Subscriber Only Resources
Access this article and hundreds more like it with a subscription to Action magazine.
CCSS
R.1, R.2, R.3, R.4, R.5, R.7, W.3, SL.1, L.5, L.6
The Golden Lie
The truth isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.
Illustration by Jeff Mangiat
photo credit: Yuri_Arcurs/Getty
photo credit: bauhaus100/Getty
photo credit: yongyuan/Getty
photo credit: IAN HOOTON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty
photo credit: Hero Images/Getty
PART 1
The worst thing about having a terrible secret is the stomachache it gives you.
“Josie!” my dad yelled from farther up the trail. “Come on!”
We were on our annual father-and-kids trip to Coloma, California. The drive is only two hours from our house in San Francisco, but it’s kind of like traveling to a different country. Out there, it’s just row after row of yellow hills.
Ongala/Shutterstock.com
As for Coloma, it looks like it’s straight out of a movie about the Wild West. There are small wooden stores, saloons, dusty streets. It feels like
Not that there are any shoot-outs in Coloma these days. It’s now part of a state park, with a museum. By mid-morning, we’d learned all about this guy named James Marshall. He found gold in Coloma in 1848. Now my dad was leading us on a hike. The trail ahead was steep. But that wasn’t why I was taking my time.
“Josephine!” he yelled again.
Forget what I said about the stomachache. The worst thing about having a terrible secret is knowing you are about to ruin your dad’s life.
PART 2
AVprophoto/Shutterstock.com (Gold); © Minnesota Historical Society/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images (Gold Rusher)
My terrible secret has to do with my great-great-grandfather, who died in 1914. We call him Triple G because great-great-grandfather is too long. So is Horatio Algernon Sherman, which was his name. He ran away from home as a teen to try to strike it rich in the Gold Rush.
Triple G was part of the Donner Party—a bunch of
But the Donner Party got stuck high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Winter snows came. Nearly half the pioneers starved or froze to death. Some ate the bodies of their dead friends to stay alive. Only the toughest—like Triple G—survived.
I’ve heard the stories about Triple G 70,000 times. How he walked in the snow for days. How he carried a sick child for miles. How he wrestled a mountain lion with his bare hands. To top it all off, Triple G found gold when he got to California. He became this totally rich miner.
It was my grandfather who first told my brother and me the stories of Triple G. Now the stories are my dad’s to tell, and he loves it. He shares the mountain lion story every Thanksgiving.
My dad always says that my brother and I get our bravery from Triple G. And if I’m honest, it’s hard not to think that our family is just a little special—thanks to him.
PART 3
Antonio Guillem/Shutterstock.com
So one day, my teacher asked us to write about someone from history. And of course Triple G was my obvious choice. I couldn’t wait to surprise my dad by finding a new story about him. But there was nothing about Triple G online. Nothing at all. So I rode my bike to the library and marched up to a librarian.
“Can I help you?” the librarian asked.
I told him about my project. He smiled as I talked about Triple G.
“Whoa. The Donner Party?” the librarian said. “I have just the thing for you: early issues of The Californian. It was the big newspaper from that time.” But then his smile turned to a frown. “It’s strange that you didn’t find anything online,” he said. “The members of the Donner Party are all well-known.”
The librarian was right. It was
“You know, most of the people who got rich from the Gold Rush didn’t do it by finding gold,” he said. “They got rich by selling things to miners. Hundreds of thousands of people came here from all over the world. They all needed to buy tools and supplies.”
He then showed me the old newspapers, and I got to work. A lot of the articles I looked at were about places where gold was found—places with names like Fiddletown and Humbug. There was an article about two miners getting into a fight in a saloon. There was even an interview with one of the survivors of the Donner Party. But there was no mention of a man named Horatio Algernon Sherman.
Hours passed. My head started to
om Till/Alamy Stock Photo
SHOPKEEPER TO OFFER CASH PRIZE IN SACK RACE
Mr. Horatio Algernon Sherman is to offer a prize of 5 dollars to this year’s July Fourth sack race winner. He’s a shopkeeper who came to Coloma from Iowa recently. He is well-known for his
vasara/Shutterstock.com
My heart sank. Three lines. That was it for Horatio Algernon Sherman. The article was dated June 26, 1849.
PART 4
I went to get the librarian. “This can’t be Triple G, right?” I asked.
“Where was your Triple G from?”
“Iowa,” I said.
“It’s hard to believe that there could have been two Horatio Algernon Shermans from Iowa in California at the exact same time,” the librarian said gently.
He had a point.
“And this guy couldn’t have come to California with the Donner Party,” said the librarian. “The article is dated 1849, and it says he had come recently. But the Donner Party set out in 1846.”
He had another good point.
Could it be that nothing we knew about Triple G was true? He wasn’t a hero. He was just some guy who’d opened a store and cared a lot about a stupid sack race. How could I write a paper based on a lie?
PART 5
Sonsedska Yuliia/Shutterstock.com (
When I caught up with my dad and brother, they were sipping water in the shade. “Dad, I have something to tell you,” I said.
And then I told him. About the newspaper. About the sack race. “Triple G wasn’t special, Dad,” I said quietly. “He was . . . ordinary.”
In that moment, my dad was staring at me like a raccoon caught in the beam of a flashlight. Then he looked down and started kicking at the dirt. “I know,” he said. “I figured it out at your age. But then Grandpa told you the same stories. I saw how much it meant to you that Triple G was a hero.”
“But you’re the one who cares so much!” I said.
“Look, I don’t care that Triple G never wrestled a lion,” he said. “I care that he believed in a bigger future for himself. He made the dangerous journey out west. And he did it so he could make a better life for himself, his children, his grandchildren . . .”
“His great-great-grandchildren,” my brother said.
“Exactly,” my dad said. “So he was a hero in his own way.”
“The newspaper did say he was generous,” I said.
And that’s when I realized it: I knew exactly what my paper was going to be about.
ACTIVITY:
Making an Inference
You’ve just read “The Golden Lie.” Now it’s time to try this activity.
Tip: An inference is something that is not stated but can be figured out from clues in the text.
What to do: Imagine that you are Josie. On the drive home from Coloma, you and your dad are still talking about Triple G. Your dad has some questions. Make inferences to answer each of his questions below with at least one complete sentence.
Why did you think hearing the truth about Triple G would upset me?
When you told me about Triple G, you said “He was . . . ordinary.” Why did you pause before saying “ordinary”?
Do you understand why I didn’t tell you the truth about Triple G?
How do you feel about Triple G now?
