Spades [pp. 183-190]

SPADES.
SPADES.
F the annals of the mining regions
of California should ever be written, the reader would be surprised to
find how great is the number of towns
which once had a beginning, and a brief
period of glory, followed by utter decay.
Their sites are now desolate and bare,
and nothing is left to indicate that they
were once centres of population. Of
this class was Snedaker's. Snedaker's
Flat was the original chistening, not
because the site was level, but because
every place was supposed to be either
a bar, city, or flat. As it was not on a
river, Snedaker's Bar was not available,
and the pioneers who located the place
were too modest to be guilty of the glaring assumption of calling it a city: hence
there was but the alternative of Flat. It
was called Snedaker's, after the first pioneer in this mining-camp. In the process of time the tail of this cognomen
dropped off (like those of our ancestors, generations ago), leaving simply the
possessive case of Snedaker as an appellation. As its rich placers developed, its fame spread abroad, and it became equally celebrated for its reckless
gambling, lavish generosity, sluice-robbing, chivalrous devotion to women, and
deeds of violence. After four years of
prosperity, its greatness culminated, and
then there happened the event which has
passed into history as "the Ball at Snedaker's."
Madam Perron, in the early fall, had
left the unappreciative city of San Francisco for what mfght be termed a Terpsichorean prospecting tour in the mountains. A new era then dawned upon
that crude Sierra society, and there was
a glad awakening from the lethargy of
uncivilization. At that time, lectures and
concerts were there unknown, drinking
and card-playing being the chief amusements. Fair-haired hurdy-gurdies (dancing-girls, so called) from the Fatherland
made occasional visits-brief, but delightful; and when the news went abroad
that Madam Perron, with the assistance
of her daughter Paulina (which had been
abbreviated to Polly), were about to inaugurate a circle of dancing- schools, it
was greeted with joy. So universal was
the approval and support of the project
by the miners, that when Steve Parsons
growled out a rather ungracious opinion,
he was looked upon as entirely beneath
the refining influence of the saltatory art
and of lovely woman.
Madam Perron, with an enthusiasm
for her profession which the prospect of
a golden harvest had aroused in her,
went from camp to camp, organized
schools and hired halls, purposing to
teach six classes in as many places, and
to give to each one evening of every
week.
She was not only ambitious, but clever. It was easy enough to organize a
dancing-school of gentlemen, even at
$50 each for the term; but to a complete
success a fair attendance of the respectable feminine element was necessary,
and every one knows that the respectable feminine element is a great coward
about every thing new, excepting new
fashions. New ideas, new projects, new
people, alike are denied recognition while
awaiting the verdict of Mrs. Grundy, or
waiting to be measured by the old and
tried standard set up by our predecessors
for the guidance of a weak and undiscriminating sisterhood. Though Madam Perron came with a fair fame, the
keen-scented detective abiding in the
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