“Maybe they were sober because they weren’t drunk,” suggested Paul. “Hark! Hop Kee is blowing the conch-shell. Dinner is ready.”
The dinner was a charming woodland meal, served in the open air, on a long table decked with ferns and fragrant bay-leaves. Captain Bradstreet sat on a bench on one side of the table between Molly and Pauline, and Weezy sat on the other side between Paul and Kirke. Mr. Rowe and Mrs. Davidson occupied chairs at opposite ends of the table.
“Brother insists on giving me a seat with a back, Mr. Rowe,” remarked Mrs. Davidson with a smile as sunny as the California weather. “He pets me, but I have known how to ‘rough it’ as well as anybody.”
“I suppose it was a wild country when you settled on this coast, Mrs. Davidson.”
“Indeed it was, Mr. Rowe,”—Mrs. Davidson laughed softly,—“you can’t conceive what a contrast it seemed to Philadelphia, our native city.”
“Father moved out here not long after gold was first discovered in the State,” said Captain Bradstreet, as Hop Kee carried around the plates of soup. “My sister was a little girl in pinafores, and I was only two years older.”
“Our father was a doctor,” continued Mrs. Davidson, passing the crackers; “his health had failed, and he came out here to Tuolumne county, and built an adobe house for us to live in. Do you recollect those heavy shutters, Alec, that papa used to bar every night?”
“Perfectly well, Almeda.”
“O Auntie David! please tell them how you and papa used to mine the gold,” cried Pauline.
“I am sure we should all like to hear the story, Mrs. Davidson,” said Mr. Rowe.