It was a miner's
feast--can-fruits, can-vegetables, can-oysters, can-pickles, can-every
thing nearly, with tea distilled from the Asiatic leaf by a receipt of
his own. It was a hot day, and from the cloudless heavens the sun
flooded the earth with his glory, and the shimmer of the sunshine was in
the still air. We tried to be cheerful, but there was a pathos about the
affair that touched us. He felt it too. More than once there was a tear
in his eye. At parting, he kissed little Paul, and gave us his hand in
silence. As we drove down the hill, he stood gazing after us with a look
fixed and sad. The picture is till before me the lonely old man standing
sad and silent, the little cabin, the rude dinner-service under the oak,
and the overarching sky. That was our last meeting. The next will be on
the Other Side.
Suicide in California.
A half protest rises within me as I begin this Sketch. The page almost
turns crimson under my gaze, and shadowy forms come forth out of the
darkness into which they wildly plunged out of life's misery into
death's mystery. Ghostly lips cry out, "Leave us alone! Why call us back
to a world where we lost all, and in quitting which we risked all?
Disturb us not to gratify the cold curiosity of unfeeling strangers.
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