I
shall will my proputty away from her. I've made up my mind, Jake: an'
now le's talk about the Speak. Our plans was never better laid.
Celebrate, tell Jake how we make our money a-goin', and you, Surrager,
denote to him your machine f'r gittin' out the gold."
I was too absorbed in thinking about Rowena to take in what Surajah and
Celebrate said. I have a dim recollection that Celebrate's plan for
making money was to fill the wagon box with white beans which were
scarce in Denver City, as we then called Denver, and could be sold for
big money when they got there. I have no remembrance of Surajah Dowlah's
plan for mining. I declined to go with them, and they went away toward
Monterey Centre, saying that they would stay there a few days, "to kind
of recuperate up," and they hoped I would join them. What about Rowena?
They had been so mysterious about her, that I had a new subject of
thought now, and, for I was very fond of the poor girl, of anxiety. Not
that she would be the worse for losing her family. In fact, she would be
the better for it, one might think. Her older brothers and sisters, I
remembered, had been bound out back east, and this seemed to show a lack
of family affection; but the tremor in Ma Fewkes's voice, and the
agitation in which Old Man Fewkes had delivered what in books would be
his parental curse, led me to think that they were in deep trouble on
account of their breach with Rowena. Poor girl! After all, they were her
parents and brothers, and as long as she was with them, she had not been
quite alone in the world.
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