The big vulgar shop-keeper and trader,
Fitch, is long since dead; Tom Wrightington, who kept the rival
pulperia, fell from his horse when drunk, and was found nearly
eaten up by coyotes; and I can scarce find a person whom I
remember. I went into a familiar one-story adobe house, with its
piazza and earthen floor, inhabited by a respectable lower-class
family by the name of Machado, and inquired if any of the family
remained, when a bright-eyed middle-aged woman recognized me, for
she had heard I was on board the steamer, and told me she had
married a shipmate of mine, Jack Stewart, who went out as second
mate the next voyage, but left the ship and married and settled
here. She said he wished very much to see me. In a few minutes he
came in, and his sincere pleasure in meeting me was extremely
grateful. We talked over old times as long as I could afford to. I
was glad to hear that he was sober and doing well. Dona Tomasa
Pico I found and talked with. She was the only person of the old
upper class that remained on the spot, if I rightly recollect. I
found an American family here, with whom I dined,-- Doyle and his
wife, nice young people, Doyle agent for the great line of coaches
to run to the frontier of the old States.
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