Part 1 (1/2)
A California Girl.
by Edward Eldridge.
PROLOGUE.
This book is not written for the specialist, but for that restless, seething mult.i.tude known as ”the ma.s.ses.” It is written for busy people, for workers, such as the shop-girl, the factory-girl, the clerk, the mechanic, the farmer, the merchant, and the busy housewife; but ministers, lawyers, and doctors may find food for thought within its covers.
My heart goes out to G.o.d's secular army, composed of those who have neither time nor opportunity to go through learned treatises and scholarly essays, yet whose natures are hungering for something better than they see and hear about them. So I have tried to weave into this story the best and latest thought that has been given to the world, believing it to be what the workers most need in the performance of their daily duties, and what will help them out of bondage.
People whose reading and observation have been limited may think that I have drawn on my imagination altogether for most of the material in this book. I can a.s.sure them that such is not the case; much of it is real.
In regard to Penloe, there have been men who had greater spiritual gifts than he, and I call to mind one, still living, whose illuminated countenance and remarkable personality are superior to his. In Penloe is seen the interior life of the Hindu combined with the best practical thought of the West.
Let a youth or maiden commence to live the life described by the man who won the heart of the ”Oriental Lady,” related by Penloe in his ”Original Address,” and he or she will then realize the facts which have made the characters of Penloe and Stella.
To any sensitive, fastidious reader I would say, it becomes an author, in order to be true to life, to present certain characters as they really are, and put into their mouths the language they actually use.
Whatever there is of error in the book is the result of egoism; whatever of truth and love is the work of Him who has brought me up out of the marshes and lowlands, and caused me to drink at the crystal fountains of the hills.
THE AUTHOR.
A CALIFORNIA GIRL.
CHAPTER I.
CLARA LAWTON.
”Well, dear,” said Mrs. Lawton to her daughter Clara, ”the home you will enter to-morrow as a bride is very different from the home that I entered as your father's bride. Our home was a log cabin in the Michigan woods, with only an acre of clearing, where the growing season is only about four months long and the winter eight. Snow lay on the ground six months of the year, from one to three feet deep. In our cabin, we had the bare necessaries and your father had to work very hard cutting cord-wood for a living; but we were very happy, for we had love and health; and need I say, dear, what a joy it was to us when you entered our cabin as a pa.s.senger on the journey of life.
”My wish for you now is, that you may find as much happiness in the companions.h.i.+p of Charles Herne as I have had in your father's, and as much joy in the advent of a little one in your home as I did in you.”
”You have always been one of the kindest and best mothers a girl ever had,” said Clara, warmly.
”I have tried to be,” said Mrs. Lawton, simply.
Clara Lawton was twenty-two years of age, prepossessing in appearance, with a bright, happy expression. Her nature was deep and affectionate, her tastes domestic and social. When she was twenty, Mr. and Mrs. Lawton had moved to California and settled in the pretty little city of Roseland, which nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas.
At a camping party Clara had first met Charles Herne, and the outcome of that meeting was that to-morrow would be Clara's wedding day.
Who can describe the thoughts that filled the mind of Clara the night previous to her marriage? Who, indeed, can describe the thoughts that fill the mind of any maiden as she lays her head on her pillow the night previous to her marriage?
All her life she had been taught to consider this the most important event of her life, the acme of happiness, the end and aim of her womanhood. The thought of her own little world and the decrees of the great world at large alike hold her to that belief. That she is a soul in process of development; that marriage is only one step towards something higher; that the true union is the joining of hands to work for humanity, are doctrines which would sound strange in her ears. She feels that great change that is coming into her life, and her thoughts are in accordance with her character and circ.u.mstances. One bride may be filled with the sadness of unwilling acquiescence, another with the joy of complete absorption, a third with the excitement incident upon an entire change of environment. Clara Lawton's sweet nature prompted only tender thoughts of the parents she was leaving, strong love for the man who was to be her husband and the desire to be a true wife and make their union a happy one.
CHAPTER II.
RANCH TALK.