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.
[Illustration: Photographs by Lynwood Abbott. PINES OF THE SIERRAS]
[Illustration: GENERAL JOHN A. SUTTER]
[Illustration: 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.
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