Alice B. Haven

“ The desolate plains of Sacramento, the barren ranges of the hills in the mining country, make the rich valleys all the more beautiful by contrast.
It was an hour before sundown, when the sloop came to, at the Embarcadero, or landing, on a little creek, emptying into the bay, after winding through the fertile valley lands. A real wagon, and two spirited horses were waiting them, in charge of Maloney, the head man, whose universal knowledge, and blunders and brogue, Hadley had been amusing Sam with that afternoon. ”

“ Boarding-school fare, much as it is berated, would be considered a feast in comparison to the crackers, jerked and salt beef—packed with their “assorted cargo”—the stock of provisions that was to last them to the mines.
Sam felt very dignified and Robinson Crusoe-ish, as he stuck his knife in a new leather belt, and slung a coarse blue blanket that was to serve as a bed,—mattress, quilts, pillows, and all,—over his shoulder. He found the last slightly uncomfortable when the sun beat down upon the narrow deck, and was obliged to deposit it ignobly beneath him. ”

“ He often dreamed that he saw Colcord standing over his father in sleep, with a face made horrible by passion, and lifting an iron bar, or pick, to strike him dead. Rumors of murder and robbery came from every part of the country: the curse of avarice seemed to rest upon it.
Mr. Gilman, who might have lived in peace [135] and plenty in his own house, among his own fields, had come to work like a slave; to bear such fatigue as the lowest New England farm-laborer never imagines, and the tyranny of a man he hated and despised. ”

“ This was certainly very reasonable. Sam wondered, at the same time, what had made Colcord so suddenly cautious, and why they did not take him with them. However, he strolled along the wharves, where all was new to him; the inviting eating saloons, with their gayly-painted signs, the sailors in their blue and red shirts, and rolling gait, that came out and went into them, the tall warehouses of the ship-chandlers, with the piles of ropes, and what seemed to him rusty chains, and useless lumber, scattered about the lower floor. ”

“ The cabin passengers sat as long as possible at dinner, to pass away the time, and bothered the captain with useless questions every time he appeared among them.
But the gale increased slowly and surely. One sail after another was taken in. The captain was on deck all night, the mate or himself shouting their orders in the teeth of the roaring wind, and even then the men could scarcely distinguish [83] them. Shut up in the dark and crowded steerage, bruised with the rolling of the vessel, Sam began to think, on the second day, that a storm at sea was by no means so romantic as he imagined. ”

“ And there every one is told so plainly what is right and what is wrong; those who do right being happy, even in sickness or poverty. It was only natural in Sam to think for an instant, how much better it would have been for them all if his father had been as good and contented as their mother was, but that feeling was lost in the bitter one, that it was all over now, life was ended, nothing could be changed. ”

“ Sam did wish Ben could have seen them, as they started across the plains in the wake of the team on which their cooking and mining utensils were carried. Several of the sloop’s passengers had joined the party, so that the wagon was heavily loaded, and the oxen toiled patiently along. Before them stretched an endless reach of level country, the road winding through it past clumps of oaks, that dotted the plain like islands, for miles and miles, with scarcely a shrub or rock to break the uniformity. The only danger to be dreaded was a scarcity of food for the oxen, and water for themselves. ”

“ The buttery, a long wide closet at one end of the kitchen, added very much to the neatness of the family sitting-room. It was Abby’s especial pride to keep the sink, the numerous pails and buckets, in order, and the one low window as clear as hands could make it. Hannah, though a year the eldest, hated the buttery, and always made her escape as soon as possible. To use her own favorite word—she “hated” washing dishes, and dusting, and peeling potatoes, in fact, every thing like work. ”

“ It is strange how soon the most startling things that happen to us, settle into a matter of course. Before another Saturday night the whole Gilman family thought and talked of “going to California,” as if they had looked forward to it for a year. Sam contrived to gather more information about Cape Horn and the Pacific coast than he could have learned from a study of Olney’s Geography all his life. As Mrs. Gilman expected, her husband’s adviser made a determined opposition against taking a boy, and one as sharp-sighted as Sam Gilman particularly. ”

“ How many bright pictures of the future were wrought into her daily tasks! She could even see them measuring the land, and sign the deed that gave up all right to it, thinking how soon the old homestead might be theirs again, and once more have fields crowned with plenty.
Sam seemed to think a long face was expected from him, and tried to put on one every time the matter was talked over. He found this harder and harder, as the time came near. A journey to Boston was an event in the life of Ben Chase he had never quite recovered from. ”

“ It was the Fourth of July, the great holiday of boys, if not of the nation, when the Swiftsure came slowly into the magnificent harbor of San Francisco. The weather-beaten sails and canvas told of a long and disastrous voyage. The crew were sullen and discontented, the passengers worn down by long confinement and miserable fare. They had escaped any furious gales after leaving Rio, but encountered head winds, and long unhealthy calms, almost from the time of entering the Pacific. They laid scarcely out of sight of Valparaiso twenty days together. ”

“ The captain had very little hope that the ship could live through the tempest, and did not attempt to conceal it from the few passengers that ventured upon deck, clinging to the ropes and sides, lest they should share in the fate of every thing movable, and be washed over-board by some retreating wave. It seemed impossible, as the huge foam-crested surges rose above them, that the vessel could ever be lifted in safety,—as though the roaring waters must close over, and drive the ship with its awful [84] freight of human souls down, down, down to the very depths of the yawning sea. ”

“ Life on the ranch was never dull or monotonous. Housekeeping was a very small part of what he did. There were the fowls to feed and water, the eggs to look after, and the young brood to watch. Hadley’s fowls received as much attention as any part of the family. They were a China breed, rare and costly, and he was as fond of them as of the ranch, or the house, or Sam; for when Sam came to be known in the valley, he was as great a favorite as he had been on ship-board. People came miles to see the fowls. ”

“ But there are many such in California, who seem to have no settled plans, and nothing to live for, but the whim of the moment. Sam was thankful even in his loss, that he had so great a duty and pleasure before him, as to make his mother happy, and take care of his sisters. He was their only protector now. He was learning in boyhood what some live a lifetime to find out,—that the greatest happiness we can ever have in this world, is thinking more and doing more for other people than ourselves. ”

“ Jackson and his messmates were favored with recitations as they passed within sight of the rugged and barren promontory, and stretching far away for a favorable wind, entered the long, rolling swell of the Pacific. There was life and excitement in the hardest squall they encountered there, that Sam considered in every way more agreeable than the sameness of a calm in a southern latitude. ”

“ Sam was always up at the earliest light, and busied himself about the tent, preparing breakfast, which was generally ready before Mr. Gilman woke. The first warning he had of his father’s illness was seeing him toss restlessly on the earthen floor of their tent, moaning and muttering in his sleep.
“I’d lie by to-day, if I was you, father”—he said, bringing a tin cup of coffee, as Mr. Gilman sat up with a start, and looked wildly around him. “I can wash that pile out alone, and to-morrow’s Sunday. One day’s rest will set you right up again.” ”

“ Sam’s first ounce was made by exchanging for it a fanciful worsted cap he had picked up at sea, from the stores of his friend Jackson, the red tassel having fascinated his new work-fellow. The natives seemed much more like children than grown up men, just as he had read of them in books of travel. ”

“ Ben’s letter tells about it, if you want to know.
Oh, about the flowers. They were artificials. Abby would go out of her senses to have a bunch for her straw bonnet. If father and me stops here on our way home, I will bring her and Hannah, and Julia Chase, a bushel. They are made out of feathers, bird’s feathers, and colored shells—the littlest things! you ever saw, the shells are; and a good deal brighter and handsomer than real flowers are. I mean New Hampshire flowers. Rio flowers are splendid—tulips and dahlias ain’t nothing to them, tell Abby. ”

“ Gilman resumed his old good nature, and was in better spirits than Sam had ever seen him. He was ready with a joke and laugh, at the many amusing incidents of their wild life, and half civilized companions. Every body threw off the artificial manners of city life, at the mines. ”

“ The cattle market and auction sales going on in the open air, called together the oddest [116] looking people Sam had ever seen; genuine miners, with their faces and hands like leather, their long beards and careless dress being the most noticeable. It was certainly a great contrast to the quiet routine of New England village life, more so even than the narrow, crowded streets of Rio; and Sam sometimes thought he must be dreaming over Gulliver’s Travels in the great barn chamber. ”

“ You are old enough to know what’s right and what’s wrong.”
“I ought to, mother, when I’ve had you to tell me ever since I was a baby.”
“God knows I’ve tried to do my duty,” Mrs. Gilman said, clasping her hands together, “I’ve tried, Sam, and I’m trying now, though it’s hard to see whether it’s right to send you away with that bad man. But it must be! Look out for your father just as I would. Keep right yourself, and then he will listen to you. But it’s all in [43] your Bible; and you won’t forget to read it, will you? You say your prayers, don’t you, like a good boy?” ”

“ It was like returning to hopeless slavery; “he would die first”—he thought, as he made his way among [174] the piles of goods, and falling timber, where men were already at work, clearing away the ruins and preparing to build again, that business might not be swept out of their hands. Many of these men had lost every thing in the fire of December, and now what they had made since then, but were ready to go on, and trust once more the treacherous element. They showed a perseverance equal to their industry, and he had borne up bravely before. ”

“ Actually saying “good-bye,” is hardly ever as hard as we expect it will be, or the loneliness afterwards proves. The next morning found Mr. Gilman as confident as ever, and bustling around with great alacrity, to be ready in time for the stage. His wife did not allow herself to think. She had her breakfast to prepare—though Abby was the only one of the party that seemed to need it—and many things to see to at the last moment. Wherever she was, and whatever occupied her hands, her eyes and her heart followed Sam, who felt all the excitement of departure. ”

“ Gilman was home too little to know much about his children’s movements, but his wife always kept up a show of authority for him, that he might be respected at home at least. Abby had found time for another theme. “Mother, I should think you might let Hannah and me have some new hoods. Julia Chase has got an elegant one, lined with pink silk, and a new merino cloak. And there’s Anne Merrill and Jane Price. I’m sure we’re as good as any body; ain’t we, father?” for Abby, being her father’s favorite, was always sure of a hearing from him. ”

“ Some of the miners, from Larkin’s Bar, prepared to leave for the States, not many weeks after he began the world again, contented with what they had made. By one of them Sam wrote a short desponding letter home, trying to soften the news of his father’s death, and their new misfortune; and then he left that grave in the wilderness, and followed the miners to their winter encampment.
The heavy rains made the roads almost impassable before they reached it, and more than one died, as Mr. Gilman had done, from fatigue and exposure. Death in many forms was no longer a strange sight. ”

“ Who would exchange these recollections for the indulgence of carpeted nurseries, a servant’s twice-told tales of ghost or goblin, the muttered sleepy prayer at her knee, when another Sunday is over, a day of idle play, or marked only by a careful toilette for the dinner company who were expected, and engross the time and thoughts of worldly parents in the drawing-room? We may be mistaken, after all, about the privileges which the children of the rich enjoy. ”

“ He wished for him more than ever when he inquired his way back to the lodging house, in which they had left their chests, and found his father had not yet returned. It was a cheap place of entertainment, and chosen by them because near the water. Sam did not think it nice nor comfortable in the uncarpeted sitting-room, scarcely any fire in the dirty stove, and nothing to look at but an old file of newspapers [68] on the baize-covered table. But that was better than the bar-room and its unwelcome sights and sounds. ”

“ It was quite a picture to see the handy little housewife, tucking back her dress and apron, as she dexterously carried the still smoking tea-kettle into the buttery, and filled a large milk pan with clean hot water, while Hannah expended all her energies in reaching down a towel and preparing to dry the few dishes. ”

“ Plenty of money, stood for plenty of time to do just as she pleased. Her mother could not be always telling her, “you must learn to be industrious, for you are a poor man’s child, and have got to make your own way in the world.”
“I hope father will go to California,” was the first symptom of consciousness she showed, while Abby splashed away in the water, regardless of scalded hands and mottled elbows.
“My goodness, Hannah! do see what you are about—letting the end of the towel go right into the dishwater. I’m sure I don’t want my father to go clear off there and die, if you do.” ”

“ Packing this box was the excitement of the afternoon, as it included a distribution of that part of Sam’s treasures, he found it impossible to accommodate. One particular red ear of corn presented to Julia Chase, made a great deal of amusement; some speckled bird’s eggs, and the principal curiosity of his museum, a carved elephant’s tooth, brought home by some sailor uncle or cousin of his mother’s, completed her share of the spoils. The sled was presented to Ben, and Abby and Hannah shared the remainder, feeling far richer than many a grown up legatee does in receiving a bequest of thousands. ”

“ The signs creaked and clanked in the wind, that came sweeping with icy chillness from the river; and the bareheaded emigrants, [67] women and children, that came trooping along the sidewalk, looked half frozen and disconsolate. Still it was new and wonderful, and so were the rows of vessels, schooners and brigs, that lined the docks, some receiving and others discharging their cargoes, with a hurry and bustle of drays, and creaking pulleys, and a flapping of the sail-like canvas advertisements, fixed to the mast, that told their destination, and their days of sailing. ”