Mrs. Anderson had good reason to fear that her daughter was in love with
a "Dutchman," as she phrased it in her contempt. The few Germans who had
penetrated to the West at that time were looked upon with hardly more
favor than the Californians feel for the almond-eyed Chinaman. They were
foreigners, who would talk gibberish instead of the plain English which
everybody could understand, and they were not yet civilized enough to
like the yellow saleratus-biscuit and the "salt-rising" bread of which
their neighbors were so fond. Reason enough to hate them!

Only half an hour before this outburst of Mrs. Anderson's, she had set a
trap for her daughter Julia, and had fairly caught her.

"Jule! Jule! O Jul-y-e-ee!" she had called.

And Julia, who was down in the garden hoeing a bed in which she meant to
plant some "Johnny-Jump-ups," came quickly toward the house, though she
know it would be of no use to come quickly. Let her come quickly, or let
her come slowly, the rebuke was sure to greet her all the name.

"Why don't you come when you're called, _I'd_ like to know! You're never
in reach when you're wanted, and you're good for nothing when you
are here!"

Julia Anderson's earliest lesson from her mother's lips had been that
she was good for nothing. And every day and almost every hour since had
brought her repeated assurances that she was good for nothing. If she
had not been good for a great deal, she would long since have been good
for nothing as the result of such teaching. But though this was not the
first, nor the thousandth, nor the ten thousandth time that she had
been told that she was good for nothing, the accustomed insult seemed to