A TRIP TO THE YOSEMITE.
BY MISS FRANCES E. WILLARD,
President of W. C. T. U.
The famous San Joaquin Valley is as large as the State of Ohio. It opens into the Sacramento Valley, and the two are about six hundred miles long. A plow could go the length of both and never touch a stone. In the San Joaquin they have a ranche where the gang plow starts in the morning, goes on a straight line all day, turns back and plows its twin furrow the next, having thus retraversed the length of one California farm.
It was through seven hours by rail of this valley that we went, in a southeasterly direction, from San Francisco to Madera, where two coaches were waiting to carry us over the one hundred miles in a northeasterly direction that still separated us from the wonderland ruled by “El Capitan.” There were twenty-three of us, and “none smoked or chewed, or drank or swore,” as I was credibly informed by our “El Capitan,” the Rev. Dr. Briggs. By the way, if Chautauqua wants a first class attraction let this name go on the list. We traveled rapidly. I counted thirty different horses on our coach in one day. We killed rattlesnakes, that is, the Dr. did, marching squarely forward and whacking them unmercifully with his stout cane, while we women, securely perched on our high seats in the coach, really enjoyed the sight. We saw horse-shoes enough for wholesale good luck, scattered along the road. We believe, and always shall, that we perceived a bear track, and wondered if it was made by famous “Club Foot Joe”—whose annals are they not in all the Tourist’s Chronicles? We told stories all strictly true. There was no Baron Münchausen amongst us, though had prosaic Easterners been within earshot of our driver they might perhaps have promulgated a different declaration. We did not fear robbers, for “a count” developed the fact that in our coach—chiefly inhabited by ministers, their wives, and sundry visiting philanthropists—gold watches were the only “plunder,” and these were all inscribed “Presented by” to that degree that no well regulated “road agent” would have wished such a “free advertisement” of his base conduct, as these trophies must have furnished. We sang old songs of the fireside and sanctuary, talked of the Chautauquas east and west, “marked” our favorite trees in “the ample forest of Bishop timber” (to be revealed after next General Conference), and regulated the affairs of the nation generally. We fitted ourselves out with a “local government” administered on the everlasting principles of justice and equality, i. e., we counted the women in, not out. I copy our rules from the log book of the expedition:
1. Unquestioned submission to constituted authority.
2. Silence when entering the valley.
3. Wives, be obedient to your husbands.—The Chaplain.
4. Wives, don’t you do it.—The Chaplain’s wife.
5. Whenever a dispute arises, the vote of every woman shall count two.—A widower.
6. Eat dinner often.—Little Walter Bland.
7. No one shall be required to speak grammatically on this trip.—F. E. W.
All of which were unanimously adopted except the one about “counting two,” which evoked a loud dissent.
The first day we rode seventy-two miles, stopping at Clark’s hospitable caravansary, and kindly permitting sweet sleep to knit up the raveled sleeve of care. Decoration Day (May 30th) came next, and with patriotic intent we had made out a program, intending to “celebrate” in the chapel built for Dr. Vincent when he conducted a miniature “Chautauqua Assembly” in the Yosemite a few years since. But when, after a mountain ride of half a day, surrounded by inclined planes of evergreens, each of which would have been a world’s wonder, at the East, with superb curves in the road evermore opening fresh vistas of illimitable height, verdure and beauty, we rounded