make her clothes like American children’s; and that she knew her friend Mrs. Bergwald would give her a home, if grandma should send her away.
Here the meeting was suddenly interrupted by the discovery that grandma was standing behind us. We did not know how long she had been there nor how much she had overheard, nor which she meant to strike with the switch she had in her hand. However, we were sitting close together and my left arm felt the sting, and it aroused in me the spirit of rebellion. I felt that I had outgrown such correction, nor had I deserved it; and I told her that she should never, never strike me again. Then I walked to the house alone.
A few moments later Georgia came up to our room, and found me dressing myself with greatest care. In amazement she asked, “Eliza, where are you going?” and was dumbfounded when I answered, “To find another home for us.”
In the lower hall I encountered grandma, whose anger had cooled, and she asked the question Georgia had. I raised my sleeve, showed the welt on my arm, and replied, “I am going to see if I can’t find a home where they will treat me kindly.”
Poor grandma was conscience-stricken, drew me into her own room, and did not let me leave it until after she had soothed my hurts and we had become friends again.
Georgia went to Mrs. Bergwald’s, and remained quite a while. When she came back speaking English, and insisting that she was an American, grandma became very angry, and threatened to send her away among strangers; then hesitated, as if realizing how fully Georgia belonged to me and I to her, and that we would cling together whatever might happen. In her perplexity, she besought Mrs. Bergwald’s advice.
Now, Mrs. Bergwald was a native of Stockholm, a lady of rare culture, and used the French language in conversing with grandma. She spoke feelingly of my little sister, said that she was companionable, willing, and helpful; anxious to learn the nicer ways of work, and ladylike accomplishments. She could see no harm in Georgia wishing to remain an American, since to love one’s own people and country was natural.
Thereafter grandma changed her methods. She gave us our dolls to look at, and keep among our possessions, likewise most of our keepsakes. She also unlocked her carefully tended parlor and we three spent pleasant evenings there. Sometimes she would let us bring her, from under the sofa, her gorgeous prints, illustrating “Wilhelm Tell,” and would repeat the text relating to the scenes as we examined each picture with eager interest.
We were also allowed to go to Sunday school oftener, and later, she sent me part of the term to the select school for girls recently established by Dr. Ver Mehr, an Episcopalian clergyman. In fact, my tuition was expected to offset the school’s milk bill, yet that did not lessen my enthusiasm. I was eager for knowledge. I also expected to meet familiar faces in that great building, which had been the home of Mr. Jacob Leese. But upon entering I saw only finely dressed young ladies from other parts of the State promenading in the halls, and small girls flitting about in the yard like bright-winged butterflies. Some had received letters from home and were calling out the news; others were engaged in games that were strange to me. The bell rang, I followed to the recitation hall, and was assigned a seat below the rest, because I was the only small Sonoma girl yet enrolled.
I made several life-long friends at that institute; still it was easy to see that “St. Mary’s Hall” was established for pupils who had been reared in the lap of wealth and ease; not for those whose hands were rough like mine. Nor was there a class for me. I seemed to be between grades, and had the discouragement of trying to keep up with girls older and farther advanced.
My educational advantages in Sonoma closed with my half term at St. Mary’s Hall, grandma believing that I had gone to school long enough to be able to finish my studies without teachers.
Georgia was more fortunate. When Miss Hutchinson opened “The Young Ladies’ Seminary” in the Fall, grandma decided to lend it a helping hand by sending her a term as a day scholar. My delighted sister was soon in touch with a crowd of other little girls, and brought home many of their bright sayings for my edification.
One evening she rushed into the house bubbling over with excitement and joyously proclaimed: “Oh, Eliza, Miss Hutchinson is going to give a great dinner to her pupils on Thanksgiving Day; and I am to go, and you also, as her guest.”
Grandma was pleased that I was invited, and declared that she would send a liberal donation of milk and cheese as a mark of appreciation.
I caught much of Georgia’s spirit of delight, for I had a vivid recollection of the grand dinner given in commemoration of our very first legally appointed Thanksgiving Day in California; I had only to close my eyes, and in thought would reappear the longest and most bountifully spread table I had ever seen. Turkey, chicken, and wild duck, at the ends; a whole roasted pig in the centre, and more than enough delicious accompaniments to cover the spaces between. Then the grown folk dining first, and the flock of hungry children coming later; the speaking, laughing, and clapping of hands, with which the old home customs were introduced in the new land.
There, I wore a dark calico dress and sun-bonnet, both made by poor Mrs. McCutchen of the Donner Party, who had to take in sewing for a livelihood; but to the Seminary, I should wear grandpa’s gift, a costly alpaca, changeable in the sunlight to soft mingling bluish and greenish colors of the peacock. Its wide skirt reached to my shoetops, and the gathers to its full waist were gauged to a sharp peak in front. A wide open V from the shoulder down to the peak displayed an embroidered white Swiss chemisette. The sleeves, small at the wrist, were trimmed with folds of the material and a quilling of white lace at the hand.
On the all-important morning, grandma was anxious that I should look well; and after she had looped my braids with bows of blue ribbon and fastened my dress, she brought forth my dainty bonnet, her own gift. Deft fingers had shirred the pale-blue silk over a frame which had been cut down from ladies’ size, arranged an exquisite spray of Marechal Niel rosebuds and foliage on the outside, and quilled a soft white ruching around the face, which emphasized the Frenchy style and finish so pleasing to grandma.
Did I look old fashioned? Yes, for grandma said, “Thou art like a picture I saw somewhere long ago.” Then she continued brightly, “Here are thy mits, and thy little embroidered handkerchief folded in a square. Carry it carefully so it won’t get mussed before the company see it, and come not back late for milking.”
The Seminary playground was so noisy with chatter and screams of joy, that it was impossible to remember all the games we played; and later the dining-room and its offerings were so surprising and so beautifully decorated that the sight nearly deprived me of my appetite.
“Mumps. Bite a pickle and see if it ain’t so!” exclaimed a neighbor to whom Georgia was showing her painful and swollen face. True enough, the least taste of anything sour produced the tell-tale shock. But the most aggravating feature of the illness was that it developed the week that sister Elitha and Mr. Benjamin W. Wilder were married in Sacramento; and when they reached Sonoma on their wedding tour, we could not visit with them, because neither had had the disease.
They came to our house, and we had a hurried little talk with a closed window between us, and were favorably impressed by our tall “Brother Ben,” who had very blue eyes and soft brown hair. He was the second of the three Wilder brothers, who had been among the early gold-seekers, and tried roughing it in the mines. Though a native of Rhode Island, and of Puritan ancestry, he was quite Western in appearance.
Though not a wealthy man, he had a competency, for he and his elder brother were owners of an undivided half of Ranchos de los Cazadores (three leagues of land in Sacramento Valley), which was well stocked with horned cattle and good horses. He was also interested in a stage line running between Sacramento and the gold regions. He encouraged Elitha in her wish to make us members of their household, and the home they had to offer us was convenient to public schools; yet for obvious reasons they were now silent on the subject.
CHAPTER XXX
IDEALS AND LONGINGS–THE FUTURE–CHRISTMAS.
At the time of which I now speak, I was in my eleventh year, but older in feeling and thought. I had ideals and wanted to live up to them, and my way was blocked by difficulties. Often, in the cowyard, I would say to the dumb creatures before me,
“I shall milk you dry, and be kind to you as long as I stay; but I shall not always be here doing this kind of work.”
These feelings had been growing since the beginning of grandpa’s partnership in that bar-room. Neither he nor grandma saw harm in the business. They regarded it as a convenient place where men could meet and spend a social evening, and where strangers might feel at home. Yet, who could say that harm did not emanate from that bar? I could not but wish that grandpa had no interest in it. I did not want to blame him, for he was kind by nature, and had been more than benefactor to Georgia and me.
Fond recollection was ever bringing to mind joys he had woven into our early childhood. Especially tender and precious thoughts were associated with that night long ago when he hurried home to inspect a daguerreotype that had just been taken. Grandma handed it to him with the complaisant remark, “Mine and Georgia’s sind fine; but Eliza’s shows that she forgot herself and ist watching how the thing ist being made.”
Grandpa looked at it in silence, observing that grandma’s likeness was natural, and Georgia’s perfect, in fact, pretty as could be; while I, not being tall enough to rest my elbow comfortably upon grandma’s shoulder, stood awkwardly with my flowers drooping and eyes turned, intently watching in the direction of the operator. Regretfully, I explained:
“Grandpa, mine was best two times, for Georgia moved in the first one, and grandma in the next, and the pictureman said after each, ‘We must try again.’ And he would have tried yet again, for me, but the sun was low, and grandma said she was sorry but this would have to do.”
Lovingly, he then drew me to his side, saying, “Never mind, _mein Schatz_ (my treasure); let grandma and Georgia keep this, and when that pictureman comes back, grandpa will sit for his picture, and thou shalt stand at his knee. He’ll buy thee a long gold chain to wear around thy neck, and thou shalt be dressed all in white and look like an angel.”
Being younger than grandma, and more fond of amusements, he had taken us to many entertainments; notably, Odd Fellows’ picnics and dinners, where he wore the little white linen apron, which we thought would be cute for our dolls. He often reminded grandma that she should teach us to speak the high German, so that we might appear well among gentlefolk; and my cherished keepsakes included two wee gold dollars and a fifty-cent piece of the same bright metal, which he had given me after fortunate sales from the herds. But dearest of all is remembrance of the evening long ago when he befriended us at Sutter’s Fort.
Still, not even those tender recollections could longer hold in check my resentment against the influences and associations which were filtering through that bar-room, and robbing me of companions and privileges that I valued. More than once had I determined to run away, and then desisted, knowing that I should leave two lonely old people grieving over my seeming ingratitude. This question of duty to self and to those who had befriended me haunted my working hours, went with me to church and Sunday school, and troubled my mind when I was supposed to be asleep.
Strange, indeed, would it have seemed to me, could I then have known that before my thirtieth year, I should be welcomed in the home of the military chief of our nation. Strange, also, that the young Lieutenant, William Tecumseh Sherman, who when visiting in Sonoma, came with his fellow-officers to the Brunner farm, should have attained that dignity. Equally impossible would it have been then to conceive that in so short a time, I, a happy mother and the wife of a Congressional Representative, should be a guest at the brilliant receptions of the foreign diplomats and at the Executive Mansion in the city of Washington. Is it any wonder that in later years when my mind reverted to those days, I almost questioned my identity?
Georgia’s return from Mrs. Bergwald’s before Christmas gave me a chance to talk matters over with her, and we decided that we must leave our present surroundings. Yet, how to get away, and when, puzzled us. Our only hope of escape seemed to be to slip off together some moonlight night.
“But,” my sister remarked gravely, “we can’t do it before Christmas! You forget the white flannel skirt that I am embroidering for grandma, the pillow-slips that you are hemstitching and trimming with lace for her; and the beautiful white shirt that you have for grandpa.”
She was sure that not to stay and give them as we had planned, would be as bad as breaking a promise. So, we took out our work and hid ourselves to sew a while.
My undertaking was not so large or elaborate as hers, and when I finished, she still had quite a piece to do, and was out of floss. She had pin-pricked from an embroidered silk shawl on to strips of white paper, the outline of a vine representing foliage, buds, and blossoms; then basted the paper in place around the skirt. The colors were shaded green and pink. Unable to get the floss for the blossoms, she had bought narrow pink silk braid and outlined each rose and bud, then embroidered the foliage in green. Some might have thought it a trifle gaudy, but to me it seemed beautiful, and I was proud of her handiwork.
I washed, starched, and ironed the pillow-slips while grandma was from home, and they did look well, for I had taken great pains in doing my work. Several days before the appointed time, grandma, in great good humor, showed us the dresses she had been hiding from us; and then and there, like three children unable to keep their secrets longer, we exchanged gifts, and were as pleased as if we had waited until Christmas morning.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE WIDOW STEIN AND LITTLE JOHNNIE–“DAUGHTERS OF A SAINTED MOTHER”–ESTRANGEMENT AND DESOLATION–A RESOLUTION AND A VOW–MY PEOPLE ARRIVE AND PLAN TO BEAR ME AWAY.
On the first of September, 1855, a widow, whom I shall call Stein, and her little son Johnnie, came to visit grandma. She considered herself a friend by reason of the fact that she and her five children had been hospitably entertained in our home two years earlier, upon their arrival in California. For grandpa in particular she professed a high regard, because her husband had been his bartender, and as such had earned money enough to bring his family from Europe, and also to pay for the farm which had come to her at his death.
Mother and son felt quite at home, and in humor to enjoy their self-appointed stay of two weeks. Despite her restless eye and sinister smile, she could be affable; and although, at first, I felt an indescribable misgiving in her presence, it wore away, and I often amused Johnnie while she and grandma talked.
As if to hasten events, Mrs. Bergwald had sent for Georgia almost at the beginning of the visit of the Steins; and after her departure, Mrs. Stein insisted on helping me with the chores, and then on my sitting with her during grandma’s busiest hour.
She seemed deeply interested in California’s early history, and when I would stop talking, she would ply me with questions. So I told her how poor everybody was before the discovery of gold; how mothers would send their boys to grandma’s early morning fire for live coals, because they had no matches or tinder boxes; how neighbors brought their coffee and spices to grind in her mills; how the women gathered in the afternoons under her great oak tree, to talk, sew, and eagerly listen to the reading of extracts from letters and papers that had come from friends away back in the States. I told her how, in case of sickness, one neighbor would slip over and cook the family breakfast for the sick woman, others would drop in later, wash the dishes, and put the house in order; and so by turns and shares, the washing, ironing, and mending would be done, and by the time the sick woman would be up and around, she would have no neglected work to discourage her. Also we talked of how flags were used for day signals and lights by night, in calls for help.
Our last talk was on Saturday morning between work. She questioned me in regard to the amount, and location of the property of the Brunners, then wanted to hear all about my sisters in Sacramento, and wondered that we did not go to live with them. I explained that Elitha had written us several times asking us to come, but, knowing that grandma would be displeased, we had not read her those parts of the letters, lest she forbid our correspondence entirely. I added that we were very sorry that she could not like those who were dear to us.
Finally, having exhausted information on several subjects, Mrs. Stein gave me a searching glance, and after a marked silence, continued: “I don’t wonder that you love grandpa and grandma as much as you tell me, and it is a pity about these other things that aren’t pleasant. Don’t you think it would be better for you to live with your sister, and grandma could have some real German children to live here? She is old, and can’t help liking her own kind of people best.”
I did not have an unkind thought in mind, yet I did confess that I should like to live well and grow up to be like my mother. In thoughtless chatter I continued, that more nice people came to visit grandma and to talk with us before the town filled with strangers, and before Americans lived in the good old Spanish houses, and before the new churches and homes were built.
She led me to speak of mother, then wondered at my vivid recollections, since I had parted from her so young. She was very attentive as I told how Georgia and I spoke of her when we were by ourselves, and that friends did not let us forget her. I even cited a recent instance, when the teacher had invited us, and two other young girls, to go to the Vallejo pear orchard for all the fruit we wished to eat, and when he offered the money in payment, the old Spanish gentleman in charge said, “Pay for three.”
“But we are five,” said the teacher.
Then the Don blessed himself with the sign of the cross, and pointing to Georgia and me, replied, “Those two are daughters of a sainted mother, and are always welcome!”
At noon grandma told me that she and the Steins would be ready to go down town immediately after dinner, and that I must wash the dishes and finish baking the bread in the round oven. We parted in best of humor, and I went to work. The dishes and bread received first attention. Then I scrubbed the brick floor in the milk-house; swept the store-room and front yard; gathered the eggs, fed the chickens, and rebuilt the fire for supper. I fancied grandma would be pleased with all I had accomplished, and laughed to myself as I saw the three coming home leaning close to each other in earnest conversation.
To my surprise, the Steins went directly to their own room; and grandma did not speak, but closed her eyes as she passed me. That was her way, and I knew that it would be useless to ask what had offended her. So I took my milk pails, and, wondering, went to the cow corrals. I could not imagine what had happened, yet felt hurt and uncomfortable.
Returning with the milk, I saw Johnnie playing by the tree, too near the horse’s feet, and warned him. As he moved, grandma stepped forward and stood in front of me, her face white with rage. I set my buckets down and standing between them listened as she said in German:
“Oh, false one, thou didst not think this morning that I would so soon find thee out. Thou wast not smart enough to see that my friend, Mrs. Stein, was studying thee, so that she could let me know what kind of children I had around me. And thou, like a snake in the grass, hast been sticking out thy tongue behind my back. Thou pretendest that thou art not staying here to get my money and property, yet thou couldst tell her all I had. Thou wouldst not read all in the letters from thy fine sisters? Thou wouldst rather stay here until I die and then be rich and spend it with them!”
She stopped as if to catch her breath, and I could only answer, “Grandma, I have not done what thou sayest.”
She continued: “I have invited people to come here this night, and thou shalt stand before them and listen while I tell what I have done for thee, and how thou hast thanked me. Now, go, finish thy work, eat thy supper, and come when I call thee.”
I heard her call, but don’t know how I got into the room, nor before how many I stood. I know that my head throbbed and my feet almost refused to support my body, as I listened to grandma, who in forceful language declared that she had taken me, a starveling, and reared me until I was almost as tall as she herself; that she had loved and trusted me, and taught me everything I knew, and that I had that day blackened the home that had sheltered me, wounded the hand that had fed me, and proved myself unworthy the love that had been showered upon me. Mrs. Stein helped her through an account of our morning chat, misconstruing all that had passed between us.
I remained silent until the latter had announced that almost the first thing that she had noticed was that we children were of a selfish, jealous disposition, and that Georgia was very cross when her little Johnnie came home wearing a hat that grandpa had bought him. Then I turned upon her saying, “Mrs. Stein, you forget that Georgia has not seen that hat. You know that grandma bought it after Georgia went away.”
She sprang toward me, then turned to grandma, and asked if she was going to let an underling insult a guest in her house.
I did not wait for the reply. I fled out into the dark and made my way to the weird old tree-trunk in the back yard. Thence, I could see the lights from the windows, and at times hear the sound of voices. There, I could stand in the starlight and look up to the heavens. I had been there before, but never in such a heartsick and forlorn condition. I was too overwrought to think, yet had to do something to ease the tension. I moved around and looked toward Jakie’s grave, then returned to the side of the tree-trunk which had escaped the ravages of fire, and ran my finger up and down, feeling the holes which the red-headed woodpecker had bored and filled with acorns.
A flutter in the air aroused me. It was the old white-faced owl leaving the hollow in the live oak for the night’s hunt. I faced about and saw her mate fly after her. Then in the stillness that followed, I stretched both arms toward heaven and cried aloud, “O God, I’m all alone; take care of me!”
The spell was broken. I grew calmer and began to think and to plan. I pictured Georgia asleep in a pretty house two miles away, wondered how I could get word to her and what she would say when told that we would go away together from Sonoma, and not take anything that grandpa or grandma had given us.
I remembered that of the fund which we had started by hemming new, and washing soiled handkerchiefs for the miners, there still remained in her trunk seven dollars and eighty-five cents, and in mine seven dollars and fifty cents. If this was not enough to take us to Sacramento, we might get a chance as Sister Leanna had, to work our way.
I was still leaning against the tree-trunk when the moon began to peep over the eastern mountains, and I vowed by its rising that before it came up in its full, Georgia and I should be in Sacramento.
I heard grandma’s call from the door, which she opened and quickly closed, and I knew by experience that I should find a lighted candle on the table, and that no one would be in the room to say good-night. I slept little, but when I arose in the morning I was no longer trouble tossed. I knew what I would say to grandma if she should give me the chance.
Grandpa, who had come home very late, did not know what had happened, and he and I breakfasted with the men, and grandma and the Steins came after we left the room. No one offered to help me that morning, still I got through my duties before grandma called me to her. She seemed more hurt than angry, and began by saying:
“On account of thy bad conduct, Mrs. Stein is going to shorten her stay. She is going to leave on Tuesday, and wants me to go with her. She says that she has kept back the worst things that thou hast told about me, but will tell them to me on the road.”
Trembling with indignation, I exclaimed, “Oh, grandma, thou hast always told us that it is wrong to speak of the faults of a guest in the house, but what dost thou think of one who hath done what Mrs. Stein hath done? I did say some of the things she told thee, but I did not say them in that way. I didn’t give them that meaning. I didn’t utter one unkind word against thee or grandpa. I have not been false to thee. To prove it, I promise to stay and take care of everything while thou goest and hearest what more she hath to tell, but after the home-coming, I leave. Nothing that thou canst say will make me change my mind. I am thankful for the home I have had, but will not be a burden to thee longer. I came to thee poor, and I will go away poor.”
The Brunner conveyance was at the door on Tuesday morning when grandma and her guest came out to begin their journey. Grandpa helped grandma and the widow on to the back seat. While he was putting Johnnie in front with the driver, I stepped close to the vehicle, and extended my hand to grandma, saying, “Good-bye, don’t worry about the dairy while thou art gone, for everything will be attended to until thy return; but remember–then I go.”
On the way back to the house grandpa asked why I did not treat the widow more friendly, and I answered, “Because I don’t believe in her.” To my surprise, he replied, “I don’t either, but grandma is like a little child in her hands.”
I felt that I ought to tell him I should soon go away, but I had never gone to him with home troubles, and knew that it would not be right to speak of them in grandma’s absence; so he quietly went to his duties and I to mine. Yet I could not help wondering how grandma could leave me in full charge of her possessions if she believed the stories that had been told her. I felt so sure that the guilty one would be found out that it made me light-hearted.
Mrs. Blake came and spent the night with me, and the following morning helped to get the breakfast and talked over the cleaning that I wished to do before grandma’s return on the coming Saturday morning. But
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform,
and unseen hands were shaping a different course for me! I had the milk skimmed, and a long row of clean pans in the sunshine before time to hurry the dinner for grandpa and the three men. I was tired, for I had carried most of the milk to the pig troughs after having finished work which grandma and I had always done together; so I sat down under the tree to rest and meditate.
My thoughts followed the travellers with many questions, and the wish that I might hear what Mrs. Stein had to say. I might have overstayed my time, if the flock of goats had not come up and smelled my hands, nibbled at the hem of my apron, and tried to chew the cape of my sun-bonnet. I sprang up and with a shout and clap of my hands, scattered them, and entered the log kitchen, reclosing the lower section of the divided door, to keep them from following me within.
I prepared the dinner, and if it lacked the flavor of grandma’s cooking, those who ate it did not tell me. Grandpa lingered a moment to bestow a meed of praise on my work, then went off to the back corral to slaughter a beef for the shop. I began clearing the table, and was turning from it with a vegetable dish in each hand when I caught sight of the shadow of a tall silk hat in the open space above the closed half door. Then the hat and its wearer appeared.
Leaning over the edge of the door, he gazed at me standing there as if I were nailed to the floor. I was speechless with amazement, and it seemed a long while before he remarked lightly, “You don’t seem to know me.”
“Yes, you are Mr. Wilder, my brother-in-law,” I stammered. “Where is Elitha?”
[Illustration: SACRAMENTO CITY IN THE EARLY FIFTIES]
[Illustration: FRONT STREET, SACRAMENTO CITY, 1850]
He informed me that she and their little daughter were at the hotel in town, where they had arrived about noon, and that she wanted Georgia and me to be prompt in coming to her at four o’clock. I told him that we could not do so, because Georgia was at Mrs. Bergwald’s, grandma on a journey beyond Bodego, and I at home in charge of the work.
In surprise he listened, then asked, “But aren’t you at all anxious to see your sister and little niece?”
Most earnestly, I replied that I was. Nevertheless, as grandma was away, I could not leave the place until after the day’s work was done. Then I enumerated what was before me. He agreed that there was quite enough to keep me busy, yet insisted that I ought to keep the appointment for four o’clock. After his departure, I rushed out to grandpa, told him who had come and gone, and what had passed between us. He too, regretted the situation, but promised that I should spend the evening at the hotel.
I fairly flew about my work that afternoon, and my brain was as active as my hands and feet. I was certain that brother and sister had come for us, and the absorbing query was, “How did they happen to arrive at this particular time?” I also feared there was more trouble before me, and remembered my promise to grandma with twinges of regret.
At half-past four, I was feeding the hens in the yard, and, looking up, saw a strange carriage approaching. Instantly, I guessed who was in it, and was at the gate before it stopped. Elitha greeted me kindly, but not cordially. She asked why I had not come as requested, and then said, “Go, bring the silver thimble Frances left here, and the coral necklace I gave you.”
In my nervous haste I could not find the thimble, but carried out the necklace. She next bade me take the seat beside her, thus disclosing her intention of carrying me on, picking up Georgia and proceeding to Sacramento. She was annoyed by my answer and disappointed in what she termed my lack of pride. Calling my attention to my peculiar style of dress and surroundings, to my stooped shoulders and callous hands, she bade me think twice before I refused the comfortable home she had to offer.
When assured that I would gladly go on Saturday, but was unwilling to leave in grandma’s absence, she did not urge further, simply inquired the way to Georgia, and left me.
I was nursing my disappointment and watching the disappearing carriage, when Mr. Knipp, the brewer, with his load of empty kegs drew up, and asked what I was thinking about so hard. It was a relief to see his jolly, good-natured face, and I told him briefly that our people were in town and wished to take us home with them. He got down from his wagon to say confidentially:
“Thou must not leave grandpa and grandma, because the old man is always kind to thee, and though she may sometimes wag a sharp tongue, she means well. Be patient, by-and-by thou wilt have a nice property, the country will have more people for hire, and thou wilt not have so hard to work.”
When I told him that I did not want the property, and that there were other things I did care for, he continued persuasively:
“Women need not so much learning from books. Grandma would not know how to scold so grandly if she remembered not so many fine words from ‘Wilhelm Tell’ and the other books that she knoweth by heart.” And he climbed back and drove off, believing that he had done me a good turn.
To my great satisfaction, Georgia arrived about dark, saying that Benjamin had brought her and would call for us later to spend the evening with them. When we reached the hotel, Elitha received us affectionately, and did not refer to the disappointments of the afternoon. The time was given up to talk about plans for our future, and that night when we two crept into bed, I felt that I had been eased of a heavy burden, for Benjamin was willing to await grandma’s return.
He also told us that early next morning he would go to Santa Rosa, the county seat, and apply to be made our guardian in place of Hiram Miller, and would also satisfy any claim grandma might have to us, or against us, adding that we need not take anything away with us, except our keepsakes.
CHAPTER XXXII
GRANDMA’S RETURN–GOOD-BYE TO THE DUMB CREATURES–GEORGIA AND I ARE OFF FOR SACRAMENTO.
Meanwhile, grandma and her friends had reached Bodego and spent the night there. She had not learned anything more terrible that I had said about her, and at breakfast told Mrs. Stein that she had had a dream foreboding trouble, and would not continue the journey to the Stein home. The widow coaxed and insisted that she go the few remaining miles to see her children. Then she waxed indignant and let slip the fact that she considered it an outrage that American, instead of European born children should inherit the Brunner property, and that she had hoped that grandma would select two of her daughters to fill the places from which Georgia and I should be expelled.
Grandma took a different view of the matter, and started homeward immediately after breakfast.
That very afternoon, on the Santa Rosa road, whom should she pass but our brother Ben. They recognized each other, but were too astonished to speak. Grandma ordered her driver to whip up, saying that she had just seen the red-whiskered imp of darkness who had troubled her sleep, and she must get to town as fast as possible.
She stopped first at the butcher shop. Before grandpa could express surprise at her unexpected return, she showered him with questions in regard to happenings at home, and being informed, took him to task for having permitted us to visit our people at the hotel. He innocently remarked that he knew of no reason why we should not see our relatives; that Georgia was spending the day with them; and that we both had his permission to go again in the evening. In conclusion he said that I had been a faithful, hard working little housekeeper, and she would find everything in order at home.
Grandma arrived at home before sunset, too excited to be interested in dairy matters. She told me all about her trip, even to the name she had called my brother-in-law, adding that she knew he was “not red-whiskered, but he was next door to it.” Later, when he came, she did not receive him pleasantly, nor would she let us go to Elitha. Brusquely, she demanded to know if I had written to him to come for us, and would not believe him when he assured her that neither he nor our sisters had received letter or message from us in months.
After his departure, I could see that she was no longer angry, and I dreaded the ensuing day, which was destined to be my last on that farm.
It came with a rosy dawn, and I was up to meet it, and to say good-bye to the many dumb creatures that I had cared for. The tension I was under lent me strength to work faster than usual. When the breakfast call sounded, I had finished in the corrals, and was busy in the hen houses, having taken care to keep out of grandpa’s sight; for I knew how he would miss me, and I did not want to say the parting words. After he and the men were gone, grandma came, and watched me finish my task, then said kindly,
“Come, Eliza, and eat thy breakfast.”
I looked up and replied,
“Grandma, I ate my last meal in thy house last night. Dost thou not remember, I told thee that I would take care of everything until thy return, and then would not be a burden to thee longer? I have kept my word, and am going away this morning.”
“Thou are mine, and canst not go; but if thou wilt not eat, come and help me with the dishes,” she replied nervously.
I had planned to slip off and change my dress before meeting her, but now, after a breath of hesitation, I went to dry the dishes, hoping that our talk would soon be over. I knew it would be hard for both of us, for dear, childish grandma was ready to forgive and forget what she termed our little troubles. I, however, smarting under the wrong and injustice that had been done me, felt she had nothing to forgive, and that matters between us had reached the breaking-point.
She was still insisting on her right to keep me, when a slight sound caused us both to turn, and meeting Georgia’s anxious, listening gaze, grandma appealed to her, saying,
“Thou hast heard thy sister’s talk, but thou hast not been in this fuss, and surely wilt not leave me?”
“Yes, I am going with Eliza,” was the prompt answer, which had no sooner left her lips, than grandma resorted to her last expedient: she ordered us both to our room, and forbade us to leave it until she should hear from grandpa.
What message she sent him by the milker we never learned. Georgia, being already dressed for the journey, and her trunk containing most of her possessions being at Mrs. Bergwald’s, had nothing to do but await results.
I quickly changed my working suit for a better one, which had been given me by a German friend from San Francisco. Then I laid out my treasured keepsakes. In my nervous energy, nothing was forgotten. I took pains that my clothes against the wall should hang in straight rows, that the folded ones should lie in neat piles in my pretty Chinese trunk, and that the bunch of artificial flowers which I had always kept for a top centre mark, should be exactly in the middle; finally, that the gray gauze veil used as a fancy covering of the whole should be smoothly tucked in around the clothing. This done, I gave a parting glance at the dainty effect, dropped the cover, snapped the queer little brass padlock in place, put the key on the table, and covered the trunk so that its embossed figures of birds and flowers should be protected from harm.
We had not remembered to tell Elitha about the hundred dollars which Jakie had willed us, so decided to let grandma keep it to cover some of the expense we had been to her, also not to ask for our little trinkets stored in her closet.
With the bundle containing my keepsakes, I now sat down by Georgia and listened with bated breath to the sound of grandma’s approaching footsteps. She entered and hastily began,
“Grandpa says, if you want to go, and your people are here to take you, we have no right to keep you; but that I am not to part with you bad friends. So I came to shake hands and say good-bye. But I don’t forgive you for going away, and I never want to see you or hear from you again!”
She did not ask to see what we were taking away, nor did her good-bye seem like parting.
The fear that something might yet arise to prevent our reaching brother and sister impelled us to run the greater part of the distance to the hotel, and in less than an hour thereafter, we were in the carriage with them on the way to Mrs. Bergwald’s, prior to taking the road to Sacramento.
Off at last, without a soul in the town knowing it!
Georgia, who had neither said nor done anything to anger grandma, was easier in mind and more comfortable in body, than I, who, fasting, had borne the trials of the morning. I could conceal the cause, but not the faint and ill feeling which oppressed me during the morning drive and continued until I had had something to eat at the wayside inn, and a rest, while the horses were enjoying their nooning.
I had also been too miserable to feel any interest in what occurred at Mrs. Bergwald’s after we stopped to let Georgia get her keepsakes. But when the day’s travel was over, and we were comfortably housed for the night, Georgia and I left our brother and sister to their happy hour with their child, and sat close together on the outer doorsteps to review the events of the day. Our world during that solemn hour was circumscribed, reaching back only to the busy scenes of the morning, and forward to the little home that should open to us on the morrow.
When we resumed travel, we did not follow the pioneers’ trail, once marked by hoof of deer, elk, and antelope, nor the winding way of the Spanish _cabellero,_ but took the short route which the eager tradesman and miner had hewn and tramped into shape.
On reaching the ferry across the Sacramento River, I gazed at the surrounding country in silent amazement. Seven and a half years with their marvellous influx of brawn and brain, and their output of gold, had indeed changed every familiar scene, except the snow-capped Sierras, wrapped in their misty cloak of autumnal blue. The broad, deep river had given up both its crystal floods and the wild, free song which had accompanied it to the sea, and become a turbid waterway, encumbered with busy craft bringing daily supplies to countless homes, and carrying afar the long hidden wealth of ages.
The tule flat between the water front and Sutter’s Fort had become a bustling city. The streets running north and south were numbered from first to twenty-eighth, and those east and west lettered from A to Z, and thriving, light-hearted throngs were pursuing their various occupations upon ground which had once seemed like a Noah’s ark to me. Yes, this was the very spot where with wondering eyes I had watched nature’s untamed herds winding through the reedy paths to the river bank, to quench their morning and evening thirst.
As we crossed from J Street to K, brother remarked, “Our journey will end on this street; which of you girls will pick out the house before we come to it?”
Elitha would not help us, but smiled, when, after several guesses, I said that I wished it to be a white house with brownish steps and a dark door with a white knob. Hence, great was my satisfaction when near the southeast corner of Eighteenth and K streets, we halted in front of a cottage of that description; and it was regarded as a lucky omen for me, that my first wish amid new scenes should be realized.
The meeting with Sister Frances and the novelty of the new situation kept up a pleasurable excitement until bed-time. Then in the stillness of the night, in the darkness of the new chamber, came the recollection that at about that hour one week ago, I, sorrowing and alone, had stood by a weird old tree-trunk in Sonoma, and vowed by the rising moon that before it should come up again in its full, Georgia and I would be in Sacramento. I did not sleep until I had thanked the good Father for sending help to me in my time of need.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF SACRAMENTO–A GLIMPSE OF GRANDPA–THE RANCHO DE LOS CAZADORES–MY SWEETEST PRIVILEGE–LETTERS FROM THE BRUNNERS.
It is needless to say that we were grateful for our new home, and tried to express our appreciation in words and by sharing the household duties, and by helping to make the neat clothing provided for us.
The first Monday in October was a veritable red-letter day. Aglow with bright anticipations, we hurried off to public school with Frances. Not since our short attendance at the pioneer school in Sonoma had Georgia and I been schoolmates, and never before had we three sisters started out together with books in hand; nor did our expectations overreach the sum of happiness which the day had in store for us.
The supposition that grandpa and grandma had passed out of our lives was soon disproved; for as I was crossing our back yard on the Saturday of that first week of school, I happened to look toward Seventeenth Street, and saw a string of wagons bringing exhibits from the fair grounds. Beside the driver of a truck carrying a closed cage marked, “Buffalo,” stood grandpa. He had risen from his seat, leaned back against the front of the cage, folded his arms and was looking at me. My long black braids had been cut off, and my style of dress changed, still he had recognized me. I fled into the house, and told Elitha what I had seen. She, too, was somewhat disquieted, and replied musingly,
“The old gentleman is lonely, and may have come to take you girls back with him.”
His presence in Sacramento so soon after our reaching there did seem significant, because he had bought that buffalo in 1851, before she was weaned from the emigrant cow that had suckled and led her in from the great buffalo range, and he had never before thought of exhibiting her.
The following afternoon, as we were returning from Sunday school, a hand suddenly reached out of the crowd on J Street and touched Georgia’s shoulder, then stopped me. A startled backward glance rested on Castle, our old enemy, who said,
“Come. Grandpa is in town, and wants to see you.” We shook our heads. Then he looked at Frances, saying, “All of you, come and see the large seal and other things at the fair.”
But she replied, emphatically, “We have not permission,” and grasping a hand of each, hurried us homeward. For days thereafter, we were on the alert guarding against what we feared might happen.
[Illustration: Photographs by Lynwood Abbott. PINES OF THE SIERRAS]
[Illustration: GENERAL JOHN A. SUTTER]
[Illustration: COL. J.D. STEVENSON]
Our alarm over, life moved along smoothly. Elitha admonished us to forget the past, and prepare for the future. She forbade Georgia and me to use the German language in speaking with each other, giving as a reason that we should take Frances into our confidence and thoughts as closely as we took one another.
I was never a morbid child, and the days that I did not find a sunbeam in life, I was apt to hunt for a rainbow. But there, in sight of the Sierras, the feeling again haunted me that perhaps my mother did not die, but had strayed from the trail and later reached the settlement and could not find us. Each middle-aged woman that I saw ahead of me on the street would thrill me with expectation, and I would quicken my steps in order to get a view of her face. When I gave up this illusion, I still prayed that Keseberg would send for me some day, and let me know her end, and give me a last message. I wanted his call to me to be voluntary, so that I might know that his words were true. These hopes and prayers were sacred, even from Georgia.
On the twenty-fourth of March, 1856, brother Ben took us all to pioneer quarters on Rancho de los Cazadores, where their growing interests required the personal attention of the three brothers. There we became familiar with the pleasures, and also the inconveniences and hardships of life on a cattle ranch. We were twenty miles from town, church, and school; ten miles from the post office; and close scrutiny far and wide disclosed but one house in range. Our supply of books was meagre, and for knowledge of current events, we relied on _The Sacramento Union_, and on the friends who came to enjoy the cattleman’s hospitality.
My sweetest privilege was an occasional visit to cousin Frances Bond, my mother’s niece, who, with her husband and child, had settled on a farm about twelve miles from us. She also had grown up a motherless girl, but had spent a part of her young ladyhood at our home in Illinois. She had helped my mother to prepare for our long journey and