The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras | Page 2

Madge and Stumps played truant too.
Sometimes a week together would pass and the Keene children would
not be seen at the schoolhouse. Visits from the schoolmaster produced
no lasting effect. The children would come for a day or two, then be
seen no more. The schoolmaster and their father at last had a serious
talk about the matter.
"What can I do with him?" said Mr. Keene.
"You'll have to put him to work," said the schoolmaster. "Set him to
hunting nuggets instead of bird's-nests. I guess what the boy wants is
some honest means of using his strength. He's a good boy, Mr. Keene;
don't despair of him. Jim would be proud to be an 'honest miner.' Jim's

a good boy, Mr. Keene."
"Well, then, thank you, Schoolmaster," said Mr. Keene. "Jim's a good
boy; and Madge is good, Mr. Schoolmaster; and poor starved and
stunted motherless Little Stumps, he is good as gold, Mr. Schoolmaster.
And I want to be a mother to 'em--I want to be father and mother to 'em
all, Mr. Schoolmaster. And I'll follow your advice. I'll put 'em all to
work a-huntin' for gold."
The next day away up on the hillside under a pleasant oak, where the
air was sweet and cool, and the ground soft and dotted over with
flowers, the tender-hearted old man that wanted to be "father and
mother both," "located" a claim. The flowers were kept fresh by a little
stream of waste water from the ditch that girded the brow of the hill
above. Here he set a sluice-box and put his three little miners at work
with pick, pan and shovel. There he left them and limped back to his
own place in the mine below.
And how they did work! And how pleasant it was here under the broad
boughs of the oak, with the water rippling through the sluice on the soft,
loose soil which they shoveled into the long sluice-box. They could see
the mule-trains going and coming, and the clouds of dust far below
which told them the stage was whirling up the valley. But Jim kept
steadily on at his work day after day. Even though jack-rabbits and
squirrels appeared on the very scene, he would not leave till, like the
rest of the honest miners, he could shoulder his pick and pan and go
down home with the setting sun.
Sometimes the men who had tried to keep the children at school, would
come that way, and with a shy smile, talk very wisely about whether or
not the new miners would "strike it" under the cool oak among the
flowers on the hill. But Jim never stopped to talk much. He dug and
wrestled away, day after day, now up to his waist in the pit.
One Saturday evening the old man limped up the hillside to help the
young miners "clean up."
He sat down at the head of the sluice-box and gave directions how they

should turn off the most of the water, wash down the "toilings" very
low, lift up the "riffle," brush down the "apron," and finally set the pan
in the lower end of the "sluice-toil" and pour in the quicksilver to
gather up and hold the gold.
"What for you put your hand in de water for, papa?" queried Little
Stumps, who had left off his work, which consisted mainly of pulling
flowers and putting them in the sluice-box to see them float away. He
was sitting by his father's side, and he looked up in his face as he
spoke.
"Hush, child," said the old man softly, as he again dipped his thumb
and finger in his vest pocket as if about to take snuff. But he did not
take snuff. Again his hand was reached down to the rippling water at
the head of the sluice-box. And this time curious but obedient Little
Stumps was silent.
Suddenly there was a shout, such a shout from Jim as the hills had not
heard since he was a schoolboy.
He had found the "color." "Two colors! three, four, five--a dozen!" The
boy shouted like a Modoc, threw down the brush and scraper, and
kissed his little sister over and over, and cried as he did so; then he
whispered softly to her as he again took up his brush and scraper, that it
was "for papa; all for poor papa; that he did not care for himself, but he
did want to help poor, tired, and crippled papa." But papa did not seem
to be excited so very much.
The little miners were now continually wild with excitement. They
were up and at work Monday morning at dawn. The men who were in
the father's tender secret, congratulated the children heartily and made
them