“I’ll tell you what, Sam,” he would say, knocking the ashes from his cigar on the top rail of the fence—“there’s no other life like it. I’ve seen a good deal of the world, and spent a good deal of money. There was my father slaved himself to death, to leave his children rich. What comfort did he take with all his money, pinned down to a desk all day? Well, I spent as fast as he made, when I came along. I went to Europe before I was twenty-one, and I bought every thing I took a fancy to, and saw every thing that was to be seen. When all that was gone, I came with the rest of the world to California for more, and got to the mines just in the thick of the gold crop. Handling the gold is all well enough, but what’s the use of it up there? It don’t bring a home, nor a house to put your head in,—you spend about as much as you can make, and have nothing to show for it.”
Sam always agreed with him, and thought if he was only earning a little more, for his mother and sisters, or could be near them, he would not change his life on the ranch for any thing he could think of. He worked as many hours as when he was at the mines, but he lived for something else besides eating and sleeping. His boyhood came back, surrounded by this beautiful country, and enjoying its freedom. He had explored it for miles in every direction, mounted on one of Hadley’s excellent horses, which he was as free to use as if they had been his own. Jerry and Buck, the oxen, had a fancy for being neighborly, when their day’s work was ended, and straying off to try the oats on the adjoining farms, or see how the barley crops came on. Hunting after them was one of Sam’s favorite sports; though they often led him a weary chase, and were captured one at a time.
Then there was Sunday, that blessed day of rest both to man and beast, when the house had a more orderly air than usual, and Sam always “went to meeting”—as he called putting on clean clothes and reading his mother’s Bible.
The ranch abounded in books and newspapers, in which its owner never stinted himself, being supplied regularly by arrivals from the States; and through these, Sam was getting a good, practical education, mind and body both developing, through natural, healthy exercise.
CHAPTER XV.
THANKSGIVING DAY.
“Good-by, mother—it’s too bad you ain’t going. I hate to leave you all alone.”
“Hadn’t you better come, Miss Gilman? the sleigh can hold just as many as we can pile in, and my wife don’t stint her oven Thanksgiving Day,” urged the Deacon, standing up in the huge box-sleigh, and tucking the buffalo robe around Mrs. Chase, who was on the front seat with him.
“Now, I know you haven’t got nothing to keep you,” said the good woman, seconding her husband’s invitation.
“Do, mother!”—called out Abby again, from between Ben and Julia Chase, and Hannah’s eyes looked “do mother,” though Ben had almost smothered her in the blue and white coverlet, which came to their share.