was on its way to
the friend I was glad to see again.

Instead of his getting it, however, the master stepped down and picked
it up, with the hand that didn't have the strap in it. So, instead of
being the best, I was the worst child in school, for not one had ever
before received two strappings in a forenoon.

It must have been our bad day, for Georgia felt her very first bite
from the strap that afternoon, and on the way home volunteered not to
tell on me, if grandma did not ask. Yet grandma did, the first thing.
And when Georgia reluctantly said, "Yes," grandma looked at me and
shook her head despairingly; but when I announced that I had already
had two strappings, and Georgia one, she burst out laughing, and said
she thought I had had enough for one day.

A few weeks later, the large boys drove the master out of school on
account of his cruelty to a little fellow who had played truant.

In that dingy schoolroom, Georgia and I later attended the first
Protestant Sunday school and church service held in Sonoma.

CHAPTER XXV

FEVER PATIENTS FROM THE MINES--UNMARKED GRAVES--THE TALES AND TAUNTS
THAT WOUNDED MY YOUNG HEART.

A short experience in the mines cured grandpa's "mining fever," but
increased his rheumatism. The accounts he brought of sufferings he had
witnessed in the camps prepared us for the approaching autumn's work,
when many of the happy fellows who had started to the gold-fields in
vigorous health and with great expectations returned haggard, sick, and
out of luck.

Then was noble work done by the pioneer women. No door was closed
against the needy. However small the house might be, its inmates had
some comfort to offer the stranger. Many came to grandma, saying they
had places to sleep but begging that she would give them food and
medicine until they should be able to proceed to San Francisco.

Weary mortals dragged their aching limbs to the benches under her white
oak tree, dropped upon them, with blankets still across their
shoulders, declaring they could not go another rod. Often, she turned
her face aside and murmured, "God help the poor wanderers"; but to them
she would say encouragingly, "You be not very sick, you will soon be
rested. There be straw in the stack that we will bring for your bed,
and me and the children will let you not go hungry."

Ere long, beds had to be made on the floor of the unfinished house.
More were needed, and they were spread under the great white oak.