They always met
with more generous relief from the private hands of the brothers
themselves, and the remark, "that the ol' man was trying to set an
example,--that he meant well,"--and that they would yet be thankful
for his zealous care and economy. A few, I think, suffered in
noble silence, rather than bring the old man's infirmity to the
public notice.
And so with this honor of Daddy and Mammy, the days of the miners
were long and profitable in the land of the foot-hills. The mines
yielded their abundance, the winters were singularly open and yet
there was no drouth nor lack of water, and peace and plenty smiled
on the Sierrean foothills, from their highest sunny upland to the
trailing falda of wild oats and poppies. If a certain superstition
got abroad among the other camps, connecting the fortunes of Rough-
and-Ready with Daddy and Mammy, it was a gentle, harmless fancy,
and was not, I think, altogether rejected by the old people. A
certain large, patriarchal, bountiful manner, of late visible in
Daddy, and the increase of much white hair and beard, kept up the
poetic illusion, while Mammy, day by day, grew more and more like
somebody's fairy godmother.
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