About this time Georgia and I enjoyed a rare surprise. On his return
from business one day, Mr. Chamberlain announced that a
distinguished-appearing young lawyer, S.O. Houghton by name, had
stopped at the bank that afternoon, to learn our address and say that
he would call in the evening. We, knowing that he was the husband of
our "little cousin Mary," were anxious to meet him and to hear of her,
whom we had not seen since our journey across the snow. He came that
evening, and told us of the cozy home in San Jose to which he had taken
his young wife, and of her wish that we visit them the coming July or
August.
Although letters had passed between us, up to this time we had known
little of Mary's girlhood life. After we parted, in 1847, she was
carried through to San Francisco, then called Yerba Buena, where her
maimed foot was successfully treated by the surgeon of the United
States ship _Portsmouth_. The citizens of that place purchased and
presented to her the one hundred _vara_ lot Number 38, and the lot
adjoining to her brother George. Mr. Reed was appointed her guardian
and given charge of her apportionment of funds realized from the sale
of goods brought from her father's tents. She became a member of the
Reed household in San Jose, and her life must have been cast in
pleasant lines, for she always spoke of Mr. and Mrs. Reed with filial
affection. Moreover, her brother had been industrious and prosperous,
and had contributed generously to her comfort and happiness.
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