Трейси Шевалье - At the Edge of the Orchard

sluise

sluce or a rocker. I have found a little bit, mostly flakes. Just down the river from me a man yesterday found a chunk of gold worth $1000. That is what we are all looking for.

I get down to Nevada City pretty reglar for supplies if you want to write. I would surely like to

heer

here

hear from home.

Your brother,

Robert

Miller General Store

Nevada City

California

January 1, 1851

Goodenoughs

Black Swamp

Portage River

Near Perrysburg

Ohio

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Happy New Year to you all. I am still here in California, mining for gold, same as last year, tho I have moved up and down the river some. I have found plenty but not made much money becus it is so expensive to live here. The minute I am paid for my gold I pay it back for supplies.

Flower

Flour and bullits and oats and stabling all costs more than anywhere I have ever lived. I do not think I will be mining for much longer as the gold fever does not suit me. Sum men are taken over by it and even when they have found gold they are never satisfyed.

If you are going to write, send it quick as I will not be here too much longer.

Your brother,

Robert

Greenshaw Hotel

Sacramento

California

January 1, 1853

Goodenoughs

Black Swamp

Portage River

Near Perrysburg

Ohio

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

It is two years since I last rote. I left the mining becus it

brakes

breaks a mans spirit to chase gold. Now I am working on farms and ranches, usually neer Sacramento but I go other places too.

I saw the giant redwood trees they talk about. They are really something, very tall and strait and dark among all the smaller trees. I saw the ocean too. It is a little like Lake Erie but the waves are bigger and the water tastes salty.

The Greenshaw Hotel will hold any letters for me if you want to rite.

Your brother,

Robert

Mrs. Bienenstock’s Guest House

Montgomery & California Streets

San Francisco

California

January 1, 1854

Goodenoughs

Black Swamp

Portage River

Near Perrysburg

Ohio

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Happy New Year and I hope that everyone is helthy welthy and wise.

I have had a good year becus I met a man called William Lobb. He collects plants and trees and seeds and sends them to England where they like California pines and some plants as well. I did not no there was work like that as a plant agent. That is what I am now I am helping Mr.

Lob

Lobb.

We saw giant trees up in a place called Calaveras Grove. They are like redwoods with there red bark, but even wider. I wish you could see them you wood be amazed at how big they are. The base of the trunk wood fill the kitchen of the house in the Black Swamp. I think they must be the oldest trees on the Earth. They made me feel small, but it was the best feeling I ever had, better than church or a good meal even.

I move around a lot collecting seeds, but I always come bak to San Francisco, and Mrs. Bienenstock is good at getting letters to me wherever I am. I guess by now you have long forgotten me, but I have not forgotten you.

Your brother,

Robert

Mrs. Bienenstock’s Guest House

Montgomery & California Streets

San Francisco

California

January 1, 1856

Goodenoughs

Black Swamp

Portage River

Near Perrysburg

Ohio

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Every New Years day I think about what to

rite

write to my family back in the Black Swamp. Sometimes I do not write because it is too hard and takes so long. It has been over 17 years since I left the Swamp and I never had a letter back. I do not know if any one is still alive and so this is my last letter.

I am still collecting seeds and plants for Mr. Lobb. He has taut me a lot and I am very greatful to him. I will be alright here. I have a job working with trees and that is better than I ever expected to do.

I hope that you are all right wherever you are.

Your brother for the last time,

Robert

ROBERT GOODENOUGH WAS WORKING in a field north of Sacramento when he first heard about giant trees that were even bigger than redwoods.

He and a handful of other men were raking up hay ahead of a summer storm that growled way in the distance but never seemed to get closer. It was just one of dozens of jobs Robert had taken since quitting gold mining two years before. He didn’t mind the sun on his back, the sweat stinging his eyes, the endless repetition. He had coped with such things many times before. Life was often simply the repetition of the same movements in a different order, depending on the day and the place.

What he could not stand was the constant chatter of the man raking to his right: hours of dull stories about the gold he had found and drunk away, or the high prices to be paid for anything in California, or the trials he’d had on the overland trail to get here from Kentucky. These were all familiar tales to Californians, only enlivened by an unusual style of telling or a twist in the tail. The raker had neither of these, but doggedly pursued his stories with more persistence than he did his raking.

Robert gripped his own rake harder and harder to keep himself from punching the man to shut him up. Then the raker commented, “I’m goin’ to git myself back to Kentucky one of these days real soon. I had enough of California. Seen all there is to see. Seen the biggest gold nugget in the world, weighed twenty-three pounds. Seen the ocean and didn’t think much of it. Seen the red trees nice and tall, but I miss hickory and dogwood and tulip trees back home. I don’t need to see more. I’m done here.”

“Bet you ain’t seen the big trees over at Calaveras County,” said the man working on the other side of the raker. “Now those are some trees. Take your average redwood and triple it across, that’s how big they are.”

Robert paused in his raking. “Is that by the Calaveras River?”

“Naw-up the Stanislaus River a ways,” the man replied.

“Up the Stanislaus? You mean down it, don’t you?”

“I mean what I said.”

“East up it? Not west?”

“Yup, east.”

“How far up the river?”

“Don’t know. Up into the hills.”

“But there aren’t redwoods up in the mountains. You only find them on the coast.”

The man shrugged.

Robert fixed him with his bright brown stare that he knew rattled people. “You actually seen them?”

Now the man frowned, annoyed to have his authority questioned. “Heard about ’em from somebody when I was in Sacramento.”

“The only trees I need to see are the dogwoods next to my daddy’s farm,” the raker interjected. “Them’s the prettiest trees you ever saw in the spring. I got me a pain jest thinkin’ ’bout ’em.”