To the party he was known as an orphan put on the train at “St. Jo” by some relative of his stepmother, to be delivered to another relative at Sacramento.  As his stepmother had not even taken leave of him, but had entrusted his departure to the relative with whom he had been lately living, it was considered as an act of “riddance,” and accepted as such by her party, and even vaguely acquiesced in by the boy himself.  What consideration had been offered for his passage he did not know; he only remembered that he had been told “to make himself handy.”  This he had done cheerfully, if at times with the unskillfulness of a novice; but it was not a peculiar or a menial task in a company where all took part in manual labor, and where existence seemed to him to bear the charm of a prolonged picnic.  Neither was he subjected to any difference of affection or treatment from Mrs. Silsbee, the mother of his little companion, and the wife of the leader of the train.  Prematurely old, of ill-health, and harassed with cares, she had no time to waste in discriminating maternal tenderness for her daughter, but treated the children with equal and unbiased querulousness.

The rear wagon creaked, swayed, and rolled on slowly and heavily.  The hoofs of the draft-oxen, occasionally striking in the dust with a dull report, sent little puffs like smoke on either side of the track.  Within, the children were playing “keeping store.”  The little girl, as an opulent and extravagant customer, was purchasing of the boy, who sat behind a counter improvised from a nail-keg and the front seat, most of the available contents of the wagon, either under their own names or an imaginary one as the moment suggested, and paying for them in the easy and liberal currency of dried beans and bits of paper.  Change was given by the expeditious method of tearing the paper into smaller fragments.  The diminution of stock was remedied by buying the same article over again under a different name.  Nevertheless, in spite of these favorable commercial conditions, the market seemed dull.

“I can show you a fine quality of sheeting at four cents a yard, double width,” said the boy, rising and leaning on his fingers on the counter as he had seen the shopmen do.  “All wool and will wash,” he added, with easy gravity.

“I can buy it cheaper at Jackson’s,” said the girl, with the intuitive duplicity of her bargaining sex.

“Very well,” said the boy.  “I won’t play any more.”

“Who cares?” said the girl indifferently.  The boy here promptly upset the counter; the rolled-up blanket which had deceitfully represented the desirable sheeting falling on the wagon floor.  It apparently suggested a new idea to the former salesman.  “I say! let’s play ‘damaged stock.’  See, I’ll tumble all the things down here right on top o’ the others, and sell ’em for less than cost.”