es.

A general improvement was noticed in all who dwelt in sight or hearing
of her cabin. In fact, that portion of the creek became a sort of West
End, and cabin rent went up in that vicinity. Men were made better,
gentler. No doubt of that. If, then, one plain woman, rude herself by
nature, can do so much, what is not left for gentle and cultured woman,
who is or should be the true missionary of the West--the world?

A woman's weakness is her strength.

She was tall, gentle, genial too, and soon a favorite with her many,
many patrons. She had a scar on the left side of her face, they said,
reaching from the chin to the cheek; but with a woman's tact, she always
kept her right side to her company, and the scar was not always noticed.

What had been her history, what troubles she had had, what tempests she
had stood against, or what great storm had blown this solitary woman far
into the great black sea of firs that belts about and lies in the
shadow of the Sierras, like a lone white sea-dove you sometimes find far
out in the China seas, no man knew; and, be it said to the credit of the
Forks, no man cared to inquire.

This meeting together, this coming and going of thousands of men from
all parts of the earth, where each man stood on the character he made
there in a day, deadened curiosity, perhaps.

At all events, you can go, a stranger, to-day, any where along the
Pacific, and, if your character indicates the gentleman, you are
accepted as such, and no man cares to ask of your antecedents. A
convenient thing, I grant, for many; but, nevertheless, a good thing,
and a correct thing for any country.

The old Jewish law of every seven years forgiving each man his debt was
an age in advance of our laws of to-day; and, if any means could be
devised by which every seven years to forgive all men their offences,
and let them begin life anew all together, an even start, it would be
better still.

How the work did pour in upon this first woman in this wild Eden set
with thorns and with thistles! There were not many clothes in the Forks
that were worth washing, but the few pieces that were presentable came
almost every day to the door of the Widow to be taken in by the little
hand that ever opened to the knock of the miners' knuckles on the door,
and reached through the partly opened place, and drew back timidly and
with scarce a word.

No man had yet entered her cabin. The wise little woman! If one man had
been so favo