December 22, 1965 (20 pages)

zi a ER a a i er —___—__ ” oe eT RE NORTHERN MINES & CALIFORNIA REPORTS BRA AAR HERA AEE EEE et HET HER FE et OF Sho Rod Cott A Memoir For Christmas by Grace Himes (Editor's Note: The author is a resident of Piety Hill in Nevada City, noted for her short stories and articles, a number of which have appeared in the Nugget at Christmas, “The Red Colt” is a personal memoir, recalling a childhood--and a Christmas--of hardship and happiness in Browns Valley, over 70 years ago. We think it is one of the finest of Mrs. Himes" pieces. ) I was nine years old, in deep disgrace and I wished fervently that I could drop dead on the spot, for Dad, swearing every step of the way, was nearly yanking my arm off ashe dragged me across the road, up the steps and into our house, We were living in Browns Valley at the time, a little early day mining town about 14 miles east of Marysville. Having lived all of our lives on a ranch in the valley before coming to Browns Valley, Al, my seven year old brother, and I felt it utterly impossible to confine ourselves to a tiny yard, s0--we didn't. We took every opportunity to sneak away from Mother and explore the neighborhood, mostly with dire results. Iam sure now that we must have hoisted the neighbors" blood pressure to unheard-of heights with our doings, and we learned a lot of words we didn't know on the ranch, After my eldest brother's death, Mother was very ill andthe doctor said a complete change of environment was necessary to help her regain her health. Dad was working in the Browns Valley mines at the time so he moved us there. It was a complete change of environment all right, and it soon shocked Mother into an awareness of life--life pretty much in the raw. Our home in Browns Valley was smack in the middle of the red light district. Poor Dad,worried and halfsick himself, took Judge Jefferd's word that the house was habitable (he forgot to mention the neighborhood) and being it was the only house available for rent, Dad took it. Two saloons and “Old Kit's place” (Old Kit was a woman of 25) were directly across the road in front of us. In the back across an alfalfa patch was Ernest Luce’s saloon and “rooming house." On each side of us were shacks where women lived in kimonos all day, only dressing when their husbands were at work deepin the mines, They were Kit's only friends, that is except Al and me. We found her crying one day in her backyard as we passed with our buckets of drinking water we got from a spring in an old mining tunnel back of her house. We gave her one of our buckets of water, Or I did. Al fidgeted and told me darkly on the way home that Dad would skin me alive if he heard of it. Fora long time 1 hadtodo most of Al’s errands, Al was two years younger than me--but smarter. Little Fred, our four-year-old brother, was too young to remember anything about the ranch we'd left, but Al and I almost died of homesickness, To-live ‘in Browns Valley 70 years ago was like living in another world: asick, wild drunken world where * colt's halter rope. nothing or no one seemed real, Even our house was built on stilts. It seemed the creek above us overflowed in winter. Drunken miners took a short cut across the alfalfa patch from Luce's to Kit's passing under our house on the way and sometimes stopping to play with our St, Bernard puppy. And pianos banged day andnight, sometimes almost drowning out the roar of falling stamps. Mother hated living in Browns Valley so badly she almost never left the house and she kept the shades down all over the place day and night. I remember how mad she was at my 18-year-old aunt who, presumably visiting her for the day, put in most of the day at a crack in the front room window shade, Well, Dadwas yelling at Mother when he crashed open the front room door and pushed me nonetoo-gently into the room, “Lizzie, why in blankety blank can"t you take care of the young ones? Do you know where I just found Grace? Holding Old Kit's horse while two drunken miners tried to lift her to the saddle, " And he added: “She didn’t have any clothes on." I knew Mother would understand he was talking about Kit. Buthe did exaggerate. BROTHER ALAN..Mr. Summy handed himthe red Kit was wearing a few wisps, and anyway, after one look I still held the horse, but I looked the other way. Poor Mother looked so sick I felt awful as Dad went on and on, When he stopped for breath, Mother spoke, “Fred, I was going totell you today, I won't live here any longer, I am going down home and look for another place to rent--a small ranch where the children will have a chance to grow up to be decent human beings. They won't be that if we continue to live here." Just then Byron. Taylor came storming up the back steps with Al by the ear. “You gotta keep your brats outa my alfalfa field an' I ain't going totell you again." Seems Al had been trying to dig a small Nigger Jack Slough inthe alfalfa patch while Taylor was temporarily incapacitated from too much celebrating. I'd been dying tosee it but Mrs. Fred Dean had threatened to annihilate meif Iasmuch as came near her place--and she lived right by Taylor'sfield. A few days before I'd been doing what she should have done, I'd been trying to fumigate her old outhouse with sulphur sprinkled on burning paper and it brought half the town out. Even dismally respectable old Mrs, Dean rushed out on her porch in a short underskirt and pinkribboned corset cover, togive the tin-hatted miners orders, Well anyway, when Byron Taylor had gone mumbling down the steps, Mother continued, "Iam going down home tomorrow and see what I can find," And so bright and early next morning Mother and we three little kids, bumping along in our little cart behind Johnnie our pony, started on the journey that took all of us into a wonderful life we loved and memories that will last us as long as any of us live. And we created a loved home out of a run down old ranch, Mother felt very lucky in the place she found, It was for sale, not for rent, but the terms were so good Mother and Dad agreed to buy it immediately. There was 80 acres of land and a good water right; a small orchard and a house that could be made liveable. We moved down right away, living in a cabin on the place until the house was ready. We youngsterswere in a seventh heaven. The energy we'd been expending in making the neighbors at Browns Valley miserable we used to help Mother in a thousand ways. We hunted wood and carried water; even little Fred pickedup chips for kindling. It was summer and hot but we loved it. Even the “zing” of grasshoppers in the tall bleached grass was music to our ears, It must have been hard for Dad to ride back and forth to work after his long 12 hour shifts, but I never heard him complain even though he was ill many times. My father was a slender, handsome man, withdrawn and moody, and I know now our way oi life was wrong for him, He'd loved his life work, telegraphy, but an almost complete loss of hearing prevented his going on with that. Mother and Dadwerevery different. Mother was a brave and good woman, When the mine in Browns Valley where Dad worked closed, andhehadto goto far off Nevada té-find steady work, she uncomplainingly took the responsibility of the ranch and us children without a word, She worked almost around the clock, and Dad, depriving himself of everything but the bare necessities, sent almost his entire check home. Between the two of them they succeeded, It was a long, hard task they set themselves, but they never wavered, — All through the years on the ranch my brothers ‘were Mother's partners, They were up at dawn with her, herding turkeys, milking cows, feeding pigs, doing anything that was asked of them; and they never fussed about it. Iwas there, but I was pretty worthless, No one ever asked anything of me; anyway I kept busy doing the things I wanted to do, And Inever did any ranch work, Itwas supposed that I'd grow up to be a lady, I early figured it out--ladies are born, not made-and I followed my natural bent. I enjoyed myself, I was crazy over flowers so I nagged Mother into getting awindmill put up on the well. Then I actually did some work on my own, I made a picket fence from shakes salvaged from an old tumbled down shed, It was lattice work, the shakes sharpened at the top to discourage chickens, and it was beautiful after I'd given it two coats of whitewash, My grandparents had a beautiful home so I went to them for shrubs, slips and bulbs and in a few years I had a flower garden comparable to the pictures one sees in a fairy story book, The old gray house was almost lost inclematis, roses, wistaria and honeysuckle--the garden a fragrant mass of flowers from early spring until late fall. I planted and weeded but my brothers did the heavy digging and carrying fertilizer from the barnyard, Sometimes Al rebelled when he wanted to work away from home to earn extra money for the things boys need, But Fred, well Fredin all of his short . life never refused any of us anything that he had or could do, He was the only utterly selfless person I have ever known, He never complained about anything and it gave him happiness to save any of us from mean hard jobs we hated, We accepted his hard work and sacrifices almost without a thought, it was done so quietly, and seemingly so easily. Quiet and gentle in everyday life, he could be a raging lion in deS96T ‘GZ Joquieseq***3233nN AUNOD epeAen’** pd

zi a ER a a i er —___—__ ” oe eT RE NORTHERN MINES & CALIFORNIA REPORTS BRA AAR HERA AEE EEE et HET HER FE et OF Sho Rod Cott A Memoir For Christmas by Grace Himes (Editor's Note: The author is a resident of Piety Hill in Nevada City, noted for her short stories and articles, a number of which have appeared in the Nugget at Christmas, “The Red Colt” is a personal memoir, recalling a childhood--and a Christmas--of hardship and happiness in Browns Valley, over 70 years ago. We think it is one of the finest of Mrs. Himes" pieces. ) I was nine years old, in deep disgrace and I wished fervently that I could drop dead on the spot, for Dad, swearing every step of the way, was nearly yanking my arm off ashe dragged me across the road, up the steps and into our house, We were living in Browns Valley at the time, a little early day mining town about 14 miles east of Marysville. Having lived all of our lives on a ranch in the valley before coming to Browns Valley, Al, my seven year old brother, and I felt it utterly impossible to confine ourselves to a tiny yard, s0--we didn't. We took every opportunity to sneak away from Mother and explore the neighborhood, mostly with dire results. Iam sure now that we must have hoisted the neighbors" blood pressure to unheard-of heights with our doings, and we learned a lot of words we didn't know on the ranch, After my eldest brother's death, Mother was very ill andthe doctor said a complete change of environment was necessary to help her regain her health. Dad was working in the Browns Valley mines at the time so he moved us there. It was a complete change of environment all right, and it soon shocked Mother into an awareness of life--life pretty much in the raw. Our home in Browns Valley was smack in the middle of the red light district. Poor Dad,worried and halfsick himself, took Judge Jefferd's word that the house was habitable (he forgot to mention the neighborhood) and being it was the only house available for rent, Dad took it. Two saloons and “Old Kit's place” (Old Kit was a woman of 25) were directly across the road in front of us. In the back across an alfalfa patch was Ernest Luce’s saloon and “rooming house." On each side of us were shacks where women lived in kimonos all day, only dressing when their husbands were at work deepin the mines, They were Kit's only friends, that is except Al and me. We found her crying one day in her backyard as we passed with our buckets of drinking water we got from a spring in an old mining tunnel back of her house. We gave her one of our buckets of water, Or I did. Al fidgeted and told me darkly on the way home that Dad would skin me alive if he heard of it. Fora long time 1 hadtodo most of Al’s errands, Al was two years younger than me--but smarter. Little Fred, our four-year-old brother, was too young to remember anything about the ranch we'd left, but Al and I almost died of homesickness, To-live ‘in Browns Valley 70 years ago was like living in another world: asick, wild drunken world where * colt's halter rope. nothing or no one seemed real, Even our house was built on stilts. It seemed the creek above us overflowed in winter. Drunken miners took a short cut across the alfalfa patch from Luce's to Kit's passing under our house on the way and sometimes stopping to play with our St, Bernard puppy. And pianos banged day andnight, sometimes almost drowning out the roar of falling stamps. Mother hated living in Browns Valley so badly she almost never left the house and she kept the shades down all over the place day and night. I remember how mad she was at my 18-year-old aunt who, presumably visiting her for the day, put in most of the day at a crack in the front room window shade, Well, Dadwas yelling at Mother when he crashed open the front room door and pushed me nonetoo-gently into the room, “Lizzie, why in blankety blank can"t you take care of the young ones? Do you know where I just found Grace? Holding Old Kit's horse while two drunken miners tried to lift her to the saddle, " And he added: “She didn’t have any clothes on." I knew Mother would understand he was talking about Kit. Buthe did exaggerate. BROTHER ALAN...Mr. Summy handed himthe red Kit was wearing a few wisps, and anyway, after one look I still held the horse, but I looked the other way. Poor Mother looked so sick I felt awful as Dad went on and on, When he stopped for breath, Mother spoke, “Fred, I was going totell you today, I won't live here any longer, I am going down home and look for another place to rent--a small

ranch where the children will have a chance to grow up to be decent human beings. They won't be that if we continue to live here." Just then Byron. Taylor came storming up the back steps with Al by the ear. “You gotta keep your brats outa my alfalfa field an' I ain't going totell you again." Seems Al had been trying to dig a small Nigger Jack Slough inthe alfalfa patch while Taylor was temporarily incapacitated from too much celebrating. I'd been dying tosee it but Mrs. Fred Dean had threatened to annihilate meif Iasmuch as came near her place--and she lived right by Taylor'sfield. A few days before I'd been doing what she should have done, I'd been trying to fumigate her old outhouse with sulphur sprinkled on burning paper and it brought half the town out. Even dismally respectable old Mrs, Dean rushed out on her porch in a short underskirt and pinkribboned corset cover, togive the tin-hatted miners orders, Well anyway, when Byron Taylor had gone mumbling down the steps, Mother continued, "Iam going down home tomorrow and see what I can find," And so bright and early next morning Mother and we three little kids, bumping along in our little cart behind Johnnie our pony, started on the journey that took all of us into a wonderful life we loved and memories that will last us as long as any of us live. And we created a loved home out of a run down old ranch, Mother felt very lucky in the place she found, It was for sale, not for rent, but the terms were so good Mother and Dad agreed to buy it immediately. There was 80 acres of land and a good water right; a small orchard and a house that could be made liveable. We moved down right away, living in a cabin on the place until the house was ready. We youngsterswere in a seventh heaven. The energy we'd been expending in making the neighbors at Browns Valley miserable we used to help Mother in a thousand ways. We hunted wood and carried water; even little Fred pickedup chips for kindling. It was summer and hot but we loved it. Even the “zing” of grasshoppers in the tall bleached grass was music to our ears, It must have been hard for Dad to ride back and forth to work after his long 12 hour shifts, but I never heard him complain even though he was ill many times. My father was a slender, handsome man, withdrawn and moody, and I know now our way oi life was wrong for him, He'd loved his life work, telegraphy, but an almost complete loss of hearing prevented his going on with that. Mother and Dadwerevery different. Mother was a brave and good woman, When the mine in Browns Valley where Dad worked closed, andhehadto goto far off Nevada té-find steady work, she uncomplainingly took the responsibility of the ranch and us children without a word, She worked almost around the clock, and Dad, depriving himself of everything but the bare necessities, sent almost his entire check home. Between the two of them they succeeded, It was a long, hard task they set themselves, but they never wavered, — All through the years on the ranch my brothers ‘were Mother's partners, They were up at dawn with her, herding turkeys, milking cows, feeding pigs, doing anything that was asked of them; and they never fussed about it. Iwas there, but I was pretty worthless, No one ever asked anything of me; anyway I kept busy doing the things I wanted to do, And Inever did any ranch work, Itwas supposed that I'd grow up to be a lady, I early figured it out--ladies are born, not made-and I followed my natural bent. I enjoyed myself, I was crazy over flowers so I nagged Mother into getting awindmill put up on the well. Then I actually did some work on my own, I made a picket fence from shakes salvaged from an old tumbled down shed, It was lattice work, the shakes sharpened at the top to discourage chickens, and it was beautiful after I'd given it two coats of whitewash, My grandparents had a beautiful home so I went to them for shrubs, slips and bulbs and in a few years I had a flower garden comparable to the pictures one sees in a fairy story book, The old gray house was almost lost inclematis, roses, wistaria and honeysuckle--the garden a fragrant mass of flowers from early spring until late fall. I planted and weeded but my brothers did the heavy digging and carrying fertilizer from the barnyard, Sometimes Al rebelled when he wanted to work away from home to earn extra money for the things boys need, But Fred, well Fredin all of his short . life never refused any of us anything that he had or could do, He was the only utterly selfless person I have ever known, He never complained about anything and it gave him happiness to save any of us from mean hard jobs we hated, We accepted his hard work and sacrifices almost without a thought, it was done so quietly, and seemingly so easily. Quiet and gentle in everyday life, he could be a raging lion in deS96T ‘GZ Joquieseq***3233nN AUNOD epeAen’** pd