THE LITTLE MINERS
Pauline raised the green mosquito-netting that screened the door of the
largest tent, and courtesied demurely to her visitors.
“‘Will you walk into my parlor?’”
“Thank you, Mrs. Fly,” said Molly, “‘’Tis the prettiest little parlor
that ever I did spy.’”
The canvas room was indeed very attractive, as well as comfortable. It
had a board floor carpeted with rugs, and it boasted a lounge and a
table and several rocking-chairs.
“You and Weezy are going to sleep with Auntie David and me in the
little room behind those, Molly,” said Pauline hospitably, pointing to
a pair of gaudy blankets curtaining off the farther end of the tent.
“Papa bought those blankets of the Navajo Indians. Aren’t they gay?”
“Who, Pauline? The Indians?” asked Kirke slyly.
“I don’t think Indians are gay. I think they are sober as a--as a cow!”
said outspoken Weezy, who had not understood Kirke’s joke in the least.
“Pauline was talking about the blankets, Ducksie,” said Molly,
smoothing her little sister’s hair. “But what makes you think that
Indians are sober? You’ve never known any Indians.”
“Oh, Molly Rowe, that isn’t a _so_ story. I’ve seen half a hundred
Indians,--well, _six_, anyway.”
“Where, Weezy?”
“Oh, in the streets and ’round; and in the curious store.” (Weezy meant
curio store.) “Don’t you remember that curious store where mamma
bought the funny jugs?”
“Oh, yes, I do remember now. There _were_ some Indians there with
baskets to sell; and the storekeeper wouldn’t buy them. Perhaps that
made the Indians sober.”
“Maybe they were sober because they weren’t drunk,” suggested Paul.
“Hark! Hop Kee is blowing the conch-shell. Dinner is ready.”
The dinner was a charming woodland meal, served in the open air,
on a long table decked with ferns and fragrant bay-leaves. Captain
Bradstreet sat on a bench on one side of the table between Molly and
Pauline, and Weezy sat on the other side between Paul and Kirke. Mr.
Rowe and Mrs. Davidson occupied chairs at opposite ends of the table.
“Brother insists on giving me a seat with a back, Mr. Rowe,” remarked
Mrs. Davidson with a smile as sunny as the California weather. “He
pets me, but I have known how to ‘rough it’ as well as anybody.”
“I suppose it was a wild country when you settled on this coast, Mrs.
Davidson.”
“Indeed it was, Mr. Rowe,”--Mrs. Davidson laughed softly,--“you can’t
conceive what a contrast it seemed to Philadelphia, our native city.”
“Father moved out here not long after gold was first discovered in the
State,” said Captain Bradstreet, as Hop Kee carried around the plates
of soup. “My sister was a little girl in pinafores, and I was only two
years older.”
“Our father was a doctor,” continued Mrs. Davidson, passing the
crackers; “his health had failed, and he came out here to Tuolumne
county, and built an adobe house for us to live in. Do you recollect
those heavy shutters, Alec, that papa used to bar every night?”
“Perfectly well, Almeda.”
“O Auntie David! please tell them how you and papa used to mine the
gold,” cried Pauline.
“I am sure we should all like to hear the story, Mrs. Davidson,” said
Mr. Rowe.
“It’s not much of a story, Mr. Rowe. Ours was placer mining. They did
not dig deep into the earth for gold in those early days, you know.
They took the gold from the surface, and used cradles.”
“What did the babies do without them, Mrs. Davidson?” demanded
listening Weezy.
“Oh, the miners did not use the babies’ cradles, little Miss Weezy;
they had cradles of their own,” interrupted Captain Bradstreet,
smiling, as he helped her to fricasseed rabbit.
“Each cradle,” went on Mrs. Davidson, “had a tin pan in its upper part
full of holes like a colander. The miners would shovel dirt into this
pan, and then pour on water, and rock the cradle. The water would wash
the dirt through the holes, and leave the bits of gold behind in the
pan.”
“Wasn’t the gold good for anything, Mrs. Davidson?” asked Weezy.
“Yes, dear,”--Mrs. Davidson wiped away a smile with her napkin,--“and
the miners gathered up all that was left in the pan; but gold was so
plenty at that time that they did not trouble themselves to save any
little pieces that might have escaped through the holes.”
“That is funny,” said Weezy.
“It was wasteful, wasn’t it, my dear? They don’t do that way nowadays.
Well, every night there would be heaps of moist dirt under the
cradles,--‘tailings’ they called it; and after the miners had gone home
to their suppers, my brother and I used to trudge along with our iron
spoons to dig in it.”
Molly laid down her knife and fork.
“How delightful, Mrs. Davidson! Did you find much gold?”
“Sometimes we’d find fifty cents’ worth; sometimes we wouldn’t find
any.”
“But when you did find any, Mrs. Davidson, what did you do with it?”
“We took a fancy to hoarding it in an old mustard-box, Molly.”
“I wonder, Almeda, how many times we carried the battered thing to
that miserable little store at the cross-roads?” interrupted Captain
Bradstreet.
“_We_, Alec? It was _you_ that carried the box. You used to tell me
that I wasn’t big enough to be trusted with it,” retorted Mrs. Davidson
playfully. “Nobody knows how I’ve grieved over that.”
“I suspect I _was_ rather lordly about keeping possession of the
gold-dust, Almeda; but you can’t say that I didn’t give you your half
of the candy it bought.”
“No; you gave me my full share, Alec. That was not a great deal,
though. Candy, like everything else, was very dear in those days.”
“And I’m inclined to believe that that wretched storekeeper cheated us,
Almeda,” said Captain Bradstreet, removing a green leaf that had fallen
into his coffee-cup. “But you haven’t told the children of the watch
and the sluices.”
“Don’t hurry me, Alec; I’m coming to the sluices. These were long
wooden troughs, higher at one end than at the other. The miners used to
throw earth into them, and then flood them. The water would wash away
the earth, and leave the gold in the bottom of the sluices.”
“It wouldn’t have stayed there long if I had been around,” commented
Kirke, sugaring his strawberries.
“The miners swept up the gold, but they didn’t clean out the
cracks”--Mrs. Davidson looked mischievously toward Mr. Rowe. “I’ve read
that men are not very fond of cleaning out cracks.”
“What little gnomes we were,” said Captain Bradstreet. “I can seem to
see ourselves now, Almeda, armed with case-knives, and creeping through
those damp sluices. Their sides must have been nearly as high as our
heads.”
“I imagine I was on my hands and knees most of the time peeping for the
gold.”
“You could see it more quickly than I could, Almeda; but when it came
to scraping it out of the corners, I think I could beat you.”
“Don’t forget the watch, Auntie David,” prompted Pauline.
“No, dearie. Are you afraid it will run down if I linger so? Where was
I?”
“Grandfather found the mustard-box, you know, auntie.”
“Thank you, Pauline. Yes; your grandfather came across our treasure
one day when he was hunting for mustard to make a paste for your
grandmother.”
“Our mother was sick that spring,” explained Captain Bradstreet; “and
as a nurse couldn’t be obtained for love or money, father took care
of mother himself, and did the cooking for all of us. We children had
enough to eat and to wear, but we had very little training.”
“We were as wild as two young quails, Alec, I’ve”--
“Mustard-box, Auntie David,” interrupted Pauline.
Mrs. Davidson shook her forefinger playfully at her niece.
“When father saw the yellow dust inside the box, he knew at once that
it wasn’t mustard, and he questioned us about it.”
“We had rather more gold than usual then, I remember, Almeda,” added
Captain Bradstreet. “Probably the creek had risen, and we hadn’t been
able to cross over it to the store for several days.”
“Very likely, Alec. Well, father said to us that if he were in our
places he wouldn’t spend the gold for candy. He asked us if we didn’t
think it would be nicer to save all the gold we could find, and have
this made into a present for mother.”
“And after that, Almeda, you and I used to scrape the sluices and dig
among the tailings for hours together.”
“Did you buy your mamma the present, Mrs. Davidson?” asked Weezy,
impatient for the end of the story.
“Father bought it. He sent East for it the next spring,” answered Mrs.
Davidson, slipping a heavy gold chain from her neck as she rose from
the table.
“It was this watch, Weezy.”
The children crowded around Mrs. Davidson as she opened the hunter’s
case, and pointed out this inscription engraved on the inside:--
TO MOTHER
FROM ALEC AND ALMEDA,
_Christmas_, 1852.
“How delighted grandma must have been when you and papa gave her this,”
said Pauline, pressing the watch tenderly to her cheek.
“She was delighted indeed. She wore it till her last illness, and then
put it into my hands as her most valued keepsake.”
“Dear, pretty little grandma,” sighed Pauline gently. “Oh, I did love
her so!”
“I know you loved her, dearie, and grandma loved you,” said Mrs.
Davidson, returning the watch to her watch-pocket.
After Pauline had accompanied the others to the parlor tent, Mrs.
Davidson slipped her arm around Molly’s waist, and whispered,--
“Shall I tell you a great secret, Molly,--something that nobody else
knows? On Pauline’s eighteenth birthday I’m going to give her this
watch.”
“O Mrs. Davidson, I’m so glad for Pauline!”
Molly was not only glad for Pauline, but highly flattered by Auntie
David’s confidence in herself. When her father came to say good-by her
face was still beaming.