A Little Girl in Old San Francisco

by Amanda M. Douglas

She wondered whether she ought to feel merry enough to go on the May party. But the children insisted. The boat was a fine strong one, and there really was no danger; Uncle Jason was assured of that. Then it was such a glorious day. There was a fog early in the morning, and the fight between the golden arrows of the sun and the gray armor that came up out of the sea. Sometimes it did conquer, and came over the city, but this morning it was pierced here and there, and then torn to tatters, driven out beyond the strait, into the ocean.

Miss Bain took supervision of her scholars, and Miss Holmes had many charges not to let the little girl out of her sight a moment. There were a number of schools, but some of the children preferred the May walk, and the treat afterward. They started off with flags flying, and the young Geary Band had volunteered their services. There were a drum, two fifes, a cornet, and a French horn, and the boys began with the stirring patriotic tunes. But even here the old negro melodies had found their way, many of them pathetic reminders of the cotton fields of the South, that seemed to gain melody from the stretch of bay.

They passed Fort Point and Alcatraz Island, where the government was beginning magnificent defences, its high point looming up grandly. Angel Island, then almost covered with a forest of oak, yet oddly enough containing a fine quarry, where laborers were at work, hewing into the rock, almost under the shadow of the waving trees. Yerba Buena, with its fragrant odors blown about by the wind, smaller islands, big rocks rising out of the sea, the inhabitants being chiefly birds; vessels of nearly every description, and intent mostly upon trade, plied hither and thither. Here was another strait opening into San Pablo Bay, into which emptied creeks and rivers, the Sacramento washing down golden sands; and the San Joaquin. And up there was the wonderful land where the Argonauts were searching for treasure with less toil and anxiety than the elder Jason, though here, too, there were treachery and murder.

Almost by the strait there was a beautiful point of land jutting out in the water, and nearly covered with magnificent trees, that had grown so close together that the branches interlaced and made arches, while underneath were aisles, carpeted with fallen leaves and moss, that made you feel as if you were walking over velvet. You could see San Raphael and San Quentin, and the mountain range with the one high peak, as you looked westward; eastward there was, after the woodland, meadows of richest verdure, with their thousand blooms nodding gayly to each other, and softly gossiping, perhaps about these strange newcomers, who were presently to disturb their long, long possessorship. There the great, grand Sierras, that looked so near in the marvellously clear air.

They found a choice spot, and built a fire—it would not have been a picnic without that. There were boys, of course, though a girl was restricted to a brother or cousin. I fancy some cousins were smuggled in. They ran about; they were even young enough to play "tag," and "blind man in a ring," and "fox and geese," which was the greatest fun of all. Then they spread out their tablecloths on a level space, and though real paper plates and thin wooden ones had not come in yet, they had made some for themselves that answered the purpose. They were merry enough with jests and laughter.

Olive Personette was quite the heroine of the day. Miss Isabel's engagement to Captain Gilbert, who had been appointed to take some charge at Alcatraz, and had come of an old Californian family, beside being educated at West Point, was still a topic of interest, because there had been two other aspirants for her hand who had quarrelled and fought a duel, which was quite an ordinary matter in those days, though frowned upon by the best people. So neither had won her heart. One was lying in the hospital, the other had fled northward. But it had made quite a stir.

Of course, she had asked Victor, importuned him, though he had meant all the time to come. He was a fine, manly fellow now, and the girls did flock about him. He had such a grave, courteous manner, and never descended into rudeness, though he was quick enough at fun, and it does not need an intricate order of wit to amuse before one is twenty.

Olive picked out the most prominent girls for him, and kept him busy enough. But he managed now and then to pass Laverne and say a word to show that she was in his mind.

"I think Isola wanted to come very much," he announced to her once. "She's taking such an interest in the pleasures that girls have, and she has grown stronger. Father is planning some day to take a sail all around the bay, just a little party of us, and we want you and Miss Holmes."

That was such a delight. She did not refuse to talk to other boys, but she liked the girls better. Her rather secluded life had not given her so much interest in hunting and fishing and ball-playing and race-running. Then on Sunday there was always horse-racing up on the track by the old Mission. Church-going people, not really members, but those who considered it the proper thing to pay a decorous attention to religion, went to church in the morning and drove out in the afternoon. Throngs of fine carriages, and handsomely dressed ladies, men on horseback, with enough of the old-style attire to stamp them as Mexican, Spanish, or the more than half Old Californian. Many of the more successful ones began to plume themselves on a sort of aristocracy.