Wrong
hands would reach around and get the articles, and both sexes
interchanged suits with apparent satisfaction. Grandma got quite out of
patience with one great fellow who was trying to put on a petticoat
that his squaw needed, and rushed up to him, jerked it off, gave him a
vigorous push, and had the garment on his squaw, before he could do
more than grunt. In the end they went away caring more for the clothes
that had been given them than for the money they had earned.
Before the summer waned, death claimed one of our own brave women, and
immigrants from far and near gathered to do her honor. I do not
recollect her name, but know that she was tall and fair, and that
grandma, who had watched with her through her last hours, told Georgia
and me that when we saw the procession leave the house, we might creep
through our back fence and reach the grave before those who should walk
around by the road. We were glad to go, for we had watched the growth
of the fresh ridge under a large oak tree, not far from our house, and
had heard a friend say that it would be "a heavenly resting place for
the freed sufferer."
Her family and nearest neighbors left the house afoot, behind the wagon
which carried the plain redwood coffin. At the cross-road several fell
in line, and at the grave was quite a gathering. A number came in their
ox wagons, others on horseback; among them, a father afoot, leading a
horse upon whose back sat his wife with an infant in arms and a child
behind clinging to her waist; and several old nags, freighted with
children, were led by one parent, while the other walked alongside to
see that none should lose their balance and fall off.
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