Year: 1878

higher prices paid by the party to other and
less effective speakers aroused her Jealousy
and shocked her self-esteem, but she remained
passive spectator. When the Hon. Caro-
Illus Smirch, who received, for the use of his
political person for night, double the sum
for which she was purchased outright, ap-
peared on the same platform with herself, she
forsook it hurriedly and took to the woods.
Here she might have starved but for the in
tervention of one McCarty, a poor market
gardener, who found her, and gave her food
and shelter under the implied contract that
she should forsake politics and go to work.
The latter she for long time resisted, but
as she was considered large enough by this
time to draw cart, McCarty broke her to
single harness, with a severe fracture Of his
leg and the loss of four teeth and small
spring wagon. At length, when she could
be trusted to carry his wares to Murphy's
Camp, and could be checked from entering
a shop with the cart attached to her-a fact
of which she always affected perfect disbe-
lief-her education was considered as COM
plete as that of the average California dom
key. 1t was still unsafe to leave her alone,
as she disliked solitude. and always made it
point to join any group of loungers with
her unnecessary cart, and even to follow some
good-looking miner to his cabin. The first
time this popularity was discovered by her
owner, was on his return to the street after
driving a bargain within the walls of the
Temperance Hotel. Jimmy was nowhere to
be seen. Her devious course, however, was
peasingly indicated by vegetables that strewed
the road until she was at last tracked to the
verandah of the Arcade saloon, where she
was found looking through the window at a
game of euchre, and only deferred by the
impending cart from entering the building.
A visit one Sunday to the little Catholic
chapel at French Camp, where she attempted
to introduce an antiphonal service and the
cart brought shame and disgrace upon her
unlucky master. For the cart contained
| freshly-gathered vegetables, and the fact that
McCarty had been Sabbath-breaking was
painfully evident. Father Sullivan was quick
to turn an incident that provoked the risibll-
sIt's the poor dumb beast that has more
Christian sowl than Michael" he commented
but here jimmy assented so positively that
they were fain to drag her away by main
force.


To her eccentric and thoughtless youth
succeeded calm maturity in which her con-
servative sagacity was steadily developed.
She now worked for her living, subject, how
ever, to nice discrimination by which she
limited herself to certain amount of work,
beyond which neither threats, beatings, nor





she would start for the stable with or With
out the membranes of the cart or Michael,
turning two long, deaf ears on all expostula-
ton or entreaty. "Now, God be good to me-"
said Michael, one day, picking himself out
from ditch as he gazed sorrowful,y y after the
flying heels of JiRny, ''but it's only the
second load of cabbages Pm bringin' the
day, an if she's struck now, it's ruined / am
entoirely." But he was mistaken; after two
hours of ruminatioD, jimmy returned of her
own free will, having evidently mistaken the
time, and it is said even consented to draw
an extra load to make up the deficiency. It
may be imagined from this and other circum-
stances that Michael stood little in awe of
Jinny's superior intellect, and that jimmy,
occasionally, with the instinct OF her sex,
presumed upon it. After the Sunday epi-
sode, already referred to, she was given her
liberty on that day. privilege she gracefully
recognized by somewhat unbending her usual
austerity in the indulgence of saturnine
humor. She would visit the mining camps,
and, grazing lazily and thoughtfully before
coquetries known to the female heart, induce
some credulous stranger to approach her with
the intention of taking ride. She would
submit hesitatingly to halter, allow him to
mount her back, and, with every expression
of timid and fearful reluctance, at last per-
NIT him to guide her In a laborious trot out
of sight of human habitation. What hap
pened then was never clearly known. In a
few moments the camp would be aroused by
shouts and execrations, and the spectacle Of
jimmy tearing up at fearful pace, with the
stranger clipging with his arms around her
neck, afraid to slip off, from terror of her cir
cumyolving heels, and vainly imploring assis-
tance. Again and again she would dash by
the appauding groups, adding the aggrava-
tion of her voice to the danger of her heels,
until, suddenly wheeling, she would gallop to
Carter's pond, and deposit her uckless
freight in the muddy ditch. This practical
joke was repeated until one Sunday she was
approached by Juan Ramirez, Mexican
odquero booted and spurred, and carrying a
RATA. A crowd was assembled to see her
discontinue. Butt to the intense disappoint-
ment of the camp, jimmy, after quietly sur
veying the stranger, uttered sardonic bray,
and rambIed away to the little cemetery on
the hill, whose tangled chapparal effectually
prevented all pursuit by her skilled antago-
mist. From that day she forsook the camp, and
spent her Sabbaths in m0rtuary reflections
among the pine headboards and cold "hic
facets" Of the dead.


Happy would it have been if this circum-
stance, which resulted in the one poetic epi-
sode of ber life, had occurred earlier. For
the cemetery was the favorite resort of Miss
Jessie Lawton, a gentle invalid from San
Francisco, who had sought the Foot Hills for
the balsam of pine and fir, and in the faint
hope that the freshness of the wild roses
might call back her own. The extended
views from the cemetery satisfied Miss Law
toms artistic taste, and here frequently with
her sketchbook in hand she INDUCED that
taste and a certain shy reserve, which kept
her from contact with strangers. On one of
the leaves of that sketchbook appears study
OF donkey's head, being none other than
the grave features of jimmy, as once projected
timidly over the artists shoulder. The pre-
liminaries of this intimacy have never trans
pred, nor is it settled fact il jimmy made
the first advances. The result was only known
to the men of Sawyer's Bar by vision which
remained fresh in their memories, lons after
the gentle lady and her four-footed friend
hal passed beyond their voices. As two of
the tunnel men were returning from work
one evening they CHANGED to look up the trail,
kept sacred from secular intrusion, that led
from the cemetery to the settlement. In the
dim twilight, against sunset sky they beheld
pale-faced girl riding slowly toward them.
With delicate instinct, new to these rough
men, they drew closer in the shadow of the
bushes until she passed. There was no mis-
taking the familiar grotesqueness of jimmy,
there was no mistaking the languid grace of
Miss Lawton. But a wreath Of wild roses
was around Jinny's neck, from her long ears
foated Miss Jesse's hat ribbons, and a mis-
chievous, girlish smile was upon Miss Jessie's
face; as fresh as the azaeas in her hair. By
the next day the story of this gentle appari-
ton was known to dozen miners in camp.
and all were sworn to secrecy. But the
next evening, and the next, from the safe
shadows of the woods, they watched and
drank in the beauty of that fanciful and all
unconscious procession. They kept their
secret, and never whisper or football from
these rough men broke its charm or betrayed
their presence. The man who could have
shocked the sensitive reserve of tie young
girl would have paid for it with his life.


And then one day, the character of the
procession changed, and this little incident
having been told, it was permitted that jimmy
should follow her friend, caparisoned even as
before, but this time by the rougher but no
less loving hands of men. When the cortege
reached the ferry where the gentle girl was to
begin her silent journey to the sea, jimmy
broke from those who held her, and after
frantic effort to mount the barge fell into the
swiftly rushing Stanislaus. A dozen stout
arms were stretched to save her, and rope
skillfully thrown was caught around her
feet. For an instant she was passive and, as