Part 18 (1/2)

By return boat, farmers, shopkeepers, and carpenters hastened to San Francisco. All were eager for supplies from the first steams.h.i.+p that had entered the Golden Gate--the first, it may be added, that most of them, even those of a sea-going past, had ever seen.

During the absence of husbands, we little girls were loaned separately nights to timid wives who had no children to keep them company. Georgia went earlier and stayed later than I, because grandma could not spare me in the evenings until after the cows were turned out, and she needed me in the mornings before sunrise. Those who borrowed us made our stays so pleasant that we felt at home in many different houses.

Once, however, I encountered danger on my early homeward trip.

I had turned the bend in the road, could see the smoke curling out of grandma's chimney, and knew that every nearer house was closed. In order to avoid attracting the attention of a suspicious-looking cow on the road, I was running stealthily along a rail fence, when, unexpectedly, I came upon a family of sleeping swine, and before I was aware of danger from that direction was set upon and felled to the ground by a vicious beast. Impelled, I know not how, but quick as thought, I rolled over and over and over, and when I opened my eyes I was on the other side of the fence, and an angry, noisy, bristling creature was glaring at me through the rails.

Quivering like a leaf and for a time unable to rise, I lay upon the green earth facing the morning sky. With strange sensations and wonderment, I tried to think what might have happened, if I had not rolled. What if that s.p.a.ce between fence and ground had been too narrow to let my body through; what if, on the other hand, it had been wide enough for that enraged brute to follow?

Too frightened to cry, and still trembling, I made my way to the end of the field and climbed back over the fence near home. Grandma was greatly startled by my blanched face, and the rumpled and soiled condition of my clothes. After I related my frightful experience, she also felt that had it not been for that fence, I should have been torn to pieces. She explained, however, that I probably would not have been attacked had I not startled the old mother so suddenly that she believed her young in danger.

When our menfolk returned from San Francisco, they were accompanied by many excited treasure-seekers, anxious to secure pack animals to carry their effects to the mines. They were made welcome, and in turn furnished us news of the outer world, and distributed worn copies of American and foreign newspapers, which our hungry-minded pioneers read and re-read so long as the lines held together.

Those light-hearted newcomers, who danced and gayly sang,

O Susannah, don't you cry for me!

I'm bound to Californy with a tin pan on my knee,

were the first we saw of that vast throng of gold-seekers, who flocked to our sh.o.r.es 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 s.e.xes 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p to Ma.s.sachusetts. It contained the necessary directions for carrying out her wish.

[Ill.u.s.tration: POST OFFICE, CORNER OF CLAY AND PIKE STREETS, SAN FRANCISCO, 1849]

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD CITY HOTEL, 1846, CORNER OF KEARNEY AND CLAY STREETS, THE FIRST HOTEL IN SAN FRANCISCO]

Grandma a.s.sured 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 a.s.sured that in not being allowed to go across the water, we had escaped great suffering, and, perhaps, drowning by s.h.i.+pwreck. 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.”