The weekly Shasta courier. [volume] (Shasta, Calif.) 1872-190?, 1873-06-21
A California Girl.
BY PRENTICE MILFORD.

The following from the n. Y. Independ
emit will be read with much interest 10y all
aud especially by those familiar with the
early days Of California, Oregon and Neva
da. Whether the character is drawn from
real life or not the picture is the work of a
skilled att 81:
Evaiinda il a growth of the extreme
West. Her parents were skirmishers in the
van Of what book makers term civilization.
Their family mansion was whlte-topped
emlgrant wagon, with large black din
ner pot slung at the hind axle, coffee mill
on the tiil-ioard, an ak looped up on the
side, two rides racked within three hungry
dogs; and inside. peeping like mice from
the interstic's of the family furniture might
lie seen. as the caravan journeyed toward
the setting sun, Evanda and Evalnda's six
brothers aud sisters, bare acknowledged,
tow-haired, dusty. freckled and healthy.
hen Ohio was the Great West" they
were there. When the Great West" NOV
ed further and further on to the borders of
Indiana, OF Illinois, and at last beyond the
Mississippi, they were its videttes. They
would rest for season. hew out a "clear-
IN" in The forest or squat on the prai-
rie. build a log cabin, raise a crop. But
when the main body of civilization. in the
euise of half a score of New England faml,
iIe<' came within twenty miles, bringing a
pedagogue, singing master. a minister.
trace ct city style in their attire. and per-
h'Ps in time piano, the skirmishprs, snuff
hug the ciamped atmosphere of the town,
speedily sold out and moved further forward
into the still unknown West.
81 went EvalInda and her people. until
they heard the cry of gold and California.
Then came the SIX months travel over
the plains '-alkali dust, heat. want of wa
ter, attacks from Indians, cholera, and at
last the Sierra Nevadas.
Evalinda has a dim recollection of the
S'erras as they came in sight, still one hun
drrd and fifty miles distant line of snow
clad triangular peaks cold grand. and SOL
emily silent. as though wrapt in the con-
temptation of eternity. Something. also,
she remembers OF the gradual approach and
ascent day by day. the sharper atmosphere,
the route more and more rugged, the haul
ing OF the family wagon by ropes over rocky
benches, the casting aside, to lessen weight.
oil family treasures-kettles andirons. chairs.
automatically their wagon sides and tor
until scarce anything remained save the ske-
eton OF a vehicle conveying the bedding and
provisions. She can Just remember their
encampments IN narrow canOns the granite
walls. bare and brown, towering above them,
tier alter tier of rock and pine sloping up
ward FAR ahead; the black and binding
snow-squalls and then the stoppage, the
discovery by the party that they had stray
ed into "a blind canon "a defiIe without
any westward opening; the dark winter
partly spent in Lost Canon. the freezing and
starvation of one favorte animal after an
other the subsistence on skin, bone, and
cartilage; the death of one young mother
aud her infant the grave dug in the snow,
for no soil chung to the granite and. finally.
the rescue in February by a party of impul-
sIve miners from the Western California
slope, who. on hearing in some mysterious
way that an emigrant train was near the
South Pass" in November, had connect
ured the trouble. and da he'd on snow shoes
over the lofty ice and rock barrier Just in
time to save them.
The family finally settled in the grand
valley of the San Joaquin. Still in sight.
one hundred and fifty miles distant, rose the
western slopes of the snow-tipped crests
which had imprisoned them But their at
mosphere now in summer was that OF the
tropics; in winter that OF an English spring.
Evallnda The child grew to Evalinda the
eirl-wiry. tough, and brown. Snakes bit
her; scorpions and centipedes stung her
poison oak at times notified her skin; she
was thrown from "bucking mustangs" whose
backs she would mount by stealth but her
neck was not to be broken nor her blood
curdied by poison. Then Evalinda the girl
shot up Iuto Evalinda the woman, 1.-THE, sun
pie with the grace and action Of the pan
Their. She could ride and cast the RATA
over the sharp horns Of her fathers Spanish
cattle As skliliuly as any of the native herds
men. The Mexicans cried " Cdrrajo :" at
her performance, and dotted their broad
rlInmed sombreros on meeting her. Evain-
da received but little schooling. vet she
learned what she wished with wonderful
readiness There was six months OF board
ing school in San Francisco; boarding school
while that city was still in its flush of gold
en- recklesshess; young ladies' boarding
school when young ladies' were very scarce
and dashlng young men, the pick of the East
ern States, were in "A vast numerical prppon-
derance- 1t was u boarding school presided
over by an accomplished aud innocent lady.
moving with blind eyes to the fast life ain
about her. In her charge were some twenty
girls, all, Ike Evalinda, California bred
These she proposed in time to mold into
meet wives for quiet, genteel, wealthy young
men.
But Evalnda and her compeers snuffed
the wild carnival surging without their AGA
demic walls 1t was dangerous. but fascin-
atiug. Without becoming partakers. they
liked to skim over and around it, In due
time the maIron was Mortified. She detect
ed correspondence and communication be-
tween her young ladies and the members Of
No. Volunteer Fire Company, around the