what
harm there was in his questions or my answers. Did I not remind him of
his own little girl? And had I not heard lonely miners tell of times
when they gladly would have walked ten miles to shake hands and talk a
few moments with a child?

CHAPTER XXVII

CAPT. FRISBIE--WEDDING FESTIVITIES--THE MASTERPIECE OF GRANDMA'S
YOUTH--SENORA VALLEJO--JAKIE'S RETURN--HIS DEATH--A CHEROKEE INDIAN WHO
HAD STOOD BY MY FATHER'S GRAVE.

Captain Frisbie spent much time in Sonoma after Company H was
disbanded, and observing ones remarked that the attraction was Miss
Fannie Vallejo. Yet, not until 1851 did the General consent to part
with his first-born daughter. Weeks before the marriage day, friends
began arriving at the bride's home, and large orders came to grandma
for dairy supplies.

She anticipated the coming event with interest and pleasure, because
the prolonged and brilliant festivities would afford her an
opportunity to display her fancy and talent in butter modelling. For
the work, she did not charge, but simply weighed the butter for the
designs and put it into crocks standing in cold water in the adobe
store-house where, in the evenings, after candle-light, we three
gathered.

Her implements were a circular hardwood board, a paddle, a set of
small, well pointed sticks, a thin-bladed knife, and squares of white
muslin of various degrees of fineness. She talked and modelled, and we
listening watched the fascinating process; saw her take the plastic
substance, fashion a duck with ducklings on a pond, a lamb curled up
asleep, and a couched lion with shaggy head resting upon his fore-paws.
We watched her press beads of proper size and color into the eye
sockets; skilfully finish the base upon which each figure lay; then
twist a lump of butter into a square of fine muslin, and deftly
squeeze, until it crinkled through the meshes in form of fleece for the
lamb's coat, then use a different mesh to produce the strands for the
lion's mane and the tuft for the end of his tail.

In exuberant delight we exclaimed, "Oh, grandma, how did you learn to
make such wonderful things?"

"I did not learn, it is a gift," she replied.

Then she spoke of her modelling in childhood, and her subsequent
masterpiece, which had won the commendation of Napoleon and Empress
Josephine.

At that auspicious time, she was but eighteen years of age, and second
cook in the principal tavern of Neuchatel, Switzerland. Georgia and I
sat entr