Now and then,
half an hour apart, one came across solitary log cabins of the earliest
mining days, built by the first gold-miners, the predecessors of the
cottage-builders. In some few cases these cabins were still occupied;
and when this was so, you could depend upon it that the occupant
was the very pioneer who had built the cabin; and you could depend
on another thing, too--that he was there because he had once had
his opportunity to go home to the States rich, and had not done it;
had rather lost his wealth, and had then in his humiliation resolved
to sever all communication with his home relatives and friends,
and be to them thenceforth as one dead. Round about California
in that day were scattered a host of these living dead men
--pride-smitten poor fellows, grizzled and old at forty, whose secret
thoughts were made all of regrets and longings--regrets for their
wasted lives, and longings to be out of the struggle and done with it all.
It was a lonesome land! Not a sound in all those peaceful expanses
of grass and woods but the drowsy hum of insects; no glimpse
of man or beast; nothing to keep up your spirits and make you glad
to be alive. And so, at last, in the early part of the afternoon,
when I caught sight of a human creature, I felt a most grateful uplift.
This person was a man about forty-five years old, and he was
standing at the gate of one of those cozy little rose-clad cottages
of the sort already referred to.
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