The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate Part 24

She was still insisting on her right to keep me, when a slight sound caused us both to turn, and meeting Georgia's anxious, listening gaze, grandma appealed to her, saying,

"Thou hast heard thy sister's talk, but thou hast not been in this fuss, and surely wilt not leave me?"

"Yes, I am going with Eliza," was the prompt answer, which had no sooner left her lips, than grandma resorted to her last expedient: she ordered us both to our room, and forbade us to leave it until she should hear from grandpa.

What message she sent him by the milker we never learned. Georgia, being already dressed for the journey, and her trunk containing most of her possessions being at Mrs. Bergwald's, had nothing to do but await results.

I quickly changed my working suit for a better one, which had been given me by a German friend from San Francisco. Then I laid out my treasured keepsakes. In my nervous energy, nothing was forgotten. I took pains that my clothes against the wall should hang in straight rows, that the folded ones should lie in neat piles in my pretty Chinese trunk, and that the bunch of artificial flowers which I had always kept for a top centre mark, should be exactly in the middle; finally, that the gray gauze veil used as a fancy covering of the whole should be smoothly tucked in around the clothing. This done, I gave a parting glance at the dainty effect, dropped the cover, snapped the queer little bra.s.s padlock in place, put the key on the table, and covered the trunk so that its embossed figures of birds and flowers should be protected from harm.

We had not remembered to tell Elitha about the hundred dollars which Jakie had willed us, so decided to let grandma keep it to cover some of the expense we had been to her, also not to ask for our little trinkets stored in her closet.

With the bundle containing my keepsakes, I now sat down by Georgia and listened with bated breath to the sound of grandma's approaching footsteps. She entered and hastily began,

"Grandpa says, if you want to go, and your people are here to take you, we have no right to keep you; but that I am not to part with you bad friends. So I came to shake hands and say good-bye. But I don't forgive you for going away, and I never want to see you or hear from you again!"

She did not ask to see what we were taking away, nor did her good-bye seem like parting.

The fear that something might yet arise to prevent our reaching brother and sister impelled us to run the greater part of the distance to the hotel, and in less than an hour thereafter, we were in the carriage with them on the way to Mrs. Bergwald's, prior to taking the road to Sacramento.

Off at last, without a soul in the town knowing it!

Georgia, who had neither said nor done anything to anger grandma, was easier in mind and more comfortable in body, than I, who, fasting, had borne the trials of the morning. I could conceal the cause, but not the faint and ill feeling which oppressed me during the morning drive and continued until I had had something to eat at the wayside inn, and a rest, while the horses were enjoying their nooning.

I had also been too miserable to feel any interest in what occurred at Mrs. Bergwald's after we stopped to let Georgia get her keepsakes. But when the day's travel was over, and we were comfortably housed for the night, Georgia and I left our brother and sister to their happy hour with their child, and sat close together on the outer doorsteps to review the events of the day. Our world during that solemn hour was circ.u.mscribed, reaching back only to the busy scenes of the morning, and forward to the little home that should open to us on the morrow.

When we resumed travel, we did not follow the pioneers' trail, once marked by hoof of deer, elk, and antelope, nor the winding way of the Spanish _cabellero,_ but took the short route which the eager tradesman and miner had hewn and tramped into shape.

On reaching the ferry across the Sacramento River, I gazed at the surrounding country in silent amazement. Seven and a half years with their marvellous influx of brawn and brain, and their output of gold, had indeed changed every familiar scene, except the snow-capped Sierras, wrapped in their misty cloak of autumnal blue. The broad, deep river had given up both its crystal floods and the wild, free song which had accompanied it to the sea, and become a turbid waterway, enc.u.mbered with busy craft bringing daily supplies to countless homes, and carrying afar the long hidden wealth of ages.

The tule flat between the water front and Sutter's Fort had become a bustling city. The streets running north and south were numbered from first to twenty-eighth, and those east and west lettered from A to Z, and thriving, light-hearted throngs were pursuing their various occupations upon ground which had once seemed like a Noah's ark to me.

Yes, this was the very spot where with wondering eyes I had watched nature's untamed herds winding through the reedy paths to the river bank, to quench their morning and evening thirst.

As we crossed from J Street to K, brother remarked, "Our journey will end on this street; which of you girls will pick out the house before we come to it?"

Elitha would not help us, but smiled, when, after several guesses, I said that I wished it to be a white house with brownish steps and a dark door with a white k.n.o.b. Hence, great was my satisfaction when near the southeast corner of Eighteenth and K streets, we halted in front of a cottage of that description; and it was regarded as a lucky omen for me, that my first wish amid new scenes should be realized.

The meeting with Sister Frances and the novelty of the new situation kept up a pleasurable excitement until bed-time. Then in the stillness of the night, in the darkness of the new chamber, came the recollection that at about that hour one week ago, I, sorrowing and alone, had stood by a weird old tree-trunk in Sonoma, and vowed by the rising moon that before it should come up again in its full, Georgia and I would be in Sacramento. I did not sleep until I had thanked the good Father for sending help to me in my time of need.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF SACRAMENTO--A GLIMPSE OF GRANDPA--THE RANCHO DE LOS CAZADORES--MY SWEETEST PRIVILEGE--LETTERS FROM THE BRUNNERS.

It is needless to say that we were grateful for our new home, and tried to express our appreciation in words and by sharing the household duties, and by helping to make the neat clothing provided for us.

The first Monday in October was a veritable red-letter day. Aglow with bright antic.i.p.ations, we hurried off to public school with Frances. Not since our short attendance at the pioneer school in Sonoma had Georgia and I been schoolmates, and never before had we three sisters started out together with books in hand; nor did our expectations overreach the sum of happiness which the day had in store for us.

The supposition that grandpa and grandma had pa.s.sed out of our lives was soon disproved; for as I was crossing our back yard on the Sat.u.r.day of that first week of school, I happened to look toward Seventeenth Street, and saw a string of wagons bringing exhibits from the fair grounds. Beside the driver of a truck carrying a closed cage marked, "Buffalo," stood grandpa. He had risen from his seat, leaned back against the front of the cage, folded his arms and was looking at me.

My long black braids had been cut off, and my style of dress changed, still he had recognized me. I fled into the house, and told Elitha what I had seen. She, too, was somewhat disquieted, and replied musingly,

"The old gentleman is lonely, and may have come to take you girls back with him."

His presence in Sacramento so soon after our reaching there did seem significant, because he had bought that buffalo in 1851, before she was weaned from the emigrant cow that had suckled and led her in from the great buffalo range, and he had never before thought of exhibiting her.

The following afternoon, as we were returning from Sunday school, a hand suddenly reached out of the crowd on J Street and touched Georgia's shoulder, then stopped me. A startled backward glance rested on Castle, our old enemy, who said,

"Come. Grandpa is in town, and wants to see you." We shook our heads.

Then he looked at Frances, saying, "All of you, come and see the large seal and other things at the fair."

But she replied, emphatically, "We have not permission," and grasping a hand of each, hurried us homeward. For days thereafter, we were on the alert guarding against what we feared might happen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photographs by Lynwood Abbott. PINES OF THE SIERRAS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL JOHN A. SUTTER]

[Ill.u.s.tration: COL. J.D. STEVENSON]

Our alarm over, life moved along smoothly. Elitha admonished us to forget the past, and prepare for the future. She forbade Georgia and me to use the German language in speaking with each other, giving as a reason that we should take Frances into our confidence and thoughts as closely as we took one another.

I was never a morbid child, and the days that I did not find a sunbeam in life, I was apt to hunt for a rainbow. But there, in sight of the Sierras, the feeling again haunted me that perhaps my mother did not die, but had strayed from the trail and later reached the settlement and could not find us. Each middle-aged woman that I saw ahead of me on the street would thrill me with expectation, and I would quicken my steps in order to get a view of her face. When I gave up this illusion, I still prayed that Keseberg would send for me some day, and let me know her end, and give me a last message. I wanted his call to me to be voluntary, so that I might know that his words were true. These hopes and prayers were sacred, even from Georgia.

On the twenty-fourth of March, 1856, brother Ben took us all to pioneer quarters on Rancho de los Cazadores, where their growing interests required the personal attention of the three brothers. There we became familiar with the pleasures, and also the inconveniences and hards.h.i.+ps of life on a cattle ranch. We were twenty miles from town, church, and school; ten miles from the post office; and close scrutiny far and wide disclosed but one house in range. Our supply of books was meagre, and for knowledge of current events, we relied on _The Sacramento Union_, and on the friends who came to enjoy the cattleman's hospitality.

My sweetest privilege was an occasional visit to cousin Frances Bond, my mother's niece, who, with her husband and child, had settled on a farm about twelve miles from us. She also had grown up a motherless girl, but had spent a part of her young ladyhood at our home in Illinois. She had helped my mother to prepare for our long journey and would have crossed the plains with us had her father granted her wish.

She was particularly fond of us "three little ones" whom she had caressed in babyhood. She related many pleasing incidents connected with those days, and spoke feelingly, yet guardedly, of our experiences in the mountains. Like Elitha, she hoped we would forget them, and as she watched me cheerfully adapting myself to new surroundings, she imagined that time and circ.u.mstances were dimming the past from my memory.

She did not understand me. I was light-hearted because I was old enough to appreciate the blessings that had come to me; old enough to look ahead and see the pure, intelligent womanhood opening to me; and trustful enough to believe that my expectations in life would be realized. So I gathered counsel and comfort from the lips of that sympathetic cousin, and loved her word pictures of the home where I was born.

Nor could change of circ.u.mstances wean my grateful thoughts from Grandpa and Grandma Brunner. At times, I seemed to listen for the sound of his voice, and to hear hers so near and clear that in the night, I often started up out of sleep in answer to her dream calls. Finally I determined to disregard her parting words, and write her. Georgia was sure that I would get a severe answer, but Elitha's ready permission made the letter easier to write. Weeks elapsed without a reply, and I had about given up looking for it, when late in August, William, the youngest Wilder brother, saddled his horse, and upon mounting, called out,

"I'm off to Sacramento, Eliza, to bring you that long-expected letter.

It was misdirected, and is advertised in _The Sacramento Union's_ list of uncalled-for mail."

He left me in a speculative mood, wondering if it was from grandma; which of her many friends had written it for her; and if it was severe, as predicted by Georgia. Great was my delight when the letter was handed me, and I opened it and read:

SONOMA, _July 3, 1856_

To Miss ELIZA P. DONNER: CASADOR RANCHO, COSUMNE RIVER NEAR SACRAMENTO CITY.

DEAR ELIZA:

Your letter of the fifteenth of June came duly to hand, giving me great satisfaction in regard to your health, as well as keeping me and grandfather in good memory.

I have perused the contents of your letter with great interest. I am glad to learn that you enjoy a country life. We have sold lately twelve cows, and are milking fifteen at present. You want to know how Flower is coming on: had you not better come and see for yourself? Hard feelings or ill will we have none against you; and why should I not forgive little troubles that are past and gone by?