We walked down the corridor and entered a large room, where an elderly gentleman in uniform sat writing at a table.  Aunt Lucy stopped beside him, and still holding each by the hand, bowed low, saying, “General Smith, I’s brung der two little Donner gals in to see yo, sah”; then she slipped out.

He was as courteous to us as though we were grown ladies, shook hands, asked how we felt, begged us to be seated, and then stepped to a door and called, “Susan!  Susan!” I liked the name.  A sweet voice answered, “Coming!”

Presently, a pretty dark-eyed Southern lady appeared, who called us “honeys,” and “dear little girls.”  She sat between us, joining with her husband in earnest inquiries about our stay in the mountains and our home with grandma.  Georgia did most of the talking.  I was satisfied just to look at them and hear them speak.  At the close of our visit, with a knowing look, she took us to see what Aunt Lucy had baked.

The General and she had recently come to pay a last visit to a sick officer, who had been sent from San Francisco with the hope that our milder climate would prolong his life.  They themselves stayed only a short time, and their friend never left our valley.  The day he died, the flag swung lower on the staff.  Soldiers dug his grave on the hillside north of town, and word came from army headquarters that he would be buried on the morrow at midday, with military honors.  Georgia and I wanted to know what military honors were, and as it came time for the funeral, we gathered with others on the plaza, where the procession formed.  We were deeply impressed.

The emigrants uncovered and bowed their heads reverently, but the soldiers in line, with guns reversed, stood erect and motionless as figures in stone, while the bier of the dead was being carried through open ranks to the waiting caisson.  The coffin was covered with a flag, and upon it lay his chapeau, gauntlets, sash, and sword.  His boots, with their toes reversed, hung over the saddle of a riderless horse, led behind the caisson.  The solemn tones of fife and muffled drum led the way through the town, past the old Mission bells and up the hillside.  Only soldiers stood close around the grave and heard what was read by the officer who stood at its head, with an open book in one hand and a drawn sword in the other.  Three times the file of soldiers fired a volley over the grave, then the muffled drum sounded its farewell taps, and the officers, with their men and the funeral caisson, returned to their quarters in silent order.

CHAPTER XXIII

REAPING AND THRESHING—­A PIONEER FUNERAL—­THE HOMELESS AND WAYFARING APPEAL TO MRS. BRUNNER—­RETURN OF THE MINERS—­SOCIAL GATHERINGS—­OUR DAILY ROUTINE—­STOLEN PLEASURES—­A LITTLE DAIRYMAID—­MY DOGSKIN SHOES.

Reaping and threshing were interesting events to us that summer.  Mission Indians, scantily clothed, came and cut the grain with long knives and sickles, bound it in small sheaves, and stacked it in the back yard opposite grandma’s lookout window, then encircled it with a rustic fence, leaving a wide bare space between the stack and the fence, which they swept clean with green branches from live oak trees.