A Little Girl in Old San Francisco

by Amanda M. Douglas

Nearly midnight of that happy day the bells rang out with their dreadful alarm. Uncle Jason sprang up, and before he was dressed he saw the blaze. Citizens turned out en masse. The Rassete House on Sansome Street was in a sheet of flame. A fine five-story hotel, full of lodgers, who had to flee for their lives. The firemen were quite well organized now and made great efforts to keep it from spreading, remembering the former big fires. In this they were quite successful. Other generous people were taking in the four hundred homeless ones, and it was found the next day that no lives had been lost, which was a source of thanksgiving.

A little later there were some imposing ceremonies near the Presidio, just at the foot of the hill. This was the commencement of the Mountain Lake Water Works, a much-needed project. There were various artesian wells, and water was brought in tanks from Sausalito, but the supply was inadequate in case of fires and the city was growing so rapidly. The rather curious Mountain Lake was not large, but a short distance from its northern margin a stream of water gushed through the ground, which was a great spring or a subterranean river from the opposite shores. It was begun with great rejoicing, but like all large undertakings it had progressed slowly.

Indeed, San Francisco had so many things on its hands. There were plans for the State Marine Hospital and other benevolent institutions. Churches too were urging demands on a generous people who felt they must make an effort to redeem the standing of the city. The toughs had been somewhat restrained, but the continual influx of miners with their pouches of gold, ready for any orgies after having been deprived of the amenities of social life, and the emigration from nearly all quarters of the globe constituted a class very difficult to govern, who drank, gambled, frequented dance houses, quarrelled, and scrupled not at murder.

But of this side the little girl was to hear nothing, though Uncle Jason was often shocked in spite of all his experiences. He was having a warehouse down on the bay, fitting out vessels, disposing of cargoes, and keeping the peace with one of those imperturbable temperaments, grown wise by training of various sorts, and the deep settled endeavor to make a fortune for the Little Girl. It did not matter so much now, but when she grew up she should be a lady and have everything heart could desire.

In a short street that came to be called Pine afterward, and was at the head of the streets that were to be named after trees, there stood quite a substantial brick building with some fine grounds. Here a Mrs. Goddart and her sister, Miss Bain, kept a school for young girls and smaller children, and had a few boarding scholars. The Personette girls had gone there because it was near by, and out of the range of the noisier part of the city. Howard was at the San Francisco Academy, kept by a Mr. Prevaux, in quite a different direction. There was a plan for a new public school on Telegraph Hill, but these were more largely filled with boys, as is often the case in the youth of towns.

So the little girl went to Mrs. Goddart's and quite surprised her teachers by her acquirements and her love of study. Perhaps, if she had not lived so much alone she would have been more interested in play and childish gossip. And her walks with Uncle Jason had brought her into companionship not only with trees and flowers, but with different countries of the world, and their products. Uncle Jason had grafted upon a boy's common education the intelligence that travel and business give, and though a quiet man he had taken a keen interest not only in the resources of countries, but their governments as well, and these things were the little girl's fairy stories. She would find the places on the map, the Orient, the northern coast of Africa, the country of the Turks, Arabia, India. A trading vessel goes from port to port.

She liked her school very much, though she was rather shy of the girls. Some of them called her a little prig because she would not talk and was correct in her deportment. She found in the course of a few days that Olive "squirmed" out of some things and did not always tell the truth. Back in Maine children had been soundly whipped for telling falsehoods and it was considered shameful; Miss Holmes was a very upright person, of the old Puritan strain.

She was not finding fault, but she did want to know if a prig was something rather disgraceful.

"It is never disgraceful to be honest in word and deed, to obey whatever rules are set before you, to study honestly and not shirk. I think the prig would set himself above his neighbors for this, but you see he would only be doing his duty, he would have no extra claim. But when he set himself up to be better than his neighbors and triumphed over them, he would be a prig."

Her delicately pencilled brows worked a little.