The record-union., 1895-10-12
PLACER.
Read at the reunion of Placer County Pio-
neers, held at Auburn in May, 1885,

Read at the reunion OF Placer County Plo-
neers, held at Auburn in May, 1885,
With her soft. fluffy pillow or snow,
And her arm at the rim Of Tahoe,
Smiling down from her crested Sierras,
With lips like her foothiIl cherries
She is crowned with her blossoms. God bless
Aphrodite could not surpass her,
We nave crossed the whole state to caress her,
Our own imperial Placer.
When with pick and shovel and pan,
Through her foothills accustomed 10 climb,
We were after the DUST to man.
We had broken ali ties in ''the States"
And mad nothing around US to mold,
For the only cradles we rocked
Were the cradles" that carried the gold.
In dugout, brush shanty and tent,
Were the only wardrobes we carried,
And the garments grew spotted with patches,
AT every new camp where we tarried.
On every hand with the boys"
Were plainly told legends surprising,
From the ''gunnies" that carried the "spuds,"
To the flour sacks printed ''selfrising."
Each took his turn in the morning
At Tipping the "fiap-jacks' over
And when padded With bacon aud beans,
The hardy old boys were in clover.
With rocker and ''long-tom" and 'sluice, -
And pick and shovel and pan,
There was no dead clay in the gulches-
Each slouched hat covered q man.
They we're faulty and heady and stubborn,
And up to the neck in Sin,
But such men ''move the planet"
And are made Of the stuff to win.
There were very few of them sanity
They were built on the general plan,
That 1T takes good-sized sinner
To make very much OF d man.
God Sits the race for his builders,
And the chat is thrown aside:
He myst have red blood to plow the food
And dredge the channel wide.
To the work of building empires
The bold and the daring come,
And the hearts to swell the columns
Keep time with the throbbing drum.
When gold was struck at suffers mill
Such men fell into line.
And the pick and prime of life's summer
time
Were the men of forty-nlne
The dust is worked from the gulches,
We have sluiced out all the bars,
On the track of the early pageant
There is nothing left but the scars
A rusty pan, and a broken spade,
4 scrap or rifle where sluices laid,
| Broken bottles and empty cans,
Shiny coobleS and whitening sands,
Riches of earth where the shantieS stood,
And other ridges still more rude,
| That mark the place where they planted
These are the tokens that mark the past.
And you that are still alive
Must bear the conceits of a later race
In the scions OF ninety-five
| What need TO "pan for colors"
When they blossom all around
When our trees are heavy with globes of gold,
| And the peoples paint the ground?
| When our wheat paints yellow the field and
fallow,
And our sunrays ripen 10 flowers,
| When the richest gold our hands can hold
| Is the ripe fruit-laden hours?
o pioneers of our fading years.
Who shall your gift unfold?
There is wealth in the foothill empire
That can never be measured in gold
| In the silken curls OF our native girls,
In the sparkling eye and the lip that curls
| In the springy step all unafraid,
That marks the end-of-a-century maid
All these and a thousand other things
| Give To our heritage wealth and wings.
! With all these thoughts we gather,
And our choicest wreath we Irvine,
| Rich with the roses of ninety-fve
! For the brow OF forty-nine.
HIRAM HoYT RICHMOND.