A Little Girl in Old San Francisco

by Amanda M. Douglas

All along the road the beauty of the May met them, and it stirred both riders, making them respond to the joy of motion and the sweetness of all blooming things, the merriment of the birds, the touch of the wind in the trees as a voice playing on a flute. He thought it was all the delight of owning the little girl who would always be his. How he would care for her in old age, and he quite forgot that he would be there decades and decades first. But he suddenly felt so young, with all these signs of youth about him, the magnetism of the air in this wondrous land.

Here was the old house. They were straightening the road, digging away hills, filling up hollows, and a corner of it had tumbled down. There seemed a damp, marshy smell of the newly turned earth, and two trees had fallen and begun to wither up. The wood doves were calling plaintively.

"Oh, I wouldn't come back for anything!" cried Laverne. "Did we have nice times here, and did we really like it?"

"This is the hand of improvement. Sometime, when we are trotting over a nice level road, with pretty houses and grounds, we shall admire it again."

But it was lovely enough at the Estenegas, out of doors. The children were wild with delight. It seemed as if Carmencita had suddenly shot up into a tall girl. And in the autumn she was to go to Monterey, to the old convent, where Doña Conceptione de Arguello had gone after her Russian lover had been killed, and where she had finally become Mother Superior and lived to old age, always praying for his soul.

"But I am going only for accomplishments. And it seems the distant cousin of the Estenegas wishes a wife who will grace the great house and carry on the honors. Mamacita is very proud that he made the offer. And the children will go up to the Mission to stay all the week at the Sisters' School."

"And they must visit me sometimes. The new home is so much pleasanter. I am going to school also, and I have some new friends. It is splendid to be in the heart of the city." Then she told them about the day at Russ's garden, and that on to-morrow, Monday, she was going out to walk with hundreds of children.

The Spanish girl's eyes grew larger and larger at all the wonders. They walked up and down with their arms about each other and were full of childish happiness. Then Señora Estenega summoned them to refreshments on the balcony, now a wilderness of roses. Uncle Jason did not care much for the Spanish sweetmeats and candied fruits, the freshly ripened ones were more to his taste and he had been quite spoiled again by New England living. But he knew how to be polite.

It was quite dusk when they reached home. Olive Personette had been over. They would call for her to-morrow, and she was to be dressed in white, sure. It would be a greater thing than the German Festival.

And great it surely was! There had never been such an event in San Francisco. There were over a thousand children, and each one carried a bouquet of flowers. Miss Holmes had found some white ribbon and trimmed her gypsy hat, and the little girl with her fair hair looked like a lily. There were crowds of people in the streets to see them, proud mothers and aunts. Each school had a distinctive banner, and there was a band of music. The Queen of May wore a wreath, and so did her maids of honor.