redity. Something of this
was also shown in a singular and remarkable reticence and firmness of
purpose, quite unlike his family or schoolfellows. His mother was
the wife of a teamster, who had apparently once "dumped" his family,
consisting of a boy and two girls, on the roadside at Burnt Spring,
with the canvas roof of his wagon to cover them, while he proceeded to
deliver other freight, not so exclusively his own, at other stations
along the road, returning to them on distant and separate occasions with
slight additions to their stock, habitation, and furniture. In this way
the canvas roof was finally shingled and the hut enlarged, and, under
the quickening of a smiling California sky and the forcing of a teeming
California soil, the chance-sown seed took root and became known as
Medliker's Ranch, or "Medliker's," with its bursting garden patch and
its three sheds or "lean-to's."

The girls helped their mother in a childish, imitative way; the boy,
John Bunyan, after a more desultory and original fashion--when he was
not "going to" or ostensibly "coming from" school, for he was seldom
actually there. Something of this fear was in the mind of Mrs. Medliker
one morning as she looked up from the kettle she was scrubbing, with
premonition of "more worriting," to behold the Reverend Mr. Staples, the
local minister, hale John Bunyan Medliker into the shanty with one hand.
Letting Johnny go, he placed his back against the door and wiped his
face with a red handkerchief. Johnny dropped into a chair, furtively
glancing at the arm by which Mr. Staples had dragged him, and feeling it
with the other hand to see if it was really longer.

"I've been requested by the schoolmaster," said the Rev. Mr. Staples,
putting his handkerchief back into his broad felt hat with a gasping
smile, "to bring our young friend before you for a matter of counsel and
discipline. I have done so, Sister Medliker, with some difficulty,"--he
looked down at John Bunyan, who again felt his arm and was satisfied
that it WAS longer--"but we must do our dooty, even with difficulty
to ourselves, and, perhaps, to others. Our young friend, John Bunyan,
stands on a giddy height--on slippery places, and," continued Mr.
Staples, with a lofty disregard to consecutive metaphor, "his feet
are taking fast hold of destruction." Here the child drew a breath of
relief, possibly at the prospect of being on firm ground of any kind
at last; but Sister Medliker, to whom the S