The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate Part 15

Grandma, stimulated by the success of her mixing and moulding, and elated by the profit she saw in it, was often too happy and bustling to remember how young we were, or that we got tired, or had worries of our own to bear.

Our small troubles, however, were soon forgotten, when we could slip away for a while to the lovely playhouse which Leanna had secretly made for us in an excavation in the back yard. There we forgot work, used our own language, and played we were like other children; for we owned the beautiful cupboard dug in the wall, and the pieces of Delft and broken gla.s.s set in rows upon the shelves, also the furniture, made of stumps and blocks of wood, and the two bottles standing behind the brush barricade to act as sentries in case of danger during our absence.

One stolen visit to that playhouse led me into such disgrace, that grandma did not speak to me the rest of the day, and told Jakie all about it.

In the evening, when no one else was near, he called me to him. I obeyed with downcast head. Putting his hand under my chin, and turning my face up, he made me look straight into his eyes, as he asked,

"Who broke dat gla.s.s cup vat grandma left on die dinner table full of milk, and telled you watch it bis Hendrik come to his dinner, or bis she be done mit her nap?"

I tried to turn my eyes down, but he would not let me, and I faltered, "The chicken knocked it off,--but he left the door open so it could get in."

Then, he raised his other hand, shook his finger, and in awe-inspiring tone continued: "Yes, I be sure die chicken do dat, but vot for you tell grandma dat Heinrick do dat? Der debil makes peoples tell lies, and den he ketch sie for his fire, und he vill ketch you, if you do dat some more. Gott, who you mutter telled you 'bout, will not love you. I will not love you, if you do dat some more. I be sorry for you, because I tought you vas His little girl, and mine little girl."

Jakie must have spent much time in collecting so many English words, and they were effective, for before he got through repeating them to me, I was as heart-sore and penitent as a child could be.

After he had forgiven me, he sent me to grandma, later to acknowledge my wrong to Hendrik, and before I slept, I had to tell G.o.d what a bad child I had been, and ask Him to make me good.

I had promised to be very careful and to try never to tell another lie, and I had been unhappy enough to want to keep the promise. But, alas, my sympathy for Jakie led me into more trouble, and it must have been on Sunday too, for he was not working, but sitting reverently under the tree with his elbows upon a table, and his cheeks resting in the hollows of his hands. Before him lay the Holy Scriptures from which he was slowly reading aloud in solemn tones.

Georgia and I standing a short distance from him, listened very intently. Not hearing a single English word, and not understanding many of the German, I became deeply concerned and turning to her asked,

"Aren't you awful sorry for poor Jakie? There he is, reading to G.o.d in German, and G.o.d can't understand him. I'm afraid Jakie won't go to heaven when he dies."

My wise little sister turned upon me indignantly, a.s.suring me that "G.o.d sees everybody and understands everybody's talk." To prove the truth of her statement, she rushed to the kitchen and appealed to grandma, who not only confirmed Georgia's words, but asked me what right I had to believe that G.o.d was American only, and could not understand good German people when they read and spoke to Him? She wanted to know if I was not ashamed to think that they, who had loved me, and been kind to me would not go to Heaven as well as I who had come to them a beggar?

Then she sent me away by myself to think of my many sins; and I, weeping, accepted banishment from Georgia, lest she should learn wickedness from me.

Georgia was greatly disturbed on my account, because she believed I had wilfully misrepresented G.o.d, and that He might not forgive me. When Jakie learned what had happened, he declared that I had spoken like a child, and needed instruction more than punishment. So for the purpose of broadening my religious views, and keeping before me the fact that "G.o.d can do all things and knows all languages," grandma taught me the Lord's Prayer in French and German, and heard me repeat it each night in both languages, after I had said it as taught me by my mother.

It was about this time, that Leanna confided to me that she was homesick for Elitha, and she would go to her very soon. She said that I must not object when the time came, for she loved her own sister just as much as I did mine, and was as anxious to go to Elitha as I had been to come to Georgia. She had been planning several weeks, and knew of a family with which she could travel to Sutter's Fort. Later, when she collected her things to go away, she left with us a pair of beautifully knit black silk stockings, marked near the top in fine cross-st.i.tch in white, "D," and under that "5." The stockings had been our mother's.

She had knit them herself and worn them. Georgia gave one to me and kept the other. We both felt that they were almost too sacred to handle. They were our only keepsakes.

Later, Georgia found a small tin box in which mother had kept important papers. Recently, when referring to that circ.u.mstance, Georgia said: "Grandma for a long time had used it for a white-sugar box, and kept it on a shelf so high that we could see it only when she lifted it down; and I don't think we took our eyes from it until it was put back. We felt that it was too valuable for us ever to own. One day, I found it thrown away. One side had become unsoldered from the ends and the bottom also was hanging loose. With a full heart, I grasped the treasure and put it where we could often see it. Long afterwards, Harry Huff kindly offered to repair it; and the solder that still holds it together is also regarded as a keepsake from a dear friend."

[Footnote 15: Mrs. Andrew J. Grayson, wife of the well-known ornithologist, frequently referred to as the "Audubon of the West."]

CHAPTER XXI

MORAL DISCIPLINE--THE HISTORICAL PUEBLO OF SONOMA--SUGAR PLUMS.

Grandma often declared that she loved me, and did not want to be too severe; but, for fear that I had learned much wickedness from the little Indians with whom I had played after I left her at the Fort, she should watch me very closely herself, and also have Georgia tell her whenever she should see me do wrong. Consequently, for a while after I reached Sonoma, I was frequently on the penitential bench, and was as often punished for fancied misdoings as for real ones. Yet, I grant that grandma was warranted in being severe the day that she got back from town before I was ready for her.

She had left us with the promise that she would bring us something nice if we would be good children and do certain work that she had planned.

After we had finished the task, we both became restless, wondered how soon she would come back, and what we could do next to keep from being lonesome. Then I espied on the upper shelf the cream-colored sugar bowl, with the old-fas.h.i.+oned red roses and black foliage on its cover and sides. Grandma had occasionally given us lumps of sugar out of it; and I now asked Georgia if I hadn't better get it down, so that we could each have a lump of sugar. Hesitatingly, she said, "No, I am afraid you will break it." I a.s.sured her that I would be very careful, and at once set a chair in place and climbed up. It was quite a strain to reach the bowl, so I lifted it down and rested it on the lower shelf, expecting to turn and put it into Georgia's hands. But, somehow, before I could do this, the lid slipped off and lay in two pieces upon the floor. Georgia cried out reproachfully,

"There, you know I didn't want you to do it, and now you will get a good whipping for breaking grandma's best sugar bowl!"

I replied loftily that I was not afraid, because I would ask G.o.d to mend it for me. She did not think He would do it, but I did. So I matched the broken edges and put it on the chair, knelt down before it and said "Please" when I made my request. I touched the pieces very carefully, and pleaded more earnestly each time that I found them unchanged. Finally, Georgia, watching at the door, said excitedly, "Here comes grandma!"

I arose, so disappointed and chagrined that I scarcely heard her as she entered and spoke to me. I fully believed that He would have mended that cover if she had remained away a little longer; nevertheless, I was so indignant at Him for being so slow about it, that I stood unabashed while Georgia told all that had happened. The whipping I got did not make much impression, but the after talks and the banishment from "good company" were terrible.

Later, when I was called from my hiding-place, grandma saw that I had been very miserable, and she insisted upon knowing what I had been thinking about. Then I told her, reluctantly, that I had talked to G.o.d and told Him I did not think that He was a very good Heavenly Father, or He would not let me get into so much trouble; that I was mad at Him, and didn't believe He knew how to mend dishes. She covered her face with her ap.r.o.n and told me, sobbingly, that she had expected me to be sorry for getting down her sugar bowl and for breaking its cover; that I was so bad that I would "surely put poor old grandma's gray hair in her grave, who had got one foot there already and the other on the brink."

This increased my wretchedness, and I begged her to live just a little longer so that I might show her that I would be good. She agreed to give me another trial and ended by telling me about the "beautiful, wicked angel who had been driven out of paradise, and spends his time coaxing people to be bad, and then remembers them, and after they die, takes them on his fork and pitches them back and forth in his fire."

Jakie had told me his name and also the name of his home.

Toward evening, my head ached, and I felt so ill that I crept close to grandma and asked sorrowfully if she thought the devil meant to have me die that night, and then take me to his h.e.l.l. At a glance, she saw that I suffered, and drew me to her, pillowed my head against her bosom and soothingly a.s.sured me that I would be forgiven if I would make friends with G.o.d and remember the lesson that I had learned that day. She told me, later, I must never say "devil," or "h.e.l.l," because it was not nice in little girls, but that, instead, I might use the words, "blackman,"

and "blackman's fires." At first, I did not like to say it that way, because I was afraid that the beautiful devil might think that I was calling him nicknames and get angry with me.

Notwithstanding my shortcomings, the Brunners were very willing to keep me, and strove to make a "Schweitzer child" of me, dressed me in clothes modelled after those which grandma wore when she was small, and by verse and legend filled my thoughts with pictures of their Alpine country. I liked the German language, learned it rapidly and soon could help to translate orders. Those which pleased grandma best were from the homes of Mr. Jacob Leese, Captain Fitch, Major Prudon, and General Vallejo; for their patronage influenced other distinguished Spanish families at a distance to send for her excellent cheese and fancy pats of b.u.t.ter. Yet, with equal nicety, she filled the orders that came from the mess-room of the officers of our own brave boys in blue, and always tried to have a better kerchief and ap.r.o.n on the evenings that officers and orderly rode out to pay the bills.

Visitors felt more than a pa.s.sing interest in us two little ones, for accounts of the sufferings of the Donner Party had been carried to all the settlements on the Pacific coast and had been sent in print or writings to all parts of the United States as a warning against further emigration to California by way of Hastings Cut-Off. Thus the name we bore awakened sympathy for us, and in the huts of the lowly natives as well as in the homes of the rulers of the province, we found welcome and were greeted with words of tenderness, which were often followed by prayers for the repose of the souls of our precious dead.

Marked attentions were also shown us by officers and soldiers from the post. The latter gathered in the evenings at the Brunner home for social intercourse. Some played cards, checkers, and dominoes, or talked and sang about "_des Deutschen Vaterland_." Others reviewed happenings in our own country, recalled battles fought and victories won. And we, sitting between our foster grandparents, or beside Jakie, listening to their thrilling tales, were, unwittingly, crammed with crumbs of truth and fiction that made lasting impressions upon our minds.

Nor were these odd bits of knowledge all we gained from those soldier friends. They taught us the alphabet, how to spell easy words, and then to form letters with pencil. They explained the meaning of fife and drum calls which we heard during the day, and in mischievous earnestness, declared that they, the best fighters of Colonel Stephenson's famous regiment of New York Volunteers, had pledged their arms and legs to our defence, and had only come to see if we were worth the price they might have to, pay. Yet they made grim faces when, all too soon, the retreat call from the barracks sounded, and away they would have to go on the double quick, to be at post by the time of roll call, and in bed at sound of taps.

On those evenings when grandma visited the sick, or went from home on errands, we children were tucked away early in our trundle bed. There, and by ourselves, we spoke of mother and the mountains. Not infrequently, however, our thoughts would be recalled to the present by loud, wailing squeak-squawk, squeak-squawks. As the sound drew nearer and became shriller, we would put our fingers in our ears to m.u.f.fle the dismal tones, which we knew were only the creakings of the two wooden wheels of some Mexican _carreta_, laboriously bringing pa.s.sengers to town, or perhaps a cruder one carrying hides to the _embarcadero_, or possibly supplies to adjacent _ranchos_. We wondered how old people and mothers with sick children could travel in such uncomfortable vehicles and not become distracted by their nerve-piercing noises. Then, like a bird-song, pleasanter scenes would steal in upon our musings, of gay horseback parties on their way to church feasts, or fandangos, preceded or followed by servants in charge of pack animals laden with luggage.

We rarely stayed awake long enough to say all we wished about the Spanish people. Their methods of travel, modes of dress, and fascinating manners were sources of never-ending discussion and interest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD MEXICAN CARRETA]

[Ill.u.s.tration: RESIDENCE OF JUDGE A.L. RHODES, A TYPICAL CALIFORNIA HOUSE OF THE BETTER CLa.s.s IN 1849]

We had seen princely dons of many leagues ride by in state; das.h.i.+ng _caballeros_ resplendent in costumes of satin and velvet, on their way to sing beneath the windows of dark-eyed _senoritas;_ and had stood close enough to the wearers of embroidered and lace-bedecked small clothes, to count the scallops which closed the seams of their outer garments, and to hear the faint tinkle of the tiny silver bells which dangled from them. We had feasted our eyes on magnificently robed _senoras_ and _senoritas_; caught the scent of the roses twined in their hair, and the flash of jewels on their persons.

Such frequent object-lessons made the names and surroundings of those grandees easy to remember. Some lived leagues distant, some were near neighbors in that typical Mexican Pueblo of Sonoma, whose adobe walls and red-tiled roofs nestled close to the foot of the dimpled hills overlooking the valley from the north, and whose historic and romantic a.s.sociations were connected with distinguished families who still called it home.

Foremost among the men was General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, by whom Sonoma was founded in 1834, upon ground which had twice been consecrated to Mission use. First by Padre Altemera, who had, in 1823, established there the church and mission building of San Francisco Solano. And four years later, after hostile Indians had destroyed the sacred structures, Padre Fortune, under protection of Presidio Golden Gate, blessed the ashes and rebuilt the church and the parochial houses named last on the list of the historic Missions of California.

The Vallejo home covered the largest plot of ground on the north side of the plaza, and its great house had a hospitable air, despite its lofty watchtower, begrimed by sentry holes, overlooking every part of the valley.

During the period that its owner was _commandante_ of the northern frontier, the Vallejo home was headquarters for high officials of the province. But after Commodore Sloat raised the Stars and Stripes at Monterey, General Vallejo espoused the cause of the United States, put aside much of his Spanish exclusiveness, and opened his doors to Americans as graciously as to friends of his own nationality.

A historic souvenir greatly prized by Americans in town and valley was the flag pole, which in Sonoma's infancy had been hewn from the distant mountain forest, and brought down on pack animals by mission Indians under General Vallejo's direction. It originally stood in the centre of the plaza, where it was planted with sacred ceremonials, and where amid ringing cheers of "_Viva Mexico!_" it first flung to the breeze that country's symbolical banner of green, white, and red. Through ten fitful years it loyally waved those colors; then followed its brief humiliation by the Bear Flag episode, and early redemption by order of Commodore Sloat, who sent thither an American flag-bearer to invest it with the Stars and Stripes. Thereafter, a patriotic impulse suggested its removal to the parade ground of the United States Army post, and as Spanish residents looked upon it as a thornful reminder of lost power they felt no regret when Uncle Sam's boys transplanted it to new environments and made it an American feature by adoption.

But the Mexican landmark which appealed to me most pathetically was the quaint rustic belfry which stood solitary in the open s.p.a.ce in front of the Mission buildings. Its strong columns were the trunks of trees that looked as though they might have grown there for the purpose of shouldering the heavy cross-beams from which the chimes hung. Its smooth timbers had been laboriously hewn by hand, as must be the case in a land where there are no saw mills. The parts that were not bound together with thongs of rawhide, were held in place by wooden pegs. The strips of rawhide attached to the clappers dropped low enough for me to reach, and often tempted me to make the bells speak.

Mission padres no longer dwelt in the buildings, but shepherds from distant folds came monthly to administer to the needs of this consecrated flock. Then the many bells would call the faithful to ma.s.s, and to vespers, or chime for the wedding of favored sons and daughters.

Part of them would jingle merrily for notable christenings; but one only would toll when death whitened the lips of some distinguished victim; and again, while the blessed body was being borne to its last resting-place.

During one of my first trips to town, Jakie and I were standing by grandpa's shop on the east side of the plaza, when suddenly those bells rang out clear and sweet, and we saw the believing glide out of their homes in every direction and wend their way to the church. The high-born ladies had put aside their jewels, their gorgeous silks and satins, and donned the simpler garb prescribed for the season of fasts and prayer. Those to the manor born wore the picturesque _rebosa_ of fine lace or gauzy silk, draped over the head and about the shoulders; while those of humbler station made the shawl serve in place of the _rebosa_. The Indian servants, who with mats and kneeling cus.h.i.+ons followed their mistresses, wore white chemises, bright-colored petticoats, and handkerchiefs folded three-cornerwise over the head and knotted under the chin. The costumes of the young girls were modelled after those of their mothers; and the little ladies appeared as demure and walked as stately as their elders. The gentlemen also were garbed in plainer costumes than their wont, and, for custom's sake, rode on horseback even the short distances which little children walked.

The town seemed deserted, and the church filled, as we started homeward, I skipping ahead until we reached a shop window where I waited for Jakie and asked him if he knew what those pretty little things were that I saw on a shelf, in big short-necked gla.s.s jars. Some were round and had little "stickers" all over them, and others looked like birds' eggs, pink, yellow, white, and violet.