We had moved into our new home on San Joaquin street and the cost had been great. To have a house in those days was a luxury and it was always the rule of our family not to owe anything that could be paid. We all worked toward that end, so when everything was paid there was not so much income as of old. Following the hardships of crossing the plains, father was never himself again, and we felt that he had earned his rest after all these years of church work and mission-building from one state to another. He had got so far away from the Eastern Board of Missions and had always been such a tower of strength in all his work that they neglected him and he felt it, in spite of all his tenderness of heart towards the church and humanity. He gradually failed and gave up all work and contented himself in his garden, shop and library.
My sister Mary was always my guide in everything. For a few days I kept my precious slug and looked at it and thought how much money it was. One evening I heard father and mother talking together after they had retired. The door of our sleeping apartments were always open into the hall, in case of sickness or accident, and for some reason I could not go to sleep. As I lay there I heard father and mother planning some problem. I could not hear all, but I understood there was some money needed. In the morning, after all the work was done and I was sitting by my sister's side sewing with her, I told her what I had heard before I went to sleep. "Yes," she said, "Father has still something to pay and he feels he cannot take any more from the family allowance, for there are so many of us." "Oh," I replied, "He can have my slug. I wonder why he did not tell me he needed it." I soon had the precious money in my hand and sister and I found a box to put it into. The following little letter had to go with it: "My dear father and mother: I am so glad I was able, with my sister Mary's help, to make the pretty flag and so get this fine piece of gold to help pay on the dear home which Mary, Jane, Sallie and I helped to buy for you with the day's work with our boarders. It was a happy and cheerful task to help you in building the first dwelling house in our dear Stockton. Now it will all be yours as long as you live. I willingly give you my flag money, so you will not have to fret any more over the debt of the house. Always, your laughing, happy girl, Rosana Margaret."
The box and letter were put at father's place on the dinner table and after he was seated he noticed it. Putting on his glasses he said, "Children, what have we here. It is not my birthday." Not a word was said while he read the letter, then he opened the box and saw the bright golden slug. He laid down his glasses and looked over at me and said, "So Rosana Margaret, it was by your cheerful handiwork that the last burden has been lifted." I quietly lifted up my face and said, "Father, Tilly helped me and we are glad you won't have to trouble any more." He then lifted up his hands and said, "Let us ask God's blessing." If prayer is the soul's sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed, then I think the offering on Abel's altar was not more acceptable before the Lord than was the prayer of my most reverent father as he prayed for a blessing on his family, far from the scenes of his early life and all that went to make him happy when he and mother went hand in hand out into God's vineyard to do God's work, he as an ordained man of God and she an ideal minister's wife who never faltered in her duty through the roughest pioneer days in the swamps of Illinois to the last journey to California to build up the Church of God even here in the farthest west by the Golden Gate. All that was mortal of these two faithful pilgrims rests in the new cemetery in Stockton, always united in life and in death were not divided:
| "What's this that steals, that steals upon my breath, Is it death? is it death? If this be death, I soon shall be From every sin and sorrow free. I shall the King of Glory see, All is well, all is well." |
(Father and mother's last hymn.)