I think that the few who were permitted to know and love the object of this sketch spent
the rest of their days not only in an attitude of apology for having at first failed to
recognize her higher nature, but of remorse that they should have ever lent a credulous
ear to a priori tradition concerning her family characteristics. She had not escaped that
calumny which she shared with the rest of her sex for those youthful follies, levities, and
indiscretions which belong to immaturity. It is very probable that the firmness that
distinguished her maturer will in youth might have been taken for obstinacy, that her nice
discrimination might at the same period have been taken for adolescent caprice, and that
the positive expression of her quick intellect might have been thought youthful
impertinence before her years had won respect for her judgment.
She was foaled at Indian Creek, and one month later, when she was brought over to
Sawyer's Bar, was considered the smallest donkey ever seen in the foot-hills. The legend
that she was brought over in one of "Dan the Quartz Crusher's" boots required
corroboration from that gentleman; but his denial being evidently based upon a masculine
vanity regarding the size of his foot rather than a desire to be historically accurate, it went
for nothing. It is certain that for the next two months she occupied the cabin of Dan, until,
perhaps incensed at this and other scandals, she one night made her way out. "I hadn't the
least idee wot woz comin'," said Dan, "but about midnight I seemed to hear hail onto the
roof, and a shower of rocks and stones like to a blast started in the canyon. When I got up
and struck a light, thar was suthin' like onto a cord o' kindlin' wood and splinters whar
she'd stood asleep, and a hole in the side o' the shanty, and--no Jinny! Lookin' at them
hoofs o' hern--and mighty porty they is to look at, too--you would allow she could do it!"
I fear that this performance laid the foundation of her later infelicitous reputation, and
perhaps awakened in her youthful breast a misplaced ambition, and an emulation which
might at that time have been diverted into a nobler channel. For the fame of this juvenile
performance--and its possible promise in the future--brought at once upon her the
dangerous flattery and attention of the whole camp. Under intelligently directed
provocation she would repeat her misguided exercise, until most of the scanty furniture of
the cabin was reduced to a hopeless wreck, and sprains and callosities were developed
upon the limbs of her admirers. Yet even at this early stage of her history, that penetrating
intellect which was in after years her dominant quality was evident to all. She could not
be made to kick at quartz tailings, at a barrel of Boston crackers, or at the head or shin of
"Nigger Pete." An artistic discrimination economized her surplus energy. "Ef you'll
notiss," said Dan, with a large parental softness, "she never lets herself out to onst like
them mules or any jackass ez I've heerd of, but kinder holds herself in, and, so to speak,
takes her bearings--sorter feels round gently with that off foot, takes her distance and her
rest, and then with that ar' foot hoverin' round in the air softly, like an angel's wing, and a
gentle, dreamy kind o' look in them eyes, she lites out! Don't ye, Jinny? Thar! jist ez I
told ye," continued Dan, with an artist's noble forgetfulness of self, as he slowly crawled
from the splintered ruin of the barrel on which he had been sitting. "Thur! did ye ever see
the like! Did ye dream that all the while I was talkin' she was a meditatin' that?"
