“One sight I saw there,” remarked Jeff, “which astonished me very much, was the children of the pioneers. They held a fandango there in the hall upon the evening of admission day, and from curiosity I just dropped in for a few minutes to see the little folks enjoy themselves. Children! well, boys, you would be astonished to see them, for instead of a lot of little children, as I expected to see, why the most of them were men and women and married, too, many of them; just think of it, for it is only a short time ago, apparently, that we all landed here as mere boys. It shows how old Father Time is hustling us along, whilst we are tramping about among the hills, thinking all the time that we are just keeping a little ahead of him. But, boys, we ain’t though.
“As soon as I laid my eyes on that crowd of young, second-crop Forty-niners, says I, ‘Jeff, old Time is close after you,’ and I have felt ever since just like one of them ancient fossils that they have in the museums.”
One of the boys enquired if he saw many of the boys down there whom we used to know around in the mines.
“Well,” he answered, “I reckon I did. Why, San Francisco is chock full of ’em.”
“What are they doing?” “Well, now, I couldn’t answer that question. Some of them are doing one thing and some another, and doing all kinds of things and odd jobs to make a livin’; but I tell you ’tis hard work for some of ’em. You know how we often wondered what had become of lots of them chaps that we mined with up in old Hangtown, Forest Hill, and other diggin’s. Well, there they all are, or the most of them. When the mines give out, or they got tired of prospecting, they just put for the big city to strike a job of some kind, and I tell you, I kinder pitied some of ’em. They have such a woebegone and old-fashioned, one-hundred-years-ago kind of look about ’em, hanging round the wharves, anywhere, looking for a job. I tried to get some of ’em to come along up here with me, and offered to pay their expenses up. Told ’em there was lots of places where they could pan out or cradle a first-rate livin’, and told ’em, too, how they could jest fence in a few acres of ground, set out some fruit trees, make a good garden, and live like lords. But they reckoned ’twas too far off and they couldn’t get back to spend their evenings in town with the boys.”
CHAPTER XXII.
Pioneer Hall—Old Mike Explains—Something Wrong—The Business Of Mining—Mike’s Philosophy—Yank at the Bay—The Expressman and the Broom Peddler—Lucky Bill and the Gamblers—Sam Plunket, the Arkansas Beauty—Pete, the Boss Liar of the Yuba.
MANY questions were asked in relation to the new Pioneer hall. Jeff explained that it was on Fourth street near the corner of Market; that it contained a large hall, used for meetings, lectures, festivals and other purposes, as well as for dancing by the young Pioneers. “I attended one of their dances and I noticed that some of the old boys themselves could just get around as lively as any of ’em.