“Do you like churches, Ephraim?”
“Yes. I do now, child. I didn’t care so much about ’em when I lived nigh ’em. But they’re right. There’s a good many kinds of ’em and they get me a little mixed, arguing. But they’re right; and the bell––It’ll be a good beginning of this present job to go to meeting the first thing.”
“Oh! this wonderful world and the wonderful things I’m learning! What a lot I shall have to tell the folks when I get home. Seems as if I couldn’t wait.”
They found the little lodging-house, as Ephraim had hoped, though now kept by a stranger to him. However, the new landlord made them comfortable, charged them an exorbitant price–having caught sight of his guest’s fat purse–and set them early on their way. “Forty-niner” did not complain. Their next and final stop would be with an old fellow-miner who, at Ephraim’s last visit to Los Angeles, five years before, had kept a tidy little inn on one of the city’s central streets. If this old friend were still living he would give them hearty welcome, the best entertainment possible, and what was more to the purpose–practical advice as to their business.
“The bells! The bells! Oh! they are what you said, the sweetest things I ever heard!” cried Lady Jess, in delight, as over the miles of distance there floated to them on the clear air, the chimes and sonorous tollings from many church towers.
“We shall be late, after all, I guess. That means it’s time for the meetings to begin. Well, there’ll be others in the afternoon; so we may as good take it easy and go slow.”
This suited Jessica, who found more and more to surprise and interest her in every stage of their advance, and most of all as they entered the city. This was much altered and improved since the sharpshooter had himself last seen it, but even thus he could point out many of the finest buildings, name the chief avenues, and comport himself after the manner of one who knows enlightening one who does not.
But soon Jessica saw few of the things which interested him and heard him not at all. It was the first time she had ever seen a girl of her own age, and now–the streets were full of them. In their gay Sunday attire, on their homeward way now from the churches whose bells had long ceased to ring, they were here, there, and everywhere. They lined the sidewalks and glittered from the open electric cars. They smiled at one another and, a few, at her; for to them, also, this other stranger girl was a novel sight, just then and there. Besides the oddity of her dress and equipment, the eagerness and beauty of her face attracted them, and more than one pair of eyes turned to look after her, as Scruff scrambled along, unguided by his rider, and dodging one danger only to face another.
“That’s a country girl, fast enough; and if she doesn’t look out that uneasy burro will land her on the curbstone! Look out there, child!” cried one passerby, just as the animal bounded across the track of a whizzing trolley.
But this peril escaped, Ephraim grasped Scruff’s bridle and presently led the way into a quieter street or alley, and thence to the wide plaza before the inn he sought.