CHAPTER XXXIII

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF SACRAMENTO—­A GLIMPSE OF GRANDPA—­THE RANCHO DE LOS CAZADORES—­MY SWEETEST PRIVILEGE—­LETTERS FROM THE BRUNNERS.

It is needless to say that we were grateful for our new home, and tried to express our appreciation in words and by sharing the household duties, and by helping to make the neat clothing provided for us.

The first Monday in October was a veritable red-letter day.  Aglow with bright anticipations, we hurried off to public school with Frances.  Not since our short attendance at the pioneer school in Sonoma had Georgia and I been schoolmates, and never before had we three sisters started out together with books in hand; nor did our expectations overreach the sum of happiness which the day had in store for us.

The supposition that grandpa and grandma had passed out of our lives was soon disproved; for as I was crossing our back yard on the Saturday of that first week of school, I happened to look toward Seventeenth Street, and saw a string of wagons bringing exhibits from the fair grounds.  Beside the driver of a truck carrying a closed cage marked, “Buffalo,” stood grandpa.  He had risen from his seat, leaned back against the front of the cage, folded his arms and was looking at me.  My long black braids had been cut off, and my style of dress changed, still he had recognized me.  I fled into the house, and told Elitha what I had seen.  She, too, was somewhat disquieted, and replied musingly,

“The old gentleman is lonely, and may have come to take you girls back with him.”

His presence in Sacramento so soon after our reaching there did seem significant, because he had bought that buffalo in 1851, before she was weaned from the emigrant cow that had suckled and led her in from the great buffalo range, and he had never before thought of exhibiting her.

The following afternoon, as we were returning from Sunday school, a hand suddenly reached out of the crowd on J Street and touched Georgia’s shoulder, then stopped me.  A startled backward glance rested on Castle, our old enemy, who said,

“Come.  Grandpa is in town, and wants to see you.”  We shook our heads.  Then he looked at Frances, saying, “All of you, come and see the large seal and other things at the fair.”

But she replied, emphatically, “We have not permission,” and grasping a hand of each, hurried us homeward.  For days thereafter, we were on the alert guarding against what we feared might happen.

[Illustration:  Photographs by Lynwood Abbott.  PINES OF THE SIERRAS]

[Illustration:  GENERAL JOHN A. SUTTER]

[Illustration:  COL.  J.D.  STEVENSON]

Our alarm over, life moved along smoothly.  Elitha admonished us to forget the past, and prepare for the future.  She forbade Georgia and me to use the German language in speaking with each other, giving as a reason that we should take Frances into our confidence and thoughts as closely as we took one another.