The Ballad of Lucy Whipple Read Online Free PDF Page A

planned to stay in California after they made their fortunes, so there was no planting of crops, raising of cattle or pigs, or building of anything but the crudest temporary shelter. They just wanted to get rich, get out, and get home.
    Some were lucky, most were not. The work was hard and full of danger. Some died before ever putting pick to dirt, worn out by the long months of crossing the country, living on salt beef and stale biscuits. Jimmy Whiskers said those who stayed on were more greedy, more needy, more stubborn, or more hopeful than the rest or, like him, just had nowhere else to go.
    Tramping out to the goldfields every Tuesday and Saturday made Butte vulnerable to a bad case of gold fever. He started spending more and more time out at the diggings, even when he didn't have pies to sell, and at home he could only think gold and talk gold.
    "Listen, California..." he said one day.
    "Call me Lucy, will you?"
    "Why'd I want to do that?"
    "Because I want it to be my name."
    "Lucy? Makes you sound like some dainty showoff from the city. Lucy Belle. Lucy May. Lucy dearest." He snickered.
    "Never mind. What do you want?"
    "Want out of the pie business. Between working with the miners and cleaning up for Mr. Scatter, there's no time for pies."
    "You can't just quit. You're a partner," I grumbled. "You can't. I barely have time to make the pies; I'd never finish all my work around here if I had to sell, too. I'll give you an extra five percent."
    "No matter. I give it all to Mama anyway."
    So Butte quit, leaving me to try to keep the business going all by myself. Mama grumbled about having to do without Butte's profits, but she was the first one to understand itchy feet, so she let him have his adventure. He went out early every day but Sunday, when Mama made him stay home and take a bath. Otherwise he spent his mornings working for Mr. Scatter, sweeping, stacking boxes, emptying spittoons, and shoveling the mule droppings away from the saloon door. His days went to digging holes and carrying water and tending mules for the men who shoveled tons of dirt and gravel into the long cradles, hoping there were chunks of gold that would get caught in the riffles in the bottom and make their fortunes. He picked up tools, patched up cuts and bruises, and learned to fight. He was paid with bits of dust when his miners got lucky and a pat on the back when they didn't. Mostly he just came home with sore cirrus and a story to tell.
    "Heard tell of a prospector out Coyote Gulch who decided to turn tail and go home, his partner dying on him and no luck washing for color. So he burns his gear, digs a grave for his partner, and there in the hole turns up the biggest nugget ever seen in these parts. Living now in San Francisco, lightin' his cigars with dollar bills, not likely ever to go home. Seems to me there's no point in workin' steady if, with a little luck and a sharp pick, you can find fortunes lyin' on the ground."
    He took to swaggering and spitting and asking me every day if he had started a beard yet. He made the mistake of spitting where Mama could see him, and she frowned mightily. I wondered how much longer he'd be working in the diggings.
    Butte slept soundly each night, worn out from being a little boy doing a man's job. Sometimes when I was up late into the night baking pies, I watched him sleep, his eyelashes making half-circles on his cheeks and his breath whistling in the silence of the night, and tried to figure out just how I felt about him, he vexed me so. It was a long time before I knew.

CHAPTER SIX
A UTUMN /W INTER 1849-1850
In which I try to tell Mama my name, write letters,

and threaten to sigh myself to death
     
    I finally got up the courage to approach Mama about this Lucy matter. "Mama, can I ask you something?"
    "Depends on what," said Mama as she poured molasses and mustard powder into the pot of beans.
    "Will you ... umm..." I didn't quite know how to make Mama see that this was important to me and not