oon brother went down
and when he saw the captain he went to him and told him that the flag
he had ordered was finished, and it was a beauty, too. "All right,"
said the captain, "let me see the flag and I'll be on hand with the
gold in an hour." The flag was opened in the cabin of the craft and
when the captain saw the beautifully finished flag he had no words to
express himself. He just gazed upon it like a child with a new toy. At
last he turned to his sideboard and took from it two decanter stands
with bands of silver two inches high and heavily wrought edge on the
bottoms of the finest polished wood and in the center a silver deer's
head, with the name of the vessel in silver. He soon wrapped these
beautiful stands up and handed them to my brother, besides the
fifty-dollar slug. He sent them as a compliment to the young lady of
fifteen years who could make a flag of this sort with such exquisite
neatness. When brother returned it was our turn to be astonished to
see these beautiful decanter stands, fit to grace the sideboard of any
mansion in the land, and they were mine, and also the slug which
brother tossed into my lap. When I saw it I could not believe my eyes.
It looked as big as a cart wheel to me, for I never possessed so much
money in all my life before. You can readily believe it was a ten
days' wonder.

[Illustration: Bear flag made by Maggie R. Kroh (Mrs. Blake-Alverson),
1852, for a Sacramento river schooner, the first flag used at that
time. Compensation was a fifty-dollar gold slug.]

We had moved into our new home on San Joaquin street and the cost had
been great. To have a house in those days was a luxury and it was
always the rule of our family not to owe anything that could be paid.
We all worked toward that end, so when everything was paid there was
not so much income as of old. Following the hardships of crossing the
plains, father was never himself again, and we felt that he had earned
his rest after all these years of church work and mission-building
from one state to another. He had got so far away from the Eastern
Board of Missions and had always been such a tower of strength in all
his work that they neglected him and he felt it, in spite of all his
tenderness of heart towards the church and humanity. He gradually
failed and gave up all work and contented himself in his garden, shop
and library.

My sister Mary was always my guide in everything. For a few days I
kept my precious slug and