ROCKWELL D. HUNT, in Camping Out in California, Overland Monthly, September, 1907.

JUNE 26.

The average stage-driver merits one’s liveliest gratitude.  He is the essence of good nature and thoughtfulness.  His stories, tinctured by his own quaint personality, ward off the drowsy wings of sleep and materially shorten the long hours of the night. * * * To the households scattered along his route he is the never-failing bearer of letters, and newspapers, and all sorts of commodities, from a sack of flour to a spool of cotton.  His interest in their individual needs is universal, and the memory he displays is simply phenomenal.  He has traveled up and down among them for many years, and calls each one by his or her given name, and in return is treated by them as one of the family.  He is sympathetic and friendly without impertinence, and in spite of your aching head and disjointed bones, you feel an undercurrent of regret that civilization will soon do away with these fresh and original characters.

NINETTA EAMES,
in Overland Monthly, January, 1888.

JUNE 27.

When the June sunshine gladdened the Sacramento Valley, three little bare-footed girls walked here and there among the homes and tents of Sutter’s Fort.  They were scantily clothed, and one carried a thin blanket.  At night they said their prayers, lay down in whatever tent they happened to be, and, folding the blanket about them, fell asleep in each other’s arms.  When they were hungry they asked food of whomsoever they met.  If anyone inquired who they were, they answered as their mother had taught them:  “We are the children of Mr. and Mrs. George Donner.”  But they added something which they had learned since.  It was:  “And our parents are dead.”

C.F.  McGLASHAN,
in History of the Donner Party.

JUNE 28.

This cart was gaily decorated with a canopy which was in fact an exquisitely embroidered silken bedspread.  The background was of grass-green silk, embroidered over the entire field with brightest red and yellow, pink and white roses, with intertwining leaves and stems, making the old carreta appear to be a real rose-bower blooming along the King’s Highway.  From the edges hung a rich, deep, silken knotted fringe.  Beneath the heavy fringe again hung lace curtains.

MRS. A.S.C.  FORBES,
in Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons.

A half-naked beggar will find a dirty ribbon out of an ash-barrel to ornament himself, if he happens to be a she. * * * We women are such striking guys without our first little aids to the ugly.

MIRIAM MICHELSON,
in Anthony Overman.

JUNE 29.