The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems | Page 3

to them armed with endurance to battle with primeval nature, we became burdensome. Strong and coarse women who could wash shirts in any kind of a tub out of doors under a tree, and iron them kneeling on the ground, to support themselves and half a dozen little, hungry young ones, were welcome enough--before the Chinamen displaced them. We had some value as cooks, before men, with large means, turned their attention to supplying their brothers with prepared food for a consideration below what we could do with our limited means. And then the ladies, the educated, refined women, who followed their husbands to this country, or who came here hoping to share, perchance, in the golden spoils of the mines! Where are they to-day, and what is their condition? Look for them in the sunless back rooms of San Francisco boarding-houses, and you will find them doing a little fine sewing for the shops; or working on their own garments, which they must make out of school hours, because the niggardly pay of teachers in the lower grades will not allow of their getting them done. Idealized indeed! Men talk about our getting out of our places where we clamor for paying work of some kind, for something to do that will enable us to live in half comfort by working more hours than they do to earn lordly livings."
How much soever I might have liked to talk this labor question over with my intelligent hostess at any other time, my curiosity concerning her own history having been so strongly aroused, the topic seemed less interesting than usual, and I seized the opportunity given by an emphasized pause to bring her back to the original subject.
"Did you come first to California?" I asked.
"No. I had been married little over a year when Benton was born. 'Now,' I thought, 'my husband will be contented to stay at home.' He had been fretting about having promised not to take me to California; but I hoped the baby would divert his thoughts. We were doing well, and had a pleasant house, with everything in and about it that a young couple ought to desire. I deceived myself in expecting Mr. Greyfield to give up anything he had strongly desired; and seeing how much he brooded over it, I finally told him to be comforted; that I would go with him to California if he would wait until the baby was a year old before starting; and to this he agreed."
"How old were you at that time?"
"Only about nineteen. I was twenty the spring we started; and celebrated my anniversary by making a general gathering of all my relatives and friends at our house, before we broke up and sold off our house-keeping goods--all but such as could be carried in our wagons across the plains."
"You were not starting by yourselves?"
"O no. There was a large company gathering together on the Missouri river, to make the start in May; and we, with some of our neighbors, made ready to join them. I shall never forget my feelings as I stood in my own house for the last time, taking a life-long leave of every familiar object! But you do not want to hear about that."
"I want to hear what you choose to tell me; but most of all about your second marriage, and what led to it."
"It is not easy to go back so many years and take up one thread in the skein of life, and follow that alone. I will disentangle it as rapidly as I can; but first let us have a fresh fire."
Suiting the action to the word, my hostess touched a bell and ordered a good supply of wood, which I took as an intimation that we were to have one of our late sittings. In confirmation of this suspicion a second order was given to have certain refreshments, including hot lemonade, made ready to await our pleasure. When we were once more alone I begged her to go on with her story.
"We left the rendezvous in May, and traveled without any unusual incidents all through the summer."
"I beg pardon for interrupting you; but I do want to know how you endured that sort of life. Was it not terrible?"
"It was monotonous, it was disagreeable, but it was not terrible while everybody was well. There were compensations in it, as in almost any kind of life. My husband was strong and cheerful, now that he was having his own way; the baby throve on fresh air and good milk--for we had milch cows with us--and the summer months on the grassy plains are delightful, except for rather frequent thunder storms. The grass was good, and our cattle in fine order. Everything went well until the cholera broke out