Pig in a Poke

by Robert Ray Moon

  After a good meal we prepared for bed and I was surprised that Cindy was unashamed and removed her clothes right before me and put her night gown on and hopped into bed.

  I was still standing there with her looking at me and she said, “Well come on.”

  I started removing my clothes with her staring at me till I couldn’t take it anymore and I blew out the light. The next night I had got beyond my reticence and left the lamp lit.

  She started to giggle and I had to laugh at myself. After three days we headed to San Francisco (some still called it Yerba Buena) and spent ten days enjoying the hills and the bay and of course each other.

  As I thought about this time I realized that never once did I think about whether she was a raving beauty as some of the publications described pretty women or not. The one thing I had to agree with her Pa was she was extremely shapely. And that made all the difference in the world.

  She went to a hair salon and they showed her how to fix her long hair and how to wear a bonnet for the best effect. I must admit she looked a lot better after several trips to different salons for women.

  After our time was up we packed up our purchases and returned to Sacramento for a night before heading home.

  Bartlett had sent an escort down to go with us for safety purposes. We didn’t have any trouble although we saw some men that could have been trouble if the heavily armed men hadn’t been with us.

  Bartlett was glad to see us; actually mostly it was Cindy he wanted to see.

  She started at the beginning and told him everything that had happened leaving out no detail and that embarrassed me again for she was shameless.

  I figured I must have done something right on the honeymoon for she wouldn’t leave me alone.

  I couldn’t get used to calling Bartlett, Pa so I continued to call him Bartlett.

  A few days later he said he had to go to San Francisco and that I would be in charge of the mining operation.

  He then added, “What I mean is Cindy will run things for she has pretty much done it since she was ten.” He continued saying, “If you do what she says you won’t have any trouble.”

  I told Cindy, “I didn’t exactly understand what Bartlett had told me,” and she said, “Honey you are in charge but I will help you if you need it.” She went on to say, “I will show you how everything runs around here and you will pick it up in no time.”

  I told her, “I will be glad for your help for yo Pa left everything of importance to me and that is a lot of responsibility.”

  Chapter 10 Charlie Going Home

  Over the next six months Bartlett made several trips to San Francisco and wouldn’t discuss the reason for doing it.

  The last two times when he came back he brought a couple of men with him. They went over the mine and into the shaft part way.

  Cindy said she didn’t know what was going on but had some ideas she didn’t want to discuss because she might be wrong.

  When I would ask her about things she would say, “Honey don’t you worry, I’ll take care of you and if I find out anything I will tell you.”

  With all that was going on the mine was producing well and our bank account was increasing.

  I had given my share of our claim to Charlie for I wasn’t working on it any more and I didn’t need the proceeds from it. He had struck a vein that produced a fair amount of gold until it played out. While it was still producing it just was not as much as it had been.

  I went down to see Charlie and he said he was selling out and leaving for home. He said he had plenty of money, enough to last him for life even after getting married. He had been writing to a young girl who had grown up since we left and was going to see if she wanted to get married to him.

  If she didn’t he said his Ma said there were several others who wanted to know when he would be back. I told him I would miss him for we had been together since we were born and we had always supported each other.

  He said that I was fixed up and it was time for us to go our way. He was leaving the next day with a small caravan for Sacramento and was sailing to the Panama Peninsula and trek across to the other side to catch a ship home.

  I wished him the best of luck getting home safe and finding a wife. I was sorry to see him go but he had to find a new life for himself.

  As for me I was happy just as things were, but things were going to change in a few days.

  With Charlie gone I felt a void and the feeling of loss would hit me every so often. This feeling grew less and less as time went by.

  We had been married for a year now and were just as much into each other as ever. Fact is she wouldn’t leave me alone and was with me most of the time. When Bartlett returned from one of his trips to San Francisco he announced that we were selling the mine.

  This opened up many questions in my mind wondering what we were going to do now. The next day the final papers were signed and I thought I should have been let in on what was going on before now.

  I found out another thing, and that was my ownership in the mine was by being married to Cindy. She had to sign the papers to sell the mine instead of me.

  I pouted about that for a few minutes until Cindy kissed me and made it better. She said, “What is mine is yours and so forth. Pa several years ago signed half of the mine over to me and we never changed it. When we became one it all became ours.”

  As usual she had a way of making everything right.

  After the signing off on the mine Bartlett said, “I have a surprise for you. We are in the shipping business. A man died who had ordered three ferry boats and I bought them from his widow at a very good price and they have just arrived.

  Along with the ferries there came dock space in Stockton and San Francisco. We are in the shipping business.”

  Chapter 11 Making Money on the Bay

  The news we were in the shipping business caused both Cindy and I to be speechless. We had no idea what was going on. Cindy said she was pretty sure he was going to sell the mine but she didn’t have a clue about this ferry business.

  Bartlett said we are going to be out of here in two weeks and will have an office in Stockton and San Francisco. There is a ware house at both offices one of which you will manage and I will handle the other.

  He said, “You and Cindy will run the Stockton office and I will handle the San Francisco business end. You must learn to move the goods in and out quickly. The reason I decided to do this was I have wanted to get Cindy out of this miner’s atmosphere for a long time. Now she is married and will be raising a family and I didn’t want them to be here as that happened.

  The company who bought the mine will do very well over time but will have to invest a lot of money to keep it going for the long run.”

  Packing up to leave was as expected a bigger job than we thought. The trip to Stockton is not an easy trip. There weren’t many wagons available so we gave away much we would like to have kept.

  In the middle of our move, Cindy wasn’t feeling well which worried me and I kept asking questions about how she felt till she finally came out with it.

  “I’m pregnant and that is the problem. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  I had to think about that for it wasn’t a word I was familiar with. I had heard; “I’m with child” and other such expressions but pregnant was new to me.

  I asked her to explain that to me. She said, “We are going to have a baby or at least I’m going to have one.”

  I had known women who were in that condition that worked in the fields and milked the cows and all the chores like washing and ironing and it didn’t seem like a big deal. But again I knew one or two who died in child birth and that thought scared me.

  She said, “I will be alright in a day or two it is just all the excitement about the change in our lives. This is all I have ever known since I was small.”

  The next day she said she began to feel better which made me feel
relieved about her making that long trip. In the end we took only the things that had some family history meaning and things that were necessary for setting up house keeping.

  The trip to Sacramento we had made many times but going to Stockton was new to us. It was only fifty miles by the birds to Stockton but due to the condition of the roads it took us three and a half long days to get there.

  We had three wagons loads of things we valued and we unloaded them in the warehouse until we found a house to live in. Our goods fit in a small corner of the stockroom for it was huge.

  Once we arrived, we had to get settled quickly for the ferries were due in a few days.

  Bartlett managed to find a Captain and crew for each of them. Seemed most of them had tried their luck in the gold fields but had to give it up and go back to what they knew best.

  Cindy had hired dock hands to unload the ferries and move the goods to the warehouse where people would come and pick up their merchandise they had ordered.

  The ferries had six state rooms as well as Captain’s quarters. While the main business was hauling freight it was necessary to have room for passengers at times.

  It took a full day to make the trip each way. The ferries had a shallow draft which was great for the rivers but a little unstable on the bay in inclement weather. Still the weather had to be very bad to cause a cancellation of a scheduled trip.

  It took a couple of trips for us to get everything under control. While there were expected problems we got through them, and as time went by we eliminated almost all of the difficulties.

  Our Captains were all seasoned pilots and the crews were top hands. What’s more important was they needed jobs which made them give more attention to their duties and to show up on time.

  I knew very little about the shipping business so I made several trips to San Francisco and back while getting to know the ferries as well as the crews.

  I didn’t want to cause extra problems but I made a few suggestions to the Captains which they either implemented or explained why it was impractical. All in all we got along well for I knew when to back off before tension set in.

  After a dozen or so trips I had a good understanding of what the Captains faced and how I could help them do their job.

  All the while Cindy was controlling the distribution of the goods we handled. We got some wagons and teamsters to deliver supplies the merchants couldn’t pick up without a great deal of trouble.

  After a couple of months things were running as smoothly as you could hope for and it was a good thing because Cindy was about to have our first child.

  I was pretty nervous about the whole thing, much more than Cindy was. Her shapely figure had long disappeared and was replaced with extra weight and a large tummy. When she tried to snuggle next to me she could only get within arms length unless she turned her back to me.

  As the day approached we talked about a name depending on whether it was a boy or girl.

  We finally settled on Julie for a girl and Samuel for a boy. One night she woke me and said it is time. I went to get the doctor and he brought his wife along in case she was needed.

  After daylight I heard a loud squall and I knew someone had arrived. The doctor’s wife came out and said, “You have a boy child.” By this time this whole thing seemed unreal and I was in a state of shock. The doctor said, “Cindy is fine you can go in and see her for a little while.”

  The first thing she said was, “Did you meet Samuel?”

  I said, “No not yet.” About that time the doctor’s wife brought him in after cleaning him up. She said, “I think he is hungry.”

  Chapter 12 Who Needs Sleep?

  Cindy said, “How are you? You look a little pale.”

  I said, “I’m fine just a little tired and sleepy but that isn’t important, how are you doing?”

  The doctor spoke up and said, “She is fine. Everything went well and she could have a dozen of these little guys.”

  I said, “I think I would settle for a half dozen or so.”

  He said, “Cindy needs some rest. She should see if the boy will nurse, and then get some rest.

  My wife will stay here as long as needed. The first thing she needs to do is fix some breakfast for us.

  The doctor’s wife had put Samuel in the cradle one of our workmen made for him and he was asleep with his thumb in his mouth.

  It was hard to keep Cindy in bed for she was restless and kept going to see how Sammie was doing. Her favorite time was feeding him.

  Sammie was becoming aware of things around him and making some unintelligible sounds. I was kept busy handling the receiving and dispersing goods the ferries brought in.

  After Sammie was a month old Cindy setup a crib for him in the office warehouse. She wanted to get back to helping me keep everything in order.

  We were training one of the men to receive goods and do the paper work. This would relieve us from a lot of the paper work.

  Cindy nursed Sammie and I told her to cover herself up when doing so, for too many of the guys were interested in watching her feed Sammie.

  She didn’t think it was out of line to feed him when he was hungry and I agreed with her but with her breast size I still insisted she find a little privacy.

  Sammie was a good size boy and was hungry all the time. Cindy hired a woman to keep house and do the washing. Most of her time was washing Sammie’s diapers.

  He began to try to stand at around six months and by eight months he could pull himself up and take a step or two.

  He loved to ride on the ferry. Cindy went to San Francisco once a week to see Bartlett and let him see Sammie. He was as taken with him as Cindy was and tried to spoil him.

  When they were gone overnight I could hardly sleep without Cindy taking the middle of the bed and Sammie waking up every couple of hours wanting to eat.

  Cindy at times was too tired to stay up so she would bring Sammie to our bed where he only takes two or three sucks and goes back to sleep. Such is fatherhood, I guess.

  Time slips by and the first thing I knew Sammie was three years old. He was walking and talking using his reasoning powers to explain life to us or his version of it anyhow.

  Not everything goes as well as we would like it to in shipping as in other endeavors. Even though our ships are nearly new hitting a sand bank caused by shifting currents and storms can cause much damage.

  So far the damage has been repairable still losing a ship for a time can create delivery problems. Extra runs for the remaining ferries puts stress on both equipment and crews. Fortunately we found an older ferry in Washington that was for sale and bought it.

  We had to take our time sailing it to our home base for the weather was not always predictable. This caused us to duck into some harbors at times until the weather calmed down.

  Eventually we got it to San Francisco and had it worked on. After checking it out it wasn’t in as bad shape as we thought. Most of the repairs were more of the maintenance type.

  We decided to dock it at San Francisco due to the fact that most all of our cargo originated from there.

  Now we had a backup in case of a problem with our regular ferries. Bartlett came up with the idea of renting out the state rooms when we weren’t using it for shipping purposes.

  Some of the men living there were sailors and when we used it for hauling the over flow of merchandise we only had to get a couple of deck hands.

  When Sammie first saw it he said he wanted to rename it Frisco Queen. I told him that would be a problem because it would have to be reregistered.

  He was insistent so as usual we let him have his way.

  Chapter 13 Sammie the Sailor Man

  Sammie went weekly to see his grandfather with his mother if the weather was favorable. We wouldn’t carry passengers if the weather was bad.

  When Sammie had to start school this year and it messed up his visits. We ran the f
erries seven days a week except time off for maintenance so Sammie begged his mother to make their visits on the weekend.

  He spent most of his time in the wheel house. Captain Jack got him a box to stand on so he could see where they were going.

  He would stand for hours with his hand on the Helm while Captain Jack or the mate did the actual steering.

  Captain Jack lived on the ferry with his wife and they were both very fond of Sammie. He started calling them Uncle Jack and Auntie Dell. Her name was Adele but she was Dell to him.

  I tried to get him to call Captain Jack by his position but he wouldn’t, it was always Uncle Jack and Auntie Dell.

  Then he started to go down to the engine room and spend time with the Chief Engineer. He almost had more questions than the Chief had answers. He wanted to know everything about the ferry and what made it go.