We drifted down the first year to Sonora, at
Red Dog, where there wasn't another woman. Well, I did the nigger slave
business,--never stirring out o' the settlement, never seein' a town
or a crowd o' decent people,--and he did the lord and master! We played
that game for two years, and I got tired. But when at last he allowed
he'd go up to Elktown Hill, where there was a passel o' his countrymen
at work, with never a sign o' any other folks, and leave me alone at Red
Dog until he fixed up a place for me at Elktown Hill,--I kicked! I gave
him fair warning! I did as other nigger slaves did,--I ran away!"
A recollection of the wretched woodcut which Mr. Dimmidge had selected
to personify his wife flashed upon the editor with a new meaning.
Yet perhaps she had not seen it, and had only read a copy of the
advertisement. What could she want? The "Calaveras Clarion," although a
"Palladium" and a "Sentinel upon the Heights of Freedom" in reference to
wagon roads, was not a redresser of domestic wrongs,--except through its
advertising columns! Her next words intensified that suggestion.
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