My husband had just completed our new home, a comfortable resting place, with lovely garden and pleasant surroundings, and thither I had hoped ere long to go and rest from my labors. Daily, as the diagrams of the fire reached us, we traced upon them the loved site of our home, as in the burnt district.
All telegraphic and mail communication being cut off, we could receive no direct news, and in the intensity and terror of suspense pictured our home desolated, and friends perished in the horrible holocaust.
Feeling that a resumption of our life of labor was inevitable, we parted with the dear Sacramento friends, who had so kindly clung to us for fourteen months, with many a sigh and tear, and went to all the towns of importance between that place and Reno, Nevada, at which point we took the stage for Virginia City, and reached it after two weeks of inexpressible agony, during which time food had scarce passed our lips or sleep visited our eyes. On our arrival we were overjoyed to find awaiting us seven letters from home. Oh the eternity that elapsed before the seals could be tremulously broken! and the halcyon sweetness of relief of the happy tidings of friends in safety and health. Although the fire-fiend had swept his destructive wings over the property within a hundred yards of our home, through a sudden shifting of the wind its course had been changed, thus saving us from what would have seemed to me ruin. Gratefully we resumed our business and remained for seven weeks in Virginia City and vicinity, where we had most abundant success, for in spite of rock and ledge, sand and tornado, the country abounds in full purses and warm hearts.
At Carson City we found an United States Mint, where a gentleman designated Saturday afternoon, when the machinery was stopped, as a proper time to give us the benefit of a full examination, allowing me to touch everything, and giving a satisfactory explanation of the "modus operandi" of money making.
We went to Battle Mountain, where we took the stage for Austin, ninety miles distant. We had nine passengers and twelve hundred weight of bullion in the bottom of the stage, together with innumerable satchels, umbrellas and brown-paper parcels. In this cramped position we traveled from one o'clock in the afternoon until nine o'clock the next morning, an infliction that was only rendered endurable by having a relay of horses every fifteen miles, and being permitted to rest upon terra firma during the changes.
At Austin we unexpectedly met in the family of the hotel proprietor friends of Hattie, from Illinois. The kind host proved to me a "Good Samaritan," for finding myself unable to walk he carried me in his arms to the hotel, and safely entrusted me to the ministering care of his kind family.
Desiring to cross over the country to Eureka, and the stage not venturing to the eminence upon which stood our hotel, we were obliged to go to the express office to take passage, where we were shocked at the sight of three maudlin men in an advanced stage of inebriety, throwing showers of silver money upon the ground, and ostentatiously allowing the crowd to gather it up; while we were still more shocked to find that they were to be inside passengers, and our only companions.
With these three men and their "fade mecum," "the whiskey bottle," we started on our journey that bleak, winter morning. Two of them soon became so beastly drunk that their bottle fell out of the stage door and was lost beyond recovery. Their companion remained for a time sufficiently sober to prevent them from falling upon us in their constant oscillations, but, by the time they had reached the convalescent stage, he became so nauseated that it was necessary to hold his head out of the window for relief, and, finally yielding to the soporific influence of his drams, he laid himself at full length upon our feet.
Meantime a most gentlemanly person, of whose presence we were at first ignorant, would occasionally descend from the stage top, look at us compassionately, ask if anything was wanted, and take leave. At one of his calls I asked him if we were not near our dining place, when, much to our discomfort, he informed us of the impossibility of finding anything to eat on the road. We had provided no lunch, and, having partaken of a meagre and untimely breakfast, were fast becoming exhausted. He politely offered to share with us his store of provisions, and at the next stopping place escorted us to the rude log cabin with the air of a Knight Errant, took off our rubbers, placed them before the fire, and after other indescribable and delicate attentions opened his basket and spread before us a lunch of truly, royal viands, which, in spite of our rude surroundings, was eaten with unrivalled relish.
Arriving at Eureka, we stopped at the Parker House, in which Mr. Hinckley, the proprietor, made every exertion to secure our comfort. It had rained for a week, and the streets were in such a horrible condition that we were filled with forebodings of failure. Quite unexpectedly we again encountered our cavalier, who insisted upon lifting us over the deep mud of the crossings, placing us entirely at ease by the assurance that it was the custom of the country, after which he offered his assistance in the sale of books, and, going into a faro bank, he sold twelve copies at a dollar and a half apiece.