ind a thousandth part of the gratitude which was
and is, and ought to be forever, in my own poor mind toward those who
were so good to me. From time to time it is said (whenever any man with
power of speech or fancy gets some little grievances) that all mankind
are simply selfish, miserly, and miserable. To contradict that saying
needs experience even larger, perhaps, than that which has suggested it;
and this I can not have, and therefore only know that I have not found
men or women behave at all according to that view of them.

Whether Sampson Gundry owed any debt, either of gratitude or of loyalty,
to my father, I did not ask; and he seemed to be (like every one else)
reserved and silent as to my father's history. But he always treated me
as if I belonged to a rank of life quite different from and much above
his own. For instance, it was long before he would allow me to have my
meals at the table of the household.

But as soon as I began in earnest to recover from starvation, loss, and
loneliness, my heart was drawn to this grand old man, who had seen so
many troubles. He had been here and there in the world so much, and
dealt with so many people, that the natural frankness of his mind was
sharpened into caution. But any weak and helpless person still could get
the best of him; and his shrewdness certainly did not spring from any
form of bitterness. He was rough in his ways sometimes, and could
not bear to be contradicted when he was sure that he was right, which
generally happened to him. But above all things he had one very
great peculiarity, to my mind highly vexatious, because it seemed
so unaccountable. Sampson Gundry had a very low opinion of feminine
intellect. He never showed this contempt in any unpleasant way, and
indeed he never, perhaps, displayed it in any positive sayings. But as
I grew older and began to argue, sure I was that it was there; and it
always provoked me tenfold as much by seeming to need no assertion, but
to stand as some great axiom.

The other members of the household were his grandson Ephraim (or "Firm"
Gundry), the Indian woman Suan Isco, and a couple of helps, of race or
nation almost unknown to themselves. Suan Isco belonged to a tribe of
respectable Black Rock Indians, and had been the wife of a chief among
them, and the mother of several children. But Klamath Indians, enemies
of theirs (who carried off the lady of the cattle ranch, and afterward
shot Elijah), had Suan Isco in the