3 Gold

Three months later Bo-Bo shook the water from her fur. She bounded up the bank of the stream with a rock in her mouth. She brought it to Uncle Gwan. He sat on a rickety wooden stool with his leg stretched out. He had broken it months ago and it hadn’t healed well. Bo-Bo set down the rock and then ran back into the stream for more. She knew that sometimes there were bits of gold in the bigger rocks.

Sheng and his father stood in the water. They both held shallow, wide metal pans in their hands. They scooped rocks and mud from the bottom of the stream with the pans. They sloshed them around and around. The gravel and mud washed over the side with the water. The heavier rocks stayed at the bottom. If Sheng and Father were lucky, some of those rocks would be gold. Over and over they scooped and swished, scooped and swished.

Gold. It was why thousands and thousands of people had come to California. Acorn, who had lived with a miner once, had told Bo-Bo all about it. A man named James Marshall had found gold at Mr. Sutter’s mill. The news had flown across the land like hungry birds. People from all over the country left their homes to come to California to get rich.