"To see me?" he repeated, with a faint attempt at gallantry. "You are
paying me a great compliment, but really"--
"When I tell you I've come three thousand miles from Kansas straight
here without stopping, ye kin reckon it's so," she replied firmly.
"Three thousand miles!" echoed the editor wonderingly.
"Yes. Three thousand miles from my own folks' home in Kansas, where six
years ago I married Mr. Dimmidge,--a British furriner as could scarcely
make himself understood in any Christian language! Well, he got round
me and dad, allowin' he was a reg'lar out-and-out profeshnal miner,--had
lived in mines ever since he was a boy; and so, not knowin' what kind o'
mines, and dad just bilin' over with the gold fever, we were married and
kem across the plains to Californy. He was a good enough man to look at,
but it warn't three months before I discovered that he allowed a wife
was no better nor a nigger slave, and he the master. That made me open
my eyes; but then, as he didn't drink, and didn't gamble, and didn't
swear, and was a good provider and laid by money, why I shifted along
with him as best I could.
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