(One of our four
chairs was called a stool--it had a bottom and three legs, one of which
was a little shaky, and no back.) There was a constraint upon us both
all day. I knew what was the matter, but said nothing. About four
o'clock in the afternoon Dick's mistress sat down by me, and, after a
pause, remarked:

"Do you know that tomorrow is Christmas-day?"

"Yes, I know it."

Another pause. I had nothing to say just then. "Well, if--if--if any
thing is to be done about that turkey, it is time it were done."

"Do you mean Dick?"

"Yes," with a little quiver in her voice.

"I understand you--you mean to kill him--poor Dick! the only pet we
ever had."

She broke right down at this, and began to cry.

"What is the matter here?" said our kind, energetic neighbor, Mrs. T--,
who came in to pay us one of her informal visits. She was from
Philadelphia, and, though a gifted woman, with a wide range of reading
and observation of human life, was not a sentimentalist. She laughed at
the weeping mistress of the parsonage, and, going to the back-door, she
called out:

"Dick!" "Dick!"

Dick, who was taking the air high up on the hillside, came at the call,
making long strides, and sounding his "Oot," "oot," "oot," which was the
formula by which he expressed all his emotions, varying only the tone.

Dick, as he stood with outstretched neck and a look of expectation in
his honest eyes, was scooped up by our neighbor, and carried off down
the hill in the most summary manner.

In about an hour Dick was brought back. He was dressed. He was also
stuffed.

The Diggers.

The Digger Indian holds a low place in the scale of humanity. He is not
intelligent; he is not handsome; he is not very brave. He stands near
the foot of his class, and I fear he is not likely to go up any higher.
It is more likely that the places that know him now will soon know him
no more, for the reason that he seems readier to adopt the bad white
man's whisky and diseases than the good white man's morals and religion.
Ethnologically he has given rise to much conflicting speculation, with
which I will not trouble the gentle reader. He has been in California a
long time, and he does not know that he was ever anywhere else. His
pedigree does not trouble him; he is more concerned about getting
something to eat. It is not because he is an agriculturist that he is
called a Digger, but because he grabbles for wild roots, and has a
general fondness for dir