The old Jewish law of every seven years forgiving each man his debt was an age in advance of our laws of to-day; and, if any means could be devised by which every seven years to forgive all men their offences, and let them begin life anew all together, an even start, it would be better still. How the work did pour in upon this first woman in this wild Eden set with thorns and with thistles! There were not many clothes in the Forks that were worth washing, but the few pieces that were presentable came almost every day to the door of the Widow to be taken in by the little hand that ever opened to the knock of the miners' knuckles on the door, and reached through the partly opened place, and drew back timidly and with scarce a word. No man had yet entered her cabin. The wise little woman! If one man had been so favored, without good and sufficient reason, then jealousy, unless others had been allowed to enter also, would have made a funeral, and very soon, too, with that one favored man the central figure. No man had entered that cabin; but a boy had, and oftentime too. In fact from the first little Billie Piper, whose cabin, as I have said, stood hard by, seemed to be as much at home and as much in place with the Widow as he was out of place with the men. The friendship here made him enemies elsewhere. Such is human nature. CHAPTER V. WASHEE--WASHEE. Two days after the Widow had arrived, Washee-Washee, as the "boys" had named him, stood out on the steps of his cabin all the afternoon, looking up the Forks and down the Forks, and wondering what in the world was the reason the "boys" did not come creaking along and screeching their great gum boots together, with their extra shirt for wash wadded down in one of the spacious legs. Three days after the Widow had arrived she had absorbed all the business. Four days after she had arrived, she absorbed Washee-Washee. And now it was the brown hand of little moon-eyed Washee-Washee that reached through the door, took the clothes, and handed them out again, or at least such portions as he chose to hand out, to the bearded giants standing there, patiently waiting at the door of the Widow's cabin. The face of the Widow was now almost entirely invisible. It was as if there was no sun at the Forks, and all the sky was in a perpetual eclipse of clouds. Soon there was trouble. Clothes began to disappear. One bearded sovereign, a gallant man, who refused to complain because there was a woman in the case, was observed to wear his coat buttoned very closely up to his chin; and that too in midday in Summer. This good man had at first lost only his extra shirt. He did not complain. He simply went to bed on Sunday, sent his shirt early to the wash, expecting to rise in the afternoon, "dress," and go to town. A week went by. The man could not stay in bed till the day of judgment, so he rose up, buttoned up to the throat, and went down to buy another supply.