One day she became quite angry on finding me talking with a stranger.  He was well dressed and spoke like a gentleman, touched his hat as she drew near and remarked, “This little girl tells me she is an orphan, and that you have been very kind to her.”  Grandma was uncivil in her reply, and he went away.  Then she warned me, “Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing,” and insisted that no man wearing such fine clothes and having such soft hands could earn an honest living.  I did not repeat what he had told me of his little daughter, who lived in a beautiful home in New York, and was about my age, and had no sister; and his wish that I were there with her.  I could not understand what harm there was in his questions or my answers.  Did I not remind him of his own little girl?  And had I not heard lonely miners tell of times when they gladly would have walked ten miles to shake hands and talk a few moments with a child?

CHAPTER XXVII

CAPT.  FRISBIE—­WEDDING FESTIVITIES—­THE MASTERPIECE OF GRANDMA’S YOUTH—­SENORA VALLEJO—­JAKIE’S RETURN—­HIS DEATH—­A CHEROKEE INDIAN WHO HAD STOOD BY MY FATHER’S GRAVE.

Captain Frisbie spent much time in Sonoma after Company H was disbanded, and observing ones remarked that the attraction was Miss Fannie Vallejo.  Yet, not until 1851 did the General consent to part with his first-born daughter.  Weeks before the marriage day, friends began arriving at the bride’s home, and large orders came to grandma for dairy supplies.

She anticipated the coming event with interest and pleasure, because the prolonged and brilliant festivities would afford her an opportunity to display her fancy and talent in butter modelling.  For the work, she did not charge, but simply weighed the butter for the designs and put it into crocks standing in cold water in the adobe store-house where, in the evenings, after candle-light, we three gathered.

Her implements were a circular hardwood board, a paddle, a set of small, well pointed sticks, a thin-bladed knife, and squares of white muslin of various degrees of fineness.  She talked and modelled, and we listening watched the fascinating process; saw her take the plastic substance, fashion a duck with ducklings on a pond, a lamb curled up asleep, and a couched lion with shaggy head resting upon his fore-paws.  We watched her press beads of proper size and color into the eye sockets; skilfully finish the base upon which each figure lay; then twist a lump of butter into a square of fine muslin, and deftly squeeze, until it crinkled through the meshes in form of fleece for the lamb’s coat, then use a different mesh to produce the strands for the lion’s mane and the tuft for the end of his tail.

In exuberant delight we exclaimed, “Oh, grandma, how did you learn to make such wonderful things?”

“I did not learn, it is a gift,” she replied.

Then she spoke of her modelling in childhood, and her subsequent masterpiece, which had won the commendation of Napoleon and Empress Josephine.