The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras | Page 3

presents of several small nuggets to add to their little horde.
In this way they kept steadily at work for half the summer. All the gold
was given to papa to keep. Papa weighed it each week, and I suppose
secretly congratulated himself that he was getting back about as much
as he put in.

Before quite the end of the third month, Jim struck a thin bed of blue
gravel. The miners who had been happily chuckling and laughing
among themselves to think how they had managed to keep Jim out of
mischief, began to look at each other and wonder how in the world blue
gravel ever got up there on the hill. And in a few days more there was a
well-defined bed of blue gravel, too; and not one of the miners could
make it out.
One Saturday evening shortly after, as the old man weighed their gold
he caught his breath, started, and stood up straight; straighter than he
had stood since he crossed the Plains. Then he hastily left the cabin. He
went up the hill to the children's claim almost without limping. Then he
took a pencil and an old piece of a letter, and wrote out a notice and
tacked it up on the big oak-tree, claiming those mining claims
according to miners' law, for the three children. A couple of miners
laughed as they went by in the twilight, to see what he was doing; and
he laughed with them. But as he limped on down the hill he smiled.
That night as they sat at supper, he told the children that as they had
been such faithful and industrious miners, he was going to give them
each a present, besides a little gold to spend as they pleased.
So he went up to the store and bought Jim a red shirt, long black and
bright gum boots, a broad-brimmed hat, and a belt. He also bought each
of the other children some pretty trappings, and gave each a dollar's
worth of gold dust. Madge and Stumps handed their gold back to "poor
papa." But Jim was crazy with excitement. He put on his new clothes
and went forth to spend his dollar. And what do you suppose he bought?
I hesitate to tell you. But what he bought was a pipe and a paper of
tobacco!
That red shirt, that belt and broad-brimmed hat, together with the shiny
top boots, had been too much for Jim's balance. How could a man--he
spoke of himself as a man now--how could a man be an "honest miner"
and not smoke a pipe?
And now with his manly clothes and his manly pipe he was to be so
happy! He had all that went to make up "the honest miner." True, he

did not let his father know about the pipe. He hid it under his pillow at
night. He meant to have his first smoke at the sluice-box, as a miner
should.
Monday morning he was up with the sun and ready for his work. His
father, who worked down the Gulch, had already gone before the
children had finished their breakfast. So now Jim filled his brand-new
pipe very leisurely; and with as much calm unconcern as if he had been
smoking for forty years, he stopped to scratch a match on the door as he
went out.
From under his broad hat he saw his little sister watching him, and he
fairly swelled with importance as Stumps looked up at him with
childish wonder. Leaving Madge to wash the few tin dishes and follow
as she could with Little Stumps, he started on up the hill, pipe in
mouth.
He met several miners, but he puffed away like a tug-boat against the
tide, and went on. His bright new boots whetted and creaked together,
the warm wind lifted the broad brim of his sombrero, and his bright
new red shirt was really beautiful, with the green grass and oaks for a
background--and so this brave young man climbed the hill to his mine.
Ah, he was so happy!
[Illustration: HE TOOK THE LIMP YOUNG MINER IN HIS ARMS.]
Suddenly, as he approached the claim, his knees began to smite
together, and he felt so weak he could hardly drag one foot after the
other. He threw down his pick; he began to tremble and spin around.
The world seemed to be turning over and over, and he trying in vain to
hold on to it. He jerked the pipe from his teeth, and throwing it down
on the bank, he tumbled down too, and clutching at the grass with both
hands tried hard, oh! so hard, to hold the world from slipping from
under him.
"O, Jim, you are white as snow,"