They were unlike either our pioneer or our soldier friends in style of dress and manner.  Nor had they come to build homes or develop the country.  They wanted gold to carry back to other lands.  Some had expected to find it near the Bay of San Francisco; some, to scoop it up out of the river beds that crossed the valleys; and others, to shovel it from ravines and mountain-sides.  When told of the difficulties before them, their impatience grew to be off, that they might prove to Western plodders what could be done by Eastern pluck and muscle.

Such packing as those men did!  Mother’s Bible, and wife and baby’s daguerreotype not infrequently started to the mines in the coffee pot, or in the miner’s boots, hanging across the mule’s pack.  The sweetheart’s lock of hair, affectionately concealed beneath the hat lining of its faithful wearer, caught the scent of the old clay pipe stuck in the hat-band.

With the opening season all available Indians of both sexes were hired as gold-diggers, and trudged along behind their employers, and our town was again reduced to a settlement of white women and children.  But what a difference in the feeling of our people!  We now heard regularly from the Bay City, and entertained transients from nearly every part of the globe; and these would loan us books and newspapers, and frequently store unnecessary possessions with us until they should return from the mines.

San Francisco had a regular post office.  One day its postmaster forwarded a letter, addressed to ex-Governor Boggs, which the latter brought out and read to grandma.  She did not, as usual, put her head out of the window and call us, but came from the house wiping her eyes, and asked if we wanted to be put in a big ship and sent away from her and grandma and Jakie.

Greatly alarmed, we exclaimed, “No, no, grandma, no!”

Taking us by the hand, she led us into the house, seated herself and drew one of us to each side, then requested the Governor to read the letter again.  We two did not understand all it said, but enough to know that it had been written by our own dear aunt, Elizabeth Poor, who wanted Governor Boggs to find her sister’s three little orphaned girls and send them back to her by ship to Massachusetts.  It contained the necessary directions for carrying out her wish.

[Illustration:  POST OFFICE, CORNER OF CLAY AND PIKE STREETS, SAN FRANCISCO, 1849]

[Illustration:  OLD CITY HOTEL, 1846, CORNER OF KEARNEY AND CLAY STREETS, THE FIRST HOTEL IN SAN FRANCISCO]

Grandma assured the Governor that we did not want to leave her, nor would she give us up.  She said she and her husband and Jakie had befriended us when we were poor and useless, and that we were now beginning to be helpful.  Moreover, that they had prospered greatly since we had come into their home, and that their luck might change if they should part from us.  She further stated that she already had riches in her own right, which we should inherit at her death.