e that the guilty one would be found
out that it made me light-hearted.

Mrs. Blake came and spent the night with me, and the following morning
helped to get the breakfast and talked over the cleaning that I wished
to do before grandma's return on the coming Saturday morning. But

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform,

and unseen hands were shaping a different course for me! I had the milk
skimmed, and a long row of clean pans in the sunshine before time to
hurry the dinner for grandpa and the three men. I was tired, for I had
carried most of the milk to the pig troughs after having finished work
which grandma and I had always done together; so I sat down under the
tree to rest and meditate.

My thoughts followed the travellers with many questions, and the wish
that I might hear what Mrs. Stein had to say. I might have overstayed
my time, if the flock of goats had not come up and smelled my hands,
nibbled at the hem of my apron, and tried to chew the cape of my
sun-bonnet. I sprang up and with a shout and clap of my hands,
scattered them, and entered the log kitchen, reclosing the lower
section of the divided door, to keep them from following me within.

I prepared the dinner, and if it lacked the flavor of grandma's
cooking, those who ate it did not tell me. Grandpa lingered a moment to
bestow a meed of praise on my work, then went off to the back corral to
slaughter a beef for the shop. I began clearing the table, and was
turning from it with a vegetable dish in each hand when I caught sight
of the shadow of a tall silk hat in the open space above the closed
half door. Then the hat and its wearer appeared.

Leaning over the edge of the door, he gazed at me standing there as if
I were nailed to the floor. I was speechless with amazement, and it
seemed a long while before he remarked lightly, "You don't seem to know
me."

"Yes, you are Mr. Wilder, my brother-in-law," I stammered. "Where is
Elitha?"

[Illustration: SACRAMENTO CITY IN THE EARLY FIFTIES]

[Illustration: FRONT STREET, SACRAMENTO CITY, 1850]

He informed me that she and their little daughter were at the hotel
in town, where they had arrived about noon, and that she wanted Georgia
and me to be prompt in coming to her at four o'clock. I told him that
we could not do so, because Georgia was at Mrs. Bergwald's, grandma on
a journey beyond Bodego, and I at home in charge of the work.

In surprise he listened, then asked, "B