Memories of Gold Read Online Free

inability to back down from a challenge. She was unable to do anything but take the bait. “Wait just a second, Mrs. Swenson,” Mary started, using Angelina’s title—which she only did in public or when she was trying to make a point as forcefully as possible—“I may be a little green when it comes to French, but you know that I’ll never give up just because something is tough. Hand it over.”
    Mary took the book and opened it to the first page, nervous that the text would be incomprehensible. To her surprise, however, she saw that most of the words were at least somewhat familiar to her. There were several she’d never seen, though, and was glad she had a French dictionary as well as her English one tucked away in the room she shared with Josie.
    “How about you read the first page aloud, so we can work on your pronunciation? You can use your dictionary to look up anything you don’t know later,” prompted Angelina.
    Mary spent a half hour arduously repeating word after word to practice her French accent—something she struggled with, but had gotten noticeably better at in the few months since they’d started incorporating it into her studies. She was finally garnering many fewer corrections and more exclamations of “ Charmant !” from Angelina. After that, it was another half hour of writing in both French and English, in which Angelina would dictate and Mary would write, trying to spell correctly and write in the beautiful nearly blotch-free script expected of a lady.
    Angelina praised Mary on her gains. “My dear, you’re about as perfect a writer as I expect to see in these parts, and that includes the teachers. I can picture you blending in with the educated ladies in New England without trouble, if you could just keep yourself from saying ‘ain’t’ so much.”
    Angelina tittered as Mary grimaced. She could speak properly if she paid close attention, but often reverted when she let her guard down; just one more holdover from her wild and free childhood around the panners.
    Mary thanked Angelina, paid her for her time, and went back to the saloon with her new book. In the room she and Josie shared, she carefully placed Les Miserables beside the French and English dictionaries, Jane Eyre, and the primary readers and various other texts she had purchased as her reading skills improved.
    Novels had to be special-ordered, were expensive, and often didn’t last long in the rough-and-tumble of California. Mary treasured each book she purchased, and handled every book Angelina lent her with care. Reading was akin to breathing, and every text held a special place in her heart.
    At first, she had wanted to learn to read because she hated seeing the squiggles above the doors and not understanding what they meant, and she thought it might be a handy skill. Once the world of novels had been opened to her, though, she found a love of literature that she never expected. She read anything and everything she could get her hands on, from the dime magazines full of serials to the giant volumes Mr. Carter secured for her at his store.
    Once her books were organized and tucked away, Mary pulled up the floorboard near her bed and took a small sack from the hidden space beneath. She poured out several small chunks of gold into her money purse and put the sack back, pushing down the board so it looked untouched. While she trusted the other girls in many ways, she was very careful to keep her hoard of gold secret.
    Then she went out once again, this time in the opposite direction.
    She stopped at another house, not much different from Mrs. Swenson’s, but bigger. She knocked and a plump kindly-faced woman in her thirties answered. The moment the door opened, the sounds of shouts, laughter, and running footsteps could be heard, and the woman smiled at Mary and shrugged her shoulders. “The children are feeling a bit wild today, if you cannot tell.”
    The woman laughed at her own joke and held the door wider so Mary