delicate, approximating an inch and a half in diameter.
Armed with a long pole, a short section of a butt limb forming a sort of
shepherd's crook, I would pull down the heavily laden branches and after
a few moments in the edge of the woods would be provided with a dessert
fit for any queen, and so appropriate for my mother.

California in those early days seemed wholly dependent on the foreign
markets. Flour came from Chile, "Haxall" being the common brand; cheese
from Holland and Switzerland; cordials, sardines, and prunes from
France; ale and porter from England; olives from Spain; whiskey from
Scotland. Boston supplied us with crackers, Philadelphia sent us boots,
and New Orleans furnished us with sugar and molasses.

The stores that supplied the mines carried almost
everything--provisions, clothing, dry goods, and certainly wet goods. At
every store there was found an open barrel of whiskey, with a convenient
glass sampler that would yield through the bunghole a fair-sized drink
to test the quality. One day I went into a store where a clever Chinaman
was employed. He had printed numerous placards announcing the stock. I
noticed a fresh one that seemed incongruous. It read, "Codfish and
Cologne Water." I said, "What's the idea?" He smilingly replied, "You
see its place? I hang it over the whiskey-barrel. Some time man come to
steal a drink. I no see him; he read sign, he laugh, I hear him, I see
him."

There was no school in the town when we came. It troubled my mother that
my brother and sister must be without lessons. Several other small
children were deprived of opportunity. In the emergency we cleaned out a
room in the store, formerly occupied by a county officer, and I
organized a very primary school. I was almost fifteen, but the children
were good and manageable. I did not have very many, and fortunately I
was not called upon to teach very long. There came to town a clever man,
Robert Desty. He wanted to teach. There was no school building, but he
built one all by his own hands. He suggested that I give up my school
and become a pupil of his. I was very glad to do it. He was a good and
ingenious teacher. I enjoyed his lessons about six months, and then felt
I must help my father. My stopping was the only graduation in my
experience.

My father was an inveterate trader, and the year after our coming he
joined with another venturer in buying the standing crop of wheat in
Hoopa Valley, on the Trinity River.