Page:Nye's History of the USA.djvu/236

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
232
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.

that. Possibly you take me for a dromedary; but you are wrong. I am a fat man, and may die suddenly some day while lacing up my shoes, but when I go anywhere I ride."

When he got to Sacramento, where gold was said to be so plentiful, he was glad to wash dishes for his board, and he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into the fields for to feed swine, and he would fain have filled his system with the California peaches which the swine did eat, and he began to be in want, and no man gave unto him, and if he had spent his substance in riotous living, he said, it would have been different.

About thirty years after that he arose and went unto his father, and carried his dinner with him, also a government bond and a new suit of raiment for the old gentleman.

I do not know what we should learn from this.