Mother Lode, the Mother of Gold!"

"Child, my old eyes have watched it spread for nearly ninety years—the power of gold, and of the men who came to seek it, The influence of gold controlled by the human intellect. I am old and tired and soon I shall sleep, but the old see clearly, too clearly, that which they are leaving, and that to which they pass."

"'Thus, facing the stars, we go out amongst them into darkness'," I quoted, softly.

"Not to darkness, but to eternal light, to rise again from the Mother Lode to mingle in the busy lives of men."

"'Who maketh His messengers with two, and three, and four pairs of wings'."

"Exactly. To be born again, and yet again. The real mother-vein of gold was imbued in the men shaped by the life of the frontier. It was the cornerstone of great fortunes, of families, of enterprises, of achievements which are peculiarly California's own.

"It was the clearing house and open sesame of the vast trade of the Orient which is just coming into being; the foundation for the bridge of gold which shall reach across the seas; a fit monument to posterity which shall be erected with all the lightness and grace and stability of the present cultured generations, born with their feet in the flowers grown from the mother-gold of decent manhood and glorious womanhood—the precious metals of the spirit, unalloyed and unafraid.

"They are the true Mother Lode, the bourne of the seekers of gold, greater, far, than the crazed brains of the old prospectors had the power to conceive. A further-reaching, broader arc than the most wondrous rainbow of their imaginings born of dreams, and built of hunger and despair."

"So shall we find, at last, the Mother Lode, the virginity of the essence of creation, the beginning and the end. The curve of the circle which is unchanging, insoluble, omniscient; which shall return to that which created it; which is all; which is God!"

One Sunday in Stinson's Bar

I

Now-a-days when you want to go from San Francisco to the Sierra Nevada country you step into your perfectly good Packard (or whatever it is—all the way down to a motorcycle side car), and you ferry across the bay and the straits, and if the motor-cop isn't around, you come shooting up the highway forty miles an hour, and at the end of a glorious five-hour run you are there.

In the early fifties—when there was less to see, too—you took more time to it. You came to Sacramento on the river boat. Then if you were rich, you bought a horse or a mule and rode for the rest of your journey. If you were poor, or thrifty perhaps, you walked, or tried to get a ride on one of the ox-freight teams which plied their way across Haggin Grant to Auburn and Dutch Flat, or to Folsom and Coloma.

Later a railway was built as far as Auburn station, then situated at a point three miles east of Loomis which was at that time called Pino.

Nothing remains of Auburn station. But the road bed of the old railway is still to be found in certain wooded tracts which have not given way to the fruit ranches; and the highway from Fair Oaks into Folsom follows the old cuts and grades for several miles.

In the days preceding and immediately following the discovery of gold in California, building was very difficult. Every stick of lumber in my grandfather's house came by ship "around the Horn," and the fruit trees grape vines, flowers, even bees, for his lovely garden: were all sent from Europe.

In the smaller settlements there was seldom more than one large building which could be used for social purposes, and this was often the card room or bar room in connection with the hotel of the town.

So here is the tale that was told of one Sunday in Stinson's bar room, in the late '50s at Auburn Station:

They tried to give a ball once a year at Stinson's. Persons came to it from 30 miles about, particularly if they were women, and every woman divided each dance among four men. When a man invited a lady to come to a dance, in many instances he insisted upon the privilege of buying her a silken gown and slippers to wear, and this was not considered unusual, nor was she in any way obligated to him for it. There were so few "ladies" that they were treated as little short of divinities.

This Saturday night there had been no dance, and the men at Gentleman Jack's table at Stinson's had played "three-card monte" on through the dawn and the sunrise, and into broad daylight. The door was pushed open, letting in a rush of cool, sweet air which guttered the candles set in old bottles, and drove the heavy fog of tobacco smoke toward the blackened ceiling. A voice boomed forth:

"Come on, now, gentlemen. Two ladies have come with posies in tall silver vases and a white altar cloth for this table. The preacher's coming over from Folsom, and there will be church held here in one hour. He's a busy man today. An infant will be given a license to travel the long and uncertain road to heaven, and a pair of happy lovers will be made one."

"One—unhappy pair."

"It's William Duncan. He's intoxicated again," drawled Gentleman Jack, stretching his graceful length and smiling at a long, aristocratic figure crouched over a small table in a corner. "His last strike turned out to be only a small pocket, and so he drowns his woes in liquor, as usual." He bowed to his recent card partners. "Gentlemen, I am sincerely sorry for your losses this night. I shall sleep an hour before the holy man arrives." He sauntered out, stuffing a buckskin bag of gold dust into his pocket.

"There lies my pocket—in his pocket," muttered Duncan. "No, Stinson" raising his voice authoritatively, "I shall not go out. It is my desire to pray for my sins today * * * and there has a letter come from overseas which I must read—if I can. If I can—"

In an hour the room was cleared of smoke, greasy cards, poker chips and empty bottles. The bar was in a small room apart. The poker table, supplemented with a box, was covered with a handsome altar cloth flanked by huge silver candlesticks and vases which had been carried across the plains. Every individual in the community came to church and stayed afterward for the christening. At least twenty men expressed a wish to be god-father to the baby and the proud mother accepted all offers. When the christening was over, William Duncan lurched to his feet, his high-bred face full of tenderness, his long-fingered, fine grained hands poised over the rosy child, while he quoted:

"May time who sheds his blight o'er all, And daily dooms some joy to death. O'er thee let years so gently fall, They shall not crush one flower beneath!"

"Ah, 'here comes the bride!' 'All the world's a stage!'