Douglas Amanda M.
A Little Girl in Old San Francisco

CHAPTER II
OLD SAN FRANCISCO

Was it any wonder the old explorers missed the narrow outlet from the great bay when the hills from the farther shore cast a great gloomy shadow, and dreary rocks flanked the shore, inhabited by cormorants and auks and gulls, screaming out their discordant music? What if the tide did run out sweeping like a torrent – were they going to breast the danger back of it? Was the great rocky point worth their consideration? In the islands off the shore seals and sea lions had it all their own way and basked and frolicked in the sunshine.

It had changed then, in the early fifties, but half a century has almost forgotten the bareness of it then. And yet it was magnificent in the October sunset as the old ship made its way, puffing from the strains of its long journey. They had nearly all huddled on deck to view their land of promise. There are few enthusiastic emigrants now, everything is viewed with commercial eyes. Afar to the westward stretched the magnificent ocean, a sheet of billowy ranges tipped with molten gold, changing to a hundred iridescent tints and throwing up the gold again in prodigal fashion, sweeping it over to foreign seas. And, on the other hand, the mile-wide gap, the gateway to the wonderful land, tranquil enough now, with frowning rocks like the cave of Scylla on the one hand, that was to be transformed into a wonderful city. They are piloted through to the great magnificent bay that seems endless at the first glance of its seventy miles. Northward long lines of rolling hills, purple and blue and black, with glints of the setting sun fighting the shadows like some strange old gods with their fire-tipped arrows. At the south it fades into misty dreamland. Red Rock stands up defiant. And so they look at their new country and then at each other. There is shipping at the rude wharves, and they find a place to anchor, but it is too late to look for a home and so they make themselves content. But if they thought they were coming to great space, and semi-loneliness they were mistaken and confused by the noise and tumult, the crowds, the bustle of business, the people of all countries it seemed.

"Why, I had no idea," the women said to one another. "The place must be overcrowded."

What chance was there then for women who had come to seek their fortunes?

They soon found that San Francisco was the stopping place of nearly every nation, and yet there was room for more, and work for those willing to do it.

Mr. Dawson came down to meet his wife the next morning, and was made acquainted with the little party that had become such friends in their long journey.

"We can take some of you in if you will accept the accommodations," he said cordially. "They might be worse," with a shrug of the shoulders. "Luckily, I escaped being burnt out. Will you come and take a view of our town?"

What an odd place it was, built on the hills like Rome. On the ocean side great frowning rocks that suggested fortresses. At the extreme end, the highest of hills, the city began, and it spread out over little valleys and other hills, sloping to the busy, beautiful bay. And it seemed right in the heart of it lay devastation, débris and ashes. Hundreds of men were clearing, laying foundations again, rearing new structures.

"It was an awful fire," explained their guide. "We had thought fireproof bricks and iron-bound structures would at least stay the devastating hand of destruction, and even that proved useless. But for the loss one might have enjoyed the magnificent spectacle of the immense fiery field. The fierce roar of the flames, the shouts and shrieks of the flying people, the glowing crackling mass sending spires up to the very sky, it seemed, was something we shall never forget. It was said to have been visible a hundred miles away."

The ruins were startling even now. Then the party turned, crossed Market Street and came into Spear Street. Here there was a rambling frame building that had been added to several times, two stories for the most part, but a long ell of only one story. The main end bore the name of "Dawson House." It was not a hotel, and had no bar, that usual accompaniment. Round in the next street, Mr. Dawson had a clubhouse that supplied this want, and all games of chance, but this place was of the better sort.

The Farnsworths had gone to friends only a few squares from the wharf. Mr. Dawson made friends at once with young Folsom and offered him a position.

"I'm in for the gold fields," he declared with boyish eagerness.

"You'd better consider a day or two," suggested his mother.

"And I'll take the mother, too, if she is as good a housekeeper as she looks to be," Mr. Dawson subjoined laughingly. "If I don't, young fellow, some man will snap your mother up before you'll have a chance to see the color of his eyes."

"Well, here are four husbandless women," she retorted gayly. "He could have a choice."

They were ushered into a spacious room with a painted floor and nondescript furnishing. In one corner was a large desk at which sat a clerk. This opened into a dining room, in which the long table was seldom without a guest. Several were seated there now. On the other side were two smaller rooms tolerably well furnished, one a sleeping chamber.

"You'll find we're suffering from the want of woman's hands and woman's wit. I could hardly believe my wife had consented to come. You see those who are worth anything are soon offered homes of their own, and the others – " He made a peculiar little gesture, that elicited a shrewd smile from Jason Chadsey.

It was comforting to find a place of refuge so soon, they all thought. On the second floor were lodging rooms for the better class. The ell was fitted up with rows of bunks, and there was seldom a vacancy by midnight.

Laverne kept tight hold of Uncle Jason's hand, and when Mr. Dawson smiled over to her, half hid her face on Uncle Jason's ample frame.

"Are we all going to live here?" she asked in a low tone.

"For a little while, I think. We would not want to go away alone. And there must be some one to keep the house when I get one."

"But you know that I helped mother, oh, for a long while. Sometimes I chopped up the wood. And in the autumn I dug the potatoes and husked the corn, but we had to kill the poor hens, after all," and she sighed. "I swept up the house, too. Oh, I can do a great many things."

He took the slim little hand in his and tried to smile over her eagerness, but his heart ached as he thought of her mother, and the hardships he could not save.

"Will it be winter soon?" she inquired.

"Not a Maine winter, my child. I believe there is no real winter."

"Everything looks queer and dried up, yet it isn't cold. And what a great city, it is almost as large as New York."

He laughed at that, then he was grave a moment. "It may be as great, some day. The Pacific will be a big rival to the Atlantic."

"To think we are clear over here! Why don't they build a railroad – just so?" and she made a mark with her small finger.

"No doubt that will come also."

They made arrangements about staying for the present. It seemed queer to the child that the friend she had known so long should be Mr. Dawson's wife. Already she was giving some orders and telling what she wanted done, and did not seem a bit afraid of the portly man who could speak so sharply to the Chinese servants.

Laverne thought them very odd. She had only seen pictures of them before. They walked so softly in their pointed slippers, and looked a little like women in their loose blue shirts with hanging sleeves. The long queue twisted around their heads, and their slanting eyes seemed weird enough.

She saw many other queer people in their walk back to the boat. Uncle Jason thought it too long, but she pleaded so to go. There were other curious dark-eyed and dark-skinned men, small and bright Japanese she came to know, and tall Spaniards in picturesque attire with handsome sashes about their waists; Indians, too, and a group of squaws girt about with blankets, two carrying their babies on their backs, and these made her think of the Maine clear across the continent, for you occasionally saw them there.

The old vessel seemed almost like home to her. They gathered up their luggage and that belonging to the ladies and ordered it sent to the Dawson House. Then they went up on Telegraph Hill, and half the world seemed spread out before them. The sun was shining in well-nigh blinding brilliancy. There was the narrow passageway that hardly looked its real width, there was the northern peninsula, Mount Tamalpais, Belvidere, Sausalito, and all the places she was to come to know so well. And there over the bay were the low spurs of the Coast Range, at whose feet were to spring up towns and cities. The bay looked to her like a smaller ocean. But boats were plying back and forth. And they could see the other hills about, and the town spreading here and there outside of the burned district.

Suddenly she said she was very tired, and her steps lagged a little. Uncle Jason would have been glad to carry her, he had occasionally carried greater burdens in times of peril, but that would be hardly admissible, they were going downhill too, which was easier. She had not seen all the strange people yet, for they met a group of Portuguese sailors with big hoop earrings, who were gesticulating fiercely, and some Russians with high caps and black, bushy beards. She was glad she had studied so much geography on shipboard, and she began to feel quite wise about different countries.

When she reached their present home she begged that she might go to bed. She did not want to eat even a tempting bit of cake. Mrs. Dawson took her into her room and put a pillow on the lounge, and while the others talked and planned she slept soundly.

"What a pretty child she is," Mr. Dawson said. "You will have to watch her closely that no one steals her."

"Oh!" Uncle Jason said thoughtfully. But in this wild, bustling life few would want to be burdened with a child not belonging to them.

When Laverne woke there was a queer, rushing, rustling sound, and it was dark like twilight. Where was she? What was happening? Then she sprang up and remembered. The ladies were talking in the next room. Oh, it rained and the wind seemed blowing a gale.

"Oh, what a nice sleep you have had!" exclaimed Mrs. Dawson. "And now you must be hungry, though we shall have dinner in a very short time. You look rested," and she smiled cheerfully.

"Yes, I am. I don't know what made me so tired." She had not climbed a hill in a long while.

"We didn't have any hills to climb on shipboard, and in all these months we did get out of practice," said Miss Holmes. "I was tired as well. And now the rainy season has begun, and Mr. Dawson has been saying that in a week or two the country will look like spring."

"And won't there be any winter? Though I don't like winter very much," she added naïvely. "Only the sledding and skating."

"I shouldn't care to live in Maine," and Miss Gaines gave a little shiver. "All my life I have longed for a warm winter climate. And if this doesn't suit, I shall go further south."

"You women without husbands are very independent," laughed Mrs. Dawson.

"You certainly can go where you like if you have money enough to take you there," was the reply. "Verne, come sit here and tell me if you like San Francisco as well as the ship and the voyage."

"It's queer and such lots of queer people, and how they can understand each other I can't see, for they all seem to talk different. I'd rather not live on a ship all my life."

"Then do not marry a sea captain. But your uncle may take a fancy to go to China or Japan. It is not so far from here. Grace, have you written any letters this afternoon?"

"No," replied Miss Alwood. "I think my friends will not be immediately alarmed."

"And this little girl has left no relatives behind, I heard her uncle say. Haven't you any cousins?"

"My mother had no brothers or sisters." Then she remembered how little she had ever heard about her father.

Mrs. Dawson brushed her hair and they were summoned to dinner. They had the upper end of the table. Two other women came in with their husbands. There were some Spaniards among the men, and a few very dark, peculiar-looking people. There was a great deal of talking in tongues unknown to the little girl, but some of the voices had a soft, musical sound.

The little girl was really hungry and enjoyed her dinner. Afterward most of the party played cards. The other lodgers were of the commoner sort, had a dining room to themselves, and generally sallied out in the evening. Fights were not infrequent and the harmless phases of games degenerated into gambling.

Miss Holmes had not mastered the art even on the long voyage. She took Laverne under her wing now.

"You and I will have to learn Spanish," she said. "Once Spain owned all this country."

"And will we have to learn all the other talk? I know some Indian words, there were two old Indian women in our town, and in the summer some of the tribes would come down. But Chinese – that funny reading that comes on tea chests – " and a knot gathered in her forehead.

"We will not take Chinese the first. I have a friend who went out as a missionary and who can talk it fluently. But all down along the coast it is settled by Spaniards, and they were in South America, you know, and it seems as if half the people here were talking it. Then it is a stately and beautiful language. You know you learned some French on shipboard."

"And there are so many things to learn. There were so few in our little place. They spun and knit and sewed, and you made bed quilts in case you were married. Mother had two she had never used, and a great counterpane grandmother had knit."

"Yes. It is a pity they couldn't have been saved for you. I have a chest of heirlooms stored in the house of a cousin at Dorchester, and some Revolutionary relics. My grandfather fought in the war. And I have left them all behind."

Miss Holmes gave a little sighing laugh. She could not tell whether she was glad or sorry that she had taken this long journey to a strange land.

"What did Spain want of America?" queried the little girl.

"Oh, don't you remember how they came to Mexico for the gold. There was Pizarro and Cortez – "

"And poor Montezuma in South America. Are there any real gold mines here?"

"Not just in the town."

"Then no one will come and fight us and take the gold away," she said with a sigh of relief.

Uncle Jason gave a dry smile. There was fighting enough, he had found already.

"Would you care for the gold?" The child raised soft, inquiring eyes.

"Why, yes; I should like to have a share of it. But I do not think I shall go and work in the mines."

"Did they fight very much at the fort. And who did they drive away?" she asked in a rather awe-stricken voice.

"Oh, my child, they did not fight at all. The country belonged to us. The gold was free for any one willing to mine. We shall see the men coming in with their bags of gold dust and nuggets, and though they may talk fiercely and quarrel, they need not disturb us," and Miss Holmes smiled reassuringly.

"Uncle Jason will not go," she said confidently, after quite a pause. Then she glanced over to him and smiled, and was answered in return.

He lost that trick and the next and Mrs. Dawson won his money. It did well enough to play for fun on shipboard, the captain had strictly forbidden gambling, but here one would not dream of such a thing. The stakes were not high, however.

He was thinking of his little girl and whether he had done wisely to bring her here. He had planned this journey before he knew whether the little girl was dead or alive; at any rate he had supposed she would be in the keeping of her own father. And the pitiful story of the woman he had loved, and would have slaved for had she been his, had roused all the chivalrous feelings of his nature. And that she should give him the child who had her smile and her soft, appealing voice, and the pretty eagerness that had cropped out now and then, though it was the fashion to repress it, seemed so wonderful and so sacred to him, and occupied so much of his thoughts that he never dreamed of altering his plans, or whether they would be best for her. Everything was so different, such a hurly-burly, that he wondered if a little girl could be brought up clean and wholesome and happy. A touch of uncertainty was creeping through every nerve. A man's life was so different. And there must be some one to guard her since he had to make the fortune for her. Would Miss Holmes do? They had become great friends. Then Miss Holmes had the Eastern refinement and uprightness.

He had not counted on sharing her with any one, his ideas had been vague and impractical and he would have to remodel them.

"Upon my word, I never knew you to play so poorly," laughed Mrs. Dawson teasingly; "I believe you are half asleep."

"I think that must be it. I am a landlubber to-night, so I beg you to excuse me," and he rose.

CHAPTER III
MAKING A NEW HOME

It rained three days, not quite like sullen Eastern storms, but in gusts and showers. At times the wind drove it along like a trampling army, then the fog came up and you could hardly see anything but the vaguest outlines. The rainy season had set in.

"Will it rain all the time?" asked Laverne. "And I have no rubbers."

"That is a sad oversight. I don't believe you will find any small ones here," answered Mrs. Dawson. "But I have interviewed some of the old residents, and they say it only rains by spells, but that the spells are rather frequent. I suppose we shall get used to it."

It was mid-forenoon. Laverne had asked questions about everything she could imagine, and heard many wonderful stories. The convent tales interested her deeply. They had found an old volume of the early days, and she had rejoiced in the legend of Father Francis, who had been left out of the list of missions that were to be named after the Saints.

"And no St. Francis!" cried the good missionary, surprised at such neglect. "Is not our own dear Father Francis to have a mission assigned to him?"

The visitador replied loftily, "If St. Francis wishes a mission let him show you a good port and it shall bear his name."

They had been discouraged at the rough shores and rocky heights. But they went on and suddenly the gateway opened before them, and the bay came in view. So they entered it, and while they were waiting for the storeship, they cut down timber and began to make a settlement on a fertile plain surrounded by vine-clad hills. When the storeship arrived with cattle, provisions, and some more emigrants, they built some plain houses, and the mission, and on the day of St. Francis it was blessed and consecrated with a Mass, and for music they had a continual discharge of firearms, while the smoke answered for incense. Then they set about converting the natives who were poor, wandering clans with no religion, but a great fear of sorcerers, and were very easily managed. And now the Mission de los Dolores was but a crumbling ruin, while the good St. Francis lives in the noble name of bay and city.

Then there was the pathetic story of Doña Conceptione, daughter of the Commandant of Presidio. A Russian official visited it, and fell deeply in love with the beautiful girl. But he not only had to return with business matters, but had to lay before the Czar his earnest wish to espouse his sweetheart. Doña Conceptione waited at first in great joy and hope, but no word and no lover came. When her father tried to win her from her love by various devices, she would not be comforted with them. Many a time she looked longingly over the ocean, straining her eyes to see the vague outline of his ship that never came, and so her sweet youth passed, her beauty began to fade, but she would not give up her faith. He was dead, or he would have come. He could not prove false. She went into a convent and prayed for his soul's rest. Long afterward she heard he had been killed on his way home, and her sad heart was comforted by the thought that she had never doubted his love.

And then another beautiful girl, whose lover had gone to battle with a fierce tribe of Indians who had attacked one of the lower missions. His horse had found its way back unharmed, and some one who had seen him fall brought back his bloody scarf and his jewelled dagger, picked up from the ground, but the Indians had mutilated his body horribly and cast it away in fragments. When Doña Eustacia recovered from her long illness she would take the veil in spite of her mother's protests, for there was another lover the elder had preferred. And so two years passed away when a poor, dishevelled, footsore man came back, who had not been killed but wounded and taken prisoner, and at last managed to escape. And when the Señor Roldan learned Eustacia's sorrowful mistake he begged that she be released from her vows, and proffered his estate to the mission for her. But the Padre was obdurate and would not listen. Did some bird carry messages to her? There was no need to pray for his soul, and his faithful love was too sweet to give up. So the little bird comforted her, and though she knew she was perilling her soul's salvation she slipped out of the convent one night, and her lover lifted her on his horse and they went away in the storm and the darkness, whither no one ever knew, but the Padre took his estate, and they were both laid under the ban of the Church.

"But did it really hurt them?" queried the young listener.

"I should like to think they were very happy," declared Miss Holmes, closing the book, "and we will end it that way."

"Do see!" cried Laverne, running to the window. "Why, it is yellow and purple, and rolling up – "

"The fog is lifting. And the sun is coming out," was the reply.

"The cobwebs being swept from the sky," laughed the child. "But there is no old woman with a broom."

Yes, there was the sun out in all its glory, driving the fog into the ocean, tearing it into tatters, and suddenly everything was glorified. The evergreens had been washed free from dust and were in their metallic tints, other foliage that had seemed brown a few days ago, glowed and shimmered in the crystal-clear air. The change was marvellous. The newcomers glanced at each other in surprise, with no words to express their exhilaration.

"And now we can go out!" cried Laverne. "I want to climb a hill."

Uncle Jason laughed. "Come and see," he replied.

Alas! Rivulets were running down the slopes and the wind was appalling. Some of the streets were simply seas meandering along.

"Never mind, to-morrow it will be nice and you will see it dry up by magic."

Laverne went back to the book of legends and stories. The others had been considering plans. Mrs. Folsom had accepted Mr. Dawson's proposal and was installed as housekeeper to his wife's great satisfaction.

"It would be folly for a young fellow like you to go out to the mines," Mr. Dawson said to Richard. "There's gold enough to last ten years or I'll miss my guess. It's no place for a boy. And there is plenty to do right here. I'll take you as a clerk."

"We certainly have fallen in a clover bed," exclaimed his mother; "I don't know how to thank you."

"I guess I need you as much as you need me. And if the boy keeps honest and upright and doesn't take to gambling his fortune is made."

"But I shall go to the gold fields in the end," Dick said to his mother. She was satisfied to have it put off a while.

The rain had not kept Jason Chadsey in the house. He had gone on several inspecting tours. There was work to be had everywhere. Building up the burned district, draying around the bay in every conceivable branch. Every week dozens of men threw up a job and started for the gold fields. Three or four shipping houses almost fought for him when they learned he was a Maine man, and had been half over the world, was indeed full of shrewd knowledge that had been discriminated by a wide experience, and neither drank nor gambled, the besetting sins of those early days.

Then there was the home. Miss Alwood had found a position. The other two had been friends for years. A needlewoman would readily gain employment, and no doubt teachers would be in demand.

Jason Chadsey ruminated over the matter. Women had hardly begun to make homes for themselves in that chaotic region. What if he made a home for them both and Miss Holmes took care of Laverne? The child was very fond of her.

He went about the matter in a straightforward fashion. Miss Holmes accepted at once. She had begun to wonder a little at her temerity in seeking her fortune in this new land. In the older cities it was different. And she had a motherly heart for Laverne. Indeed, if Jason Chadsey had offered her marriage she would have accepted it readily, though it would have been based on respect and friendship.

"You will be head of the interior," he said, in a rather humorous tone. "We may find some one to do the rough part. And if Miss Gaines would like to make her home with you we shall be a cheerful and comfortable family, I fancy."

It was not so easy to find a domicile ready made. Too many of the houses, even among those offered for sale, were flimsy things and held at exorbitant prices. But he struck one presently. The man's wife had died and he wanted to go to the mines, but did not really care to sell. He would rent furniture and all for six months.

The Dawsons were sorry to have them leave. To be sure, their places could be filled easily enough, but they had all been so friendly.

Meanwhile the weather would have been amusing if it had not been so trying. It had come off very hot, and the north wind seemed to be bringing gusts from the desert that scorched the green things with its withering fury. The stars shone out pitiless like lesser suns. Then splendid revivifying showers, and air as balmy as spring, laden with wafts of curious fragrance, touching the hillsides with magic, clothing them with daintiest verdure. Was this winter? Were not the seasons absolutely lost?

The little girl was as much interested in the house as if she had been a decade older. It was rather out of the business region, and built on a side hill. Downstairs, even with the street in front, which had a narrow plank sidewalk, there were two rooms; on the next floor four, and you stepped out on the level again at the back. There was a flat rock, then another declivity, but not so steep. Up here there was a magnificent prospect. A little shrubbery grew about, but it was mostly a tangle of vines, where flowers were to run riot in the spring.

It was quite as plain as the little cottage in the Maine town though much less substantial. Sometimes in a strong west wind it seemed as if it might slide to the street below. But houses seldom blew about that way.

Outside a series of rude steps had been laid. Now and then they washed out in a heavy rain, but they could be relaid without much trouble, and sometimes the sticky clay hardened like stone and they remained for a long while. She liked to run up and down them, flying like a gull, stretching out her small arms, to the terror of Miss Holmes.

"You will slip some day and break your neck or some of your limbs, and your uncle will think I was careless about you," she said anxiously.

"Oh, I will tell him that you were always cautioning me. And I do not believe I shall break easily," laughing with a child's glee.

Every day changed her it seemed. Her eyes glowed with quivering lights like the bay, her cheeks rounded out, the dimple grew deeper and held a pink tint like the heart of a rose. Uncle Jason put uncounted kisses in it. She would be prettier than her mother, and that gave him a jealous pang. Her father had been esteemed good-looking, but really she was not like him. The coloring and hair resembled her mother's. Ah, if she could be here amid the splendor, and he shuddered, thinking of the bleak little town.

The housekeeping was not arduous. Even in those early days fruits were abundant and vegetables enough to surprise one. Then Jason Chadsey went away in the morning and oftener took his lunch at the Dawsons', not coming home until night. Everything in a business way rushed.

There were schools already, for the American plants his schoolhouse if there are a dozen children. They could see the one down on the Plaza. There were churches, too. Even in 1848 there had been Sunday worship established on the Plaza, and a year later, in spite of all the hubbub, churches were really organized. Then they erected a substantial tent on Dupont Street, until one of their members ordered a church ready to be put together, from New York. There was beside a Congregational Society and this attracted Miss Holmes, for she had always been "orthodox" in Boston. But the long sea voyage and the lawless life all about her were rather demoralizing.

Men and women broadened out, sharp corners of creeds were rubbed off. There was a very earnest endeavor among the better classes for the extension of higher moral purposes, and a purer rule, and all of that mind worked heartily together.

Marian Holmes was much interested in her friend's welfare. Miss Gaines, with true Yankee faculty, was meaning to make a place for herself and some money. Her heart yearned for the intelligence and order of her native city.

"I shall not spend all my life in this riotous, disorderly place where you cannot tell what will happen to you next. Like the men, I want to make some money. It doesn't take so very much to be comfortable in Boston, and there are all the appliances and enjoyments of civilization. I was talking to that Mrs. Latham who has come to the Dawsons for a few weeks while their house is being finished. And she recommends that I shall start an establishment at once, while I am new to the town."

Miss Gaines studied her compeer. She had been talking so rapidly she was out of breath.

"Well?" as Miss Holmes was silent.

"Why, it might be an excellent thing. Only could you get girls to sew? I do not think the young women are of that type. They flock to the restaurants."