The Adventures of Two Alabama Boys

by H. J. Crumpton; Washington Bryan Crumpton

[Chapter Two]

Looking for a job; A hostler; In San Francisco; Packing gold through the streets; Moves to Oakland; Impulse to shout "Hurrah for Jeff Davis."

IN THE diggings, among the miners, I spent three months, "keeping bach," with a genteel old Scotchman, in my brother's cabin on the mountain side. From the little stoop in front of my cabin, I could see villages of Digger Indians, Chinese and Greasers, and people from every nation of the earth.

Later I was introduced to a Bostonian who was sheriff of Placer county. He had been told I was

LOOKING FOR A JOB.

He turned his cold, grey eyes on me and said: "I knew old Crump—he was never afraid of work; but Southern boys generally feel themselves above it. I wonder if you are that way. I want somebody to be here about the court house and jail all the time to keep things cleaned up and to feed and curry my four horses. Can you curry horses? Are you ashamed of it? Suppose sometime when you were with your overalls on, currying horses, a pretty girl comes along the street, guess you'd run up in the loft and hide, eh? Now, for that sort of work for a boy about your age, I have fifty dollars a month and grub. What do you say?" My! how he did fire the questions at me and how his grey eyes did snap and pierce me through! Fifty dollars a month was a big thing in my eyes. I was a little on my mettle to show the Boston Yankee what a Southern boy could do if he tried. So I became

A HOSTLER

for nine months. I was used to all kinds of work on the farm, but never had any occasion to become an expert—with the curry comb. I was privileged to belt a pistol about me and guard a prisoner while he did the work, if I liked; but generally I preferred doing the work myself.

For the benefit of my own boys and others who may chance to read these lines, I want to record it: the three months roughing it in the miner's cabin, and the nine months currying Sheriff Bullock's horses, made a year of most valuable training for me. I learned more that twelve months than in any of my life, except the years later in the Civil War.