I had also been too miserable to feel any interest in what occurred at Mrs. Bergwald’s after we stopped to let Georgia get her keepsakes.  But when the day’s travel was over, and we were comfortably housed for the night, Georgia and I left our brother and sister to their happy hour with their child, and sat close together on the outer doorsteps to review the events of the day.  Our world during that solemn hour was circumscribed, reaching back only to the busy scenes of the morning, and forward to the little home that should open to us on the morrow.

When we resumed travel, we did not follow the pioneers’ trail, once marked by hoof of deer, elk, and antelope, nor the winding way of the Spanish cabellero, but took the short route which the eager tradesman and miner had hewn and tramped into shape.

On reaching the ferry across the Sacramento River, I gazed at the surrounding country in silent amazement.  Seven and a half years with their marvellous influx of brawn and brain, and their output of gold, had indeed changed every familiar scene, except the snow-capped Sierras, wrapped in their misty cloak of autumnal blue.  The broad, deep river had given up both its crystal floods and the wild, free song which had accompanied it to the sea, and become a turbid waterway, encumbered with busy craft bringing daily supplies to countless homes, and carrying afar the long hidden wealth of ages.

The tule flat between the water front and Sutter’s Fort had become a bustling city.  The streets running north and south were numbered from first to twenty-eighth, and those east and west lettered from A to Z, and thriving, light-hearted throngs were pursuing their various occupations upon ground which had once seemed like a Noah’s ark to me.  Yes, this was the very spot where with wondering eyes I had watched nature’s untamed herds winding through the reedy paths to the river bank, to quench their morning and evening thirst.

As we crossed from J Street to K, brother remarked, “Our journey will end on this street; which of you girls will pick out the house before we come to it?”

Elitha would not help us, but smiled, when, after several guesses, I said that I wished it to be a white house with brownish steps and a dark door with a white knob.  Hence, great was my satisfaction when near the southeast corner of Eighteenth and K streets, we halted in front of a cottage of that description; and it was regarded as a lucky omen for me, that my first wish amid new scenes should be realized.

The meeting with Sister Frances and the novelty of the new situation kept up a pleasurable excitement until bed-time.  Then in the stillness of the night, in the darkness of the new chamber, came the recollection that at about that hour one week ago, I, sorrowing and alone, had stood by a weird old tree-trunk in Sonoma, and vowed by the rising moon that before it should come up again in its full, Georgia and I would be in Sacramento.  I did not sleep until I had thanked the good Father for sending help to me in my time of need.