We were deeply impressed.
The emigrants uncovered and bowed their heads reverently, but the
soldiers in line, with guns reversed, stood erect and motionless as
figures in stone, while the bier of the dead was being carried through
open ranks to the waiting caisson. The coffin was covered with a flag,
and upon it lay his chapeau, gauntlets, sash, and sword. His boots,
with their toes reversed, hung over the saddle of a riderless horse,
led behind the caisson. The solemn tones of fife and muffled drum led
the way through the town, past the old Mission bells and up the
hillside. Only soldiers stood close around the grave and heard what was
read by the officer who stood at its head, with an open book in one
hand and a drawn sword in the other. Three times the file of soldiers
fired a volley over the grave, then the muffled drum sounded its
farewell taps, and the officers, with their men and the funeral
caisson, returned to their quarters in silent order.
CHAPTER XXIII
REAPING AND THRESHING--A PIONEER FUNERAL--THE HOMELESS AND WAYFARING
APPEAL TO MRS. BRUNNER--RETURN OF THE MINERS--SOCIAL GATHERINGS--OUR
DAILY ROUTINE--STOLEN PLEASURES--A LITTLE DAIRYMAID--MY DOGSKIN SHOES.
Reaping and threshing were interesting events to us that summer.
Mission Indians, scantily clothed, came and cut the grain with long
knives and sickles, bound it in small sheaves, and stacked it in the
back yard opposite grandma's lookout window, then encircled it with a
rustic fence, leaving a wide bare space between the stack and the
fence, which they swept clean with green branches from live oak trees.
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