Chapter 1
The Best Dog
A cold, wet nose jerked Jem Coulter
awake.
Jem sat up and threw back his covers.
“Nugget! How did you sneak in here?”
He looked around. Mama did not want their
new dog inside the tent.
Not even if Nugget stayed clean. Not
even if Jem’s little sister, Ellie, asked a hundred times.
No sirree! Mama always shooed the dog
outside.
Jem got dressed in a hurry. “Come on,”
he said. “Before Mama sees you.”
Nugget’s golden tail swished back and
forth. He followed Jem through the tent flap and into the April sunshine.
Mama was sliding a pie into her big, black
cookstove. Smoke puffed out of the stovepipe. Bowls of dried blueberries sat on
the work table.
Mama baked pies every Saturday. All the
miners loved her pies.
So did the café owners, and everybody
else in Goldtown.
Mama slipped two more pies in the oven.
She shut the heavy iron door.
Then she turned around and put her
hands on her hips. “How many times have I told you to keep that dog out of the
tent?”
Jem eyebrows went up. How did she know
Nugget had sneaked inside?
“He woke me up,” Jem explained. “He
must have pushed open the tent flap.”
“I think he had help.” Mama smiled. “I
saw your sister run off to the creek a minute ago.”
Jem laughed. Leave it to Ellie to think
of a way to wake him up.
He hugged Nugget. “You are the best dog.
Even if Mama doesn’t like to feed you.”
Every day, Mama watched to make sure Jem
didn’t share his food with the fast-growing dog. She frowned when Nugget ate
supper leftovers.
“The chickens should get those,” she always
said when Pa scraped the plates.
“They don’t need Nugget’s scraps,” Pa told
her. “They can eat grain and leftover mush.”
Hurrah for Pa!
But even after three weeks of eating
table scraps, Jem could still feel Nugget’s sharp ribs.
After breakfast, Jem dumped a scoop of
grain in the chicken coop. The rooster and five hens squawked and jumped out of
the way.
Then they scratched the dirt to find
every bit of food.
Jem grabbed his gold-mining pan and
headed for his very own gold claim next to Cripple Creek.
He waved to Pa, who stood with their
miner friend Strike-it-rich Sam.
Pa waved back. Then he grabbed the
handle of a long wooden box and rocked it back and forth.
Strike dumped a bucket of dirt, water,
and gravel into a big square hole on top.
The rocker box was supposed to make it
easier to find gold.
So far, it hadn’t worked very well.
Jem squatted next to the creek. He
scooped three handfuls of sand and dirt into his pan. “I have to wash some gold
today. I just have to!”
He wanted to buy meat scraps for
Nugget. A young dog needed meat to grow.
Ellie sat down next to Jem. “Who are
you talking to?” She held a beat-up pie pan in her lap—her gold pan.
“Just thinking out loud,” Jem said.
“What about?”
Jem let out a big breath. A little sister
could sure be a bother.
Especially when she asked questions all
the time.
“Can’t a miner pan for gold in peace?” he
said.
Ellie didn’t answer.
Instead, she watched Jem swirl his pan.
She didn’t pick up even one speck of dirt from her brother’s gold claim.
Ellie knew the gold-camp rules.
Rule
one and rule two went together. Stay on your own gold claim. Pan your own
gold.
But there was no rule about keeping
quiet.
“You didn’t hit color last Saturday,”
Ellie said. “Or the Saturday before that.”
“So what?”
“Maybe the gold’s all gone.”
“Roasted rattlesnakes, Ellie! Don’t say
that!”
Jem’s heart thumped. No gold? Nugget
would starve.
So would the Coulter family.
The miners would move away to look for new
diggings. Nobody would buy Mama’s pies.
“You’re good at panning gold,” Ellie
said. “Why else can’t you find any?”
Good question.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just unlucky,
like No-luck Casey.”
Casey couldn’t find gold, no matter how
hard he tried.
If he dug a coyote hole, he fell in and
broke his leg. If the miner went prospecting, he got lost for days.
“That’s me, No-luck Jem.” He sighed.
“You can’t use Casey’s nickname,” Ellie
said. “He had it first.”
Jem rolled his eyes. Be quiet, Ellie, he thought.
But he didn’t say those words out loud.
Mama would not like it if he snapped at his sister.
“If I can’t find any gold,” Jem said, “I’ll
think of a different way to buy meat scraps for Nugget.”
Ellie wrinkled her eyebrows. “How?”
Jem shrugged. Then he got an idea.
An excellent idea.
“I’m going to find a job.”
Chapter 2
A Job for Jem
All the way into Goldtown that
afternoon, Jem thought about a job.
A job meant steady money. The gold he
did find could stay in his pouch.
A job meant meat for Nugget. The
butcher would save scraps and bones for Jem.
Tingles raced up and down his arms. I’m big enough to find a job.
Jem tugged on the wagon handle. “I know
how to work,” he said. “I have a job right now. I deliver pies for Mama.”
“We
deliver pies for Mama,” Ellie said. “I keep the wagon from tipping over.”
“I know.” Jem pulled harder. “But
you’re slow as molasses.”
Ellie hung on to the wagon’s sides and
walked faster.
Jem liked selling pies to the miners.
He liked watching Mama’s pouch grow lumpy with gold dust and gold nuggets.
Jem also liked seeing that mean rich
boy, Will Sterling, run away from him.
Every Saturday, their new dog went to
town with Jem and Ellie. Thanks to Nugget, mean Will stayed far away from their
pie wagon.
Nugget didn’t like Will. Not one bit. He
growled at him every time.
Jem grinned. Thank you, God, for Nugget.
He was the best dog in all of
California.
“What kind of job are you going to find?”
Ellie asked.
Jem stopped thinking about Nugget. “I
can do a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
Jem had thought about jobs when he was
panning for gold this morning. It was easy to wash gold and think at the same
time.
Especially if no gold washed into his
pan.
“I can run errands for the miners,” he
said. “I can fetch their coffee.”
Ellie laughed. “Casey and Pearly Teeth
and Strike fetch their own coffee.”
Jem made a face. Ellie was right about
that.
“Sweeping’s a good job for a boy,” he
went on. “It’s easy.”
“What would you sweep?”
Jem huffed and didn’t answer. Why did
Ellie ask so many questions?
“I’m big enough to chop wood, too.” He
paused. “Maybe.”
Pa let Jem split wood sometimes. But
the ax was heavy.
Ellie shook her head. “You don’t want
to chop your fingers or toes off.”
Jem wiggled his fingers. No, he might
not be ready to split wood, after all.
He pointed to the biggest canvas tent
in Goldtown. “I might ask Mr. Tobias if I can run errands.”
It was a noisy place. Men were always
going in and out of that big tent.
Ellie gasped. “You can’t run errands for
a saloon.”
“I can too.”
“Pa and Mama would skin you alive.”
Jem scowled at Ellie, but she was
right. He did not want Pa or Mama to scold him.
A saloon was not a nice place.
Jem pulled the wagon to a stop in front
of another large tent. Mama’s last two pies were for Mr. Sims, the café owner.
“Mr. Sims!” Jem called.
There was no answer.
Jem picked up a blueberry pie. “Get the
other one,” he told Ellie.
If Mr. Sims was too busy to come
outside, Jem and Ellie would go inside.
“Stay, Nugget,” Jem said.
The golden dog flopped to the ground
next to the wagon. His tail thumped the muddy ground.
“Good dog.” Jem ducked through the doorway.
It was dark and smoky inside the café. Two
oil lamps hung from the tent’s canvas ceiling.
The smell of beef stew, biscuits, and
beans made Jem’s belly rumble. Mmm!
A lot of miners sat around the wooden
tables. They laughed and talked and ate.
That part didn’t smell as nice. Miners
did not take baths very often.
When the men saw Jem and Ellie, they
clapped and whooped.
“Fresh pies from the Coulter kids,”
No-luck Casey yelled. “I call the first slice.”
How would Casey pay for a piece of pie?
He never found any gold.
“Second piece!” another man shouted.
A young miner with curly hair helped
himself to Ellie’s pie. “I’ll buy the whole pie.”
“No!” Ellie shouted.
Mr. Sims came to the rescue. “Don’t
tease the kids, Jesse. Wait your turn.”
The café owner took Ellie’s pie. Then
he took Jem’s pie. He set them both down on the countertop.
He poured gold dust into Mama’s pouch. “Your
ma’s pies are always a hit with my customers.”
“Mr. Sims?” Jem’s heart pounded.
It was now or never. “Do you need a boy
to sweep up?”
Mr. Sims chuckled. “Look at the floor,
Jem.”
Jem glanced down. His face grew hot.
The café floor was dirt.
“I guess not.” Jem sighed.
“You lookin’ for a job?” Mr. Sims
asked.
Jem’s head popped up. “Yes, sir.”
Mr. Sims crossed his arms over his
chest. “You any good at catchin’ those big bullfrogs?”
“I think so.” Jem played at Bullfrog
Pond when he didn’t feel like panning for gold.
“Good.” The café owner smiled. “I want
to add frog legs to my menu.”
He smacked his lips. “There’s nothin’
like fresh-caught, pan-fried frog legs. I’ll pay you five cents a frog.”
Jem’s eyes opened wide. Five cents a frog? “Yes, sir!”
Jem made a promise to himself right
then. He would become the best frog catcher in Goldtown.
Maybe in all the other California gold camps,
too.
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