Martha of California: A Story of the California Trail Read online

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  Map to illustrate the Story of Martha of California]

  MARTHA OF CALIFORNIA

  A STORY OF THE CALIFORNIA TRAIL

  BY JAMES OTIS

 

  NEW YORK -:- CINCINNATI -:- CHICAGO AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY

  JAMES OTIS'S PIONEER SERIES

  =ANTOINE OF OREGON=: A STORY OF THE OREGON TRAIL.

  =BENJAMIN OF OHIO=: A STORY OF THE SETTLEMENT OF MARIETTA.

  =HANNAH OF KENTUCKY=: A STORY OF THE WILDERNESS ROAD.

  =MARTHA OF CALIFORNIA=: A STORY OF THE CALIFORNIA TRAIL.

  =PHILIP OF TEXAS=: A STORY OF SHEEP RAISING IN TEXAS.

  =SETH OF COLORADO=: A STORY OF THE SETTLEMENT OF DENVER.

  COPYRIGHT, 1913, BYMRS. A. L. KALER.

  COPYRIGHT, 1913, IN GREAT BRITAIN.

  MARTHA OF CALIFORNIA.

  FOREWORD

  The author of this series of stories for children has endeavored simplyto show why and how the descendants of the early colonists foughttheir way through the wilderness in search of new homes. The severalnarratives deal with the struggles of those adventurous people whoforced their way westward, ever westward, whether in hope of gain orin answer to "the call of the wild," and who, in so doing, wrote theirnames with their blood across this country of ours from the Ohio to theColumbia.

  To excite in the hearts of the young people of this land a desire toknow more regarding the building up of this great nation, and at thesame time to entertain in such a manner as may stimulate to nobledeeds, is the real aim of these stories. In them there is nothingof romance, but only a careful, truthful record of the part playedby children in the great battles with those forces, human as well asnatural, which, for so long a time, held a vast portion of this broadland against the advance of home seekers.

  With the knowledge of what has been done by our own people in our ownland, surely there is no reason why one should resort to fiction inorder to depict scenes of heroism, daring, and sublime disregard ofsuffering in nearly every form.

  JAMES OTIS.

  CONTENTS

  PAGE A CHANGE OF HOMES 9 "JOE BOWERS" 10 THE REASONS FOR MOVING 12 MOTHER'S ANXIETY 14 HOW WE WERE TO TRAVEL 15 OUR MOVABLE HOME 18 LEAVING ASHLEY 19 EBEN JORDAN 22 ON THE ROAD 25 EBEN'S PREDICTIONS 26 WHAT WE HEARD ABOUT CALIFORNIA 27 THE FIRST ENCAMPMENT 28 NIGHT IN CAMP 31 THE TOWN OF INDEPENDENCE 32 KANSAS INDIANS 34 LOOKING INTO THE FUTURE FOR TROUBLE 35 A STORMY DAY 36 A LACK OF FUEL 38 MAKING CAMP IN A STORM 40 A THUNDERSTORM 42 ANOTHER COMPANY OF PIKERS 43 THE STOCK STRAY AWAY 45 AN INDIAN VILLAGE 47 I WEARY WITH SO MUCH TRAVELING 48 EBEN'S BOASTS 50 SUFFERING WITH THIRST 51 IN SEARCH OF WATER 53 QUENCHING OUR THIRST 55 MAKING BUTTER 57 A KANSAS FERRY 58 THE SURPRISE AT SOLDIER CREEK 60 BREAD MAKING 62 PRAIRIE PEAS 63 EBEN AS A HUNTER 65 A HERD OF BUFFALOES 66 EXCITEMENT IN THE CAMP 67 A FEAST OF BUFFALO MEAT 68 CURING THE MEAT 69 A WASH DAY 71 UNCOMFORTABLE TRAVELING 72 ELLEN'S ADVICE REGARDING THE STORY 74 INDIANS AND MOSQUITOES 75 PRAIRIE DOGS 77 COLONEL RUSSELL'S MISHAP 79 CHIMNEY ROCK 81 AT FORT LARAMIE 82 COOKING IN FRONT OF A FIREPLACE 84 TRAPPERS, HUNTERS, AND INDIANS 85 ON THE TRAIL ONCE MORE 87 INDEPENDENCE ROCK 88 ARRIVAL AT FORT BRIDGER 90 WITH OUR FACES TOWARD CALIFORNIA 92 AT BEAR RIVER 93 THE COMING OF WINTER 94 UTAH INDIANS 97 A DANGEROUS TRAIL 98 SUNFLOWER SEEDS AND ANTELOPE STEW 100 A FOREST FIRE 102 THE GREAT SALT LAKE 104 EBEN AS A FISHERMAN 105 GRASSHOPPER JAM 107 A DESERTED VILLAGE 109 THE GREAT SALT DESERT 111 PREPARING FOR A DANGEROUS JOURNEY 112 BREAD AND COFFEE MAKING 114 BREAKING CAMP AT MIDNIGHT 115 THE APPROACH TO THE SALT DESERT 117 A PLAIN OF SALT 117 LIKE A SEA OF FROZEN MILK 119 SALT DUST 120 A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT 122 COFFEE INSTEAD OF WATER 122 A SPRING OF SWEET WATER 123 THE OASIS 125 SEARCHING FOR WATER 126 THE BEAUTIFUL VALLEY 128 SNAKE INDIANS 130 A SCARCITY OF FOOD 132 SPRINGS OF HOT WATER 133 IN THE LAND OF PLENTY 135 THE TRUCKEE RIVER 136 A HOME IN THE SACRAMENTO VALLEY 138 THE MISSION OF SAN JOSE 139 OUR HOME IN CALIFORNIA 141

  MARTHA OF CALIFORNIA

  A CHANGE OF HOMES

  In case one should ask in the years to come how it happened that I,Martha Early, who was born in Ashley, Pike County, in the state ofMissouri, and lived there until I was twelve years old, journeyedacross the prairies and deserts to California, the question can beanswered if I write down what I saw when so many people from our countywent to make new homes in that state where gold had been found in suchabundance.

 

  For my part, I used to wonder why people should be willing to leaveMissouri, enduring the many hardships they knew awaited them on thejourney of two thousand miles, in order to buy land in a country wherenearly all the inhabitants were Spaniards and Mexica
ns.

  I suppose the stories told about the wonderful quantity of gold whichhad suddenly been found in California caused our people to thinkparticularly of that far-off land. When the excitement of getting richby digging in the earth a few weeks or a few months had in a measuredied away, there came tales regarding the fertile soil and the beautyof the country, until nearly every one in Pike County, as well as inthe county of the same name just across the Mississippi River in thestate of Illinois, much the same as had a fever for moving.

  Perhaps that is why the people we met while journeying called allthe emigrants "Pikers." You see there were so many from both the Pikecounties who went into California in the year 1851, that it appeared tostrangers as if every person on the trail had come from Pike County.

  "JOE BOWERS"

  Then, too, fully half of all these emigrants were singing or whistlingthat song of "Joe Bowers," which was supposed to have been written bya Piker, and to represent a man from Missouri or Illinois.

  Surely every one remembers it. The first verse, and if I have heard itonce I certainly have a thousand times, goes like this:--

  "My name it is Joe Bowers And I've got a brother Ike. I came from old Missouri, Yes, all the way from Pike."

  The song was intended to show that this Joe Bowers came from ourcounty, and, perhaps, because so many of the emigrants were singingit, all of us who went into California in the year 1851 were, as I havesaid, called "Pikers."

  However the name came about, I was a Piker, and before we arrived inthis wondrously beautiful country, I wished again and again that I hadbeen almost any other than an emigrant, for the way was long, and oh!so wearisome.

 

  I must always think of Missouri as being one of the best of all thestates in the Union, because it was there I was born and there I wentto school until father caught the California fever, which resulted inour setting out on a journey which, for a time, seemed endless.

  My father had no idea of going so far simply to dig for gold. He hadseen many who went across the country in 1849 believing they would comeback rich as kings, yet who returned home poorer in pocket than whenthey left; therefore he came to understand that only a few of all thatvast army of miners who hastened into California after the discoveryat Sutter's Mill, got enough of the precious metal to pay for the foodthey ate.

  Father thought he could buy better land in California than was to befound in Pike County, for to have heard the stories told by some of thepeople who had come back disappointed from the land of gold, you mighthave believed that one had only to put a few seeds at random in theground in order to gather marvelous crops.

  THE REASONS FOR MOVING

  Nor was my father the only man who put faith in at least some ofthe fanciful tales told concerning the land of California which hadso lately been given up to the United States by the Spaniards. Ourneighbors for miles around were in a state of unrest and excitement,until it was decided that nearly all would undertake the long journey,and I could not prevent myself from wondering if Pike County wouldnot feel lonely to have the people abandon it, for it surely seemed asif every man, woman, and child was making haste to leave Missouri insearch of the wondrous farming lands.

  Mother looked woefully solemn when, on a certain evening, father camehome and told us that he had sold the plantation for about half as muchas it had cost him, and was going to join the next company that set outfrom Pike County.

 

  It was a long time before mother would have very much to say aboutthe journey, but as the days passed and the neighbors who were goingwith us came to our home that they might talk over the preparationsfor moving, she became interested in making plans, although again andagain, when we two were alone, she told me that this trailing over twothousand miles of deserts and mountains was not to her liking.

  MOTHER'S ANXIETY

  It was only natural she should be worried about making such a greatchange, for all father's worldly goods consisted of the Pike Countyplantation and the live stock, and if, after selling the land andspending very nearly all his money to provide for the journey, we foundthat California farms were no better than the one we were leaving, itwould be the saddest kind of mistake.

 

  "Your father has set his mind on going; the homestead has been sold,and we must make the best of it, Martha, hoping that half the storieswe have heard about California are true," she said to me so many timesthat I came almost to believe it was a foolish venture upon which wewere about to embark.

  Then, when I began to wonder how we were to live during such a longjourney, and asked mother if it would be possible for us to cook andchurn and do the family washing while traveling in an ox wagon, shewould say with a sigh:--

  "Don't, Martha, don't ask questions that I can't answer! It seems to mealmost certain that we shall starve to death before getting anywherenear California, even if we are not killed by Indians or wild beasts,without having had time to get very hungry or dirty."

  Yet we did travel the two thousand miles, walking the greater part ofthe way, and although there were many times when all of us were hungry,none actually starved to death; nor were we killed by wild beasts orIndians, else I could not be here in this beautiful place writing thisstory.

  Father spent days and days getting ready for the moving. After hehad finished the preparations, I thought the journey would not be soterribly hard, because he had arranged everything so snug and cozy formother and me, that it really seemed as if we might take actual comfortin case we could make shift to do housework in a wagon.

  HOW WE WERE TO TRAVEL

  We owned only four yoke of cattle, but with some of the money receivedfrom the sale of the plantation, we bought as many more, which gaveus sixteen oxen. We were to take with us all five of the cows and boththe horses, on which father said mother and I might ride when we weretired of sitting in the wagon; but I knew what kind of animals ourswere under the saddle, and said to myself that it would be many a longday before I would trust myself on the back of either.

  It would have done you good to see our movable home after father hadmade it ready, and by that I mean the wagon in which mother and I wereto ride. It was small compared with the other, in which were to becarried enough furniture for a single room, farming tools, grain forthe cattle, and a host of things; but I did not give much heed to theload because I was so deeply interested in what was to be a home formother and me during many a month.

  That wagon was enough to attract the attention of any girl, for, fittedup as I first saw it, the inside looked really like a playhouse, andwhen I said as much to father, he declared that I was indeed the rightkind of girl to go into a wild country, if I could find anything likesport during the tramp from Pike County to California.

  I surely must tell you about that wagon before setting down anythingconcerning the journey. It was what is known as a Conestoga, and onemay see many of the same kind on the Santa Fe or the Oregon trail.Imagine a boxlike cart nearly as long as an ordinary bedroom and sowide that I could stretch myself out at full length across the body.The top and sides were covered with osnaburg sheeting, which is clothmade of flax or tow. Some people really sleep between sheets made ofthat coarse stuff, but it is so rough and irritating to the flesh thatI had far rather lie on the floor than in a bed where it is used.

 

  Osnaburg sheeting makes excellent wagon covers, however, for the raincannot soak through the cloth, and it is so cheap that one can wellafford to use it in double thickness, which serves to keep out the windas well as the water.

  OUR MOVABLE HOME

  The front of the wagon and a small window-like place at the end wereleft open, but could be securely closed with curtains that buttoned atthe sides.

  Around the inside of the wagon were hung such things as we might needto use often during the journey. There were pots and pans, towels,clothing, baskets, and two rifles, for father believed weapons might berequired when we came upon disagreeable savages, or if game was to befound w
ithin shooting distance.

  Our cookstove was set up at the rear end of the wagon, where it couldbe pushed out on a small shelf fastened to the rear axle, when wewanted to use it. A most ingenious contrivance we found that shelf tobe, for mother and I could remain inside the wagon and do our cookingin stormy weather; but those women of the company whose husbands hadnot been so thoughtful were forced to stay out of doors while preparinga meal, no matter how hard it might be raining.

  Our beds were laid in the bottom of the wagon and covered with thebedclothes to save them from being badly soiled, as would be likely ifwe slept upon them at night, and cooked, ate, and did the housework onthem during the daytime.

  We did not try to carry many dishes, because there were so many chancesthey would be broken, but nearly everything of the kind we used was ofmetal, such as tin or iron.

  Underneath the cart were hung buckets, the churn, lanterns, and such acollection of articles that I could not but fancy people might believewe were peddlers carrying so large an assortment of goods that they hadoverrun the wagon body.

  What puzzled me before we started on the journey was how we couldpersuade the cows to travel as we would have them; but I soon came tounderstand that it was a simple matter.

  LEAVING ASHLEY

  You must know that father was not the only man in Ashley that intendedto build up a new home in California. More than half of the peoplewere making preparations for the journey, and when we finally set offthe procession was very imposing, with more than fifty wagons, not oneof them drawn by less than three yoke of oxen or four pairs of mules;there were cows almost without number and a flock of thirty or fortysheep.