Shortly after Abe's departure, Aunt Phoebe left also. No tears were shed. Not long afterward, Laddy found that some one had stolen some things from his cabin, including a photograph of his mother, and a Bible given him by his mother when he had left the old home for California. Laddy was no more pious than his associates, but he prized the Bible as a keepsake. Everybody knew this stealing was the work of Aunt Phoebe. They were certain he took the Bible, although he could not read, and never prayed. like an S. He had signalized his entrance into | wanted to return some day; and if he died first, he that portion of the country by stealing and butcher- desired to be buried at Bill Williamsburg. ing a cow belonging to Mrs. Brawley, a poor widow. This cow's name was Phoebe. She was old and good, and had been known so long and favorably by the miners, who bought milk from her owner, that she was called Aunt Phoebe. Hence the name of the young man with the S-shaped nose. He had not sold all the meat of the cow before it was ascertained that she had been butchered. Nobody, then, would eat the meat. They said it would be like eating one of the neighbors, or a member of one's family. Ned Sorrel had some of it in the pot boiling for his dinner, when he found out where it came from. He threw it out. Said he was no cannibal. This circumstance rendered Aunt Phoebe, the young man, unpopular. The friends of Aunt Phoebe, the cow, were taking steps to have him prosecuted, not for larceny, but for murder. They said it was worse than common stealing, and that he ought to be tried and hanged for murder. But Aunt Phoebe, the young man, had a brother living in Nevada City. This brother was a prominent citizen, and a good man, and got the matter hushed up, by giving Mrs. Brawley another cow, a very fine one, giving more milk than Aunt Phoebe, the cow, ever had. The miners said she might give more milk, but it was not like having their old friend around, the murdered Aunt Phoebe. However, they called her successor Aunt Phoebe, junior. They bore with the murderer of their old cow friend, because they liked his brother, and thought that possibly he would do nothing more bad. Laddy Boyd was Abe Bledsoe's close friend, and some years older. Laddy was not his real name, but he was so called on account of his being a little man. Once, at Bill Williamsburg, he was taken | down with the small-pox. He was removed to a deserted cabin some distance from the main camp. The miners tried to arrange with Aunt Phoebe, who had had the small-pox, to nurse Laddy, at big wages. But he said he would wait on no man with the smallpox, not for fifty dollars a day. Abe, who had been absent for a few days, returned about this time. He said Aunt Phoebe should not nurse Laddy, not even if he wanted to. Abe himself went out to the lonely cabin, and watched over the almost dying man. Laddy lingered long, but finally got up. Then, before Laddy left the cabin, Abe was taken down with the same loathsome disease. How faithfully he was nursed back to health by his grateful little friend, need not here be detailed. About two months after Abe left Bill Williamsburg, the news came back to his friends that he had been killed by the caving in of a bank. The sad tidings came down in a few hours, by the rapid express of that day. An order went back from his friends, by return express, for the body to be placed in a good coffin, and expressed at once to Bill Williamsburg. As the order was writing, Laddy Boyd said: "Tell them to spare no expense on the coffin, and leave nothing undone for the comfort of the corpse." The order was so written. Promptly came the coffin containing all that was earthly of Abe Bledsoe. It was a sad committee that received it. Abe and the qualities that had endeared him to his old friends were still fresh in their memories. A grave was ready to receive the remains of Abe. The camp had a small graveyard. Several of the boys were resting under little mounds. Their picks were idle. The gold fever had all gone out of their poor bodies. It was proposed to open the coffin, before depositing it in the grave, to allow the friends of Abe to take a farewell look at him. Laddy objected to this. Said he, between his sobs: "I want to remember Abe Bledsoe as he looked in health. I want to always see him in my mind as a splendid-looking man, not as a cold, clammy corpse." The bearded, red-skirted men that gathered around that grave remembered how Abe had watched over Laddy, as the latter had come down, hand in hand with the small-pox, into the shadow of death. Then they thought of Laddy's vigils over Abe, as Abe had wrestled with the same hideous rottenness. They let Laddy have his way. The coffin was swung in ropes, and was lowering into the grave, when the movements of the feet of the men who were holding the ropes caused some clods to roll over the edge of the grave, and into the box Bill Williamsburg was engaged in placer-mining. for receiving the coffin, at the bottom. Laddy had After a while, a few of the men had worked out their them cease lowering. He got down into the grave, claims. Among these was Abe. He had worked not jumping down quickly and cat-like as was his his claim, but he had no money laid up. Too gen- habit in moving, but slowly, tenderly, and reverently. Though much attached to the old camp, and He removed from the box all the dirt that had fallen his friends there, he struck out for new diggings, or in. Then he got out of the grave properly and deto get work somewhere. Before going, he said he cently. The coffin was lowered to the bottom. The erous. box in which it rested received its cover, and the box itself was covered with boards. There was no The dirt from the shovels rattled on the boards below. Laddy's little frame shook with grief. He suppressed it as far as he could, to tell the shovelers that they were throwing in too much dirt at once, filling the grave in too rapid and business-like a manner. He requested them to be more gentle. minister present. No services of any kind. The grave was filled to the top, and heaped up. Although Laddy would throw no dirt on his friend, he took a spade and assisted in giving the little mound above his friend symmetrical shape. A head-board was placed in position. Printed on it, with pencil, was this epitaph, dictated by Laddy: ABE BLEDSOE, KILLED BY AXIDENT, AUGUST 2ND, 186–. BEST MAN THAT EVER TROD SHOO LETHER. In all his gloom, there was one gleam for Laddy. Along with the news of Abe's death had come that, also, of Aunt Phoebe. He had been shot and killed in the act of stealing a horse, not far from the scene of the accident that had taken Abe off. As dying was the only decent thing he had ever done, his brother thought he would give him decent burial. He ordered the body coffined and expressed to Nevada City. It came down on the same day that Abe's remains came; possibly on the same vehicle. In a day or two the news reached Bill Williamsburg that Aunt Phoebe's brother, on opening his coffin at Nevada City, or what was sent for his coffin, had found a stranger. One that would give no account of himself. Some one, however, in that town, thought the features might be those of Abe Bledsoe. Abe's friends in Bill Williamsburg said, at first, that it could not be possible. They opened the newmade grave, though. The lid of the coffin was removed. There was the S-shaped nose of Aunt Phoebe, the young man, the corpse! Laddy broke forth afresh in lamentation: "To think that I should have cried, and over a cattle-thief, one who stole a widow woman's cow, and stole the photograph of my mother, and my Bible, mother's present to me. Just like him to take the wrong road, and sneak into another man's grave!" Corpses were exchanged. But Laddy would not allow Abe's remains to go into the grave just vacated by Aunt Phoebe. THE ENVIRONMENT. less it is a smaller crumb. But a man will sometimes talk and eat at the same time, when nature intended he should do only one of these at a time. Who ever heard of a bird singing as it pecks at the berry, or horse neighing over his oats, or dog barking as he gnaws his bone, or babe crying at its mother's breast? And when one attempts to economize time by eating and talking both in one, then comes the opportunity of the crumb. Men sometimes lose opportunities. A crumb never does. No. It improves each shining windpipe. When a person gets a crumb in his windpipe, what a change comes over him! He can understand in one instant that it is there. No one has to tell him. It may not be larger than the head of a pin, but it feels as large as the national debt. How earnest he becomes, too; and how like a god he struggles! His whole being is shaken, including his boots. Tears come into his eyes. He deeply sympathizes with himself. His eyes start from their sockets, as if they were going West. Send your back numbers to the magazine office, and for seventy-five cents per volume they will be neatly bound. Send twenty-five cents extra for return postage on each volume, if you live out of San Francisco. Name, in gilt letters on back, ten cents. Do not forget to inclose your name and address. TELL YOUR FRIENDS about THE CALIFORNIAN. Get them to subscribe. ARE YOU BUYING THE CALIFORNIAN from month to month? Send in your name as a regular subscriber. HAVE YOU LEISURE to get up a club. Write to THE CALIFORNIAN and get the benefit of a liberal commission. Circumstances make men and things. What would Washington have been if the War for Inde-THE CALIFORNIAN for sale. pendence had not called out his qualities as a leader? 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Its stories will be from the pens of such authors as Leonard Kip, Margaret Collier Graham, Milicent W. Shinn, W. C. Morrow, and a host of others. A number of very valuable scientific and political articles, bearing on live subjects, will be published from time to time, from men who are the first authority on such topics, including John Muir, Joseph Le Conte, C. T. Hopkins, W. W. Crane, B. B. Redding, and many others. DURING THE YEAR A NUMBER OF ILLUSTRATED ARTICLES will be published. NOW IS THE TIME TO SUBSCRIBE. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, $4.00 PER ANNUM. Address CALIFORNIA PUBLISHING COMPANY, 408 CALIFORNIA STREET, SAN FRANCISCO. 1882. |