It was midnight, and the bells rang out for 1854. The streets were full of people. Banjos were being strummed, accordions lent their music. Singers really made bedlam, but above all you heard every little while the refrain from a chorus of voices:
"The days of old, the days of gold,
The days of forty-nine."
Was San Francisco getting old in its scarcely more than childhood? For in August of that year, John W. Geary, who had been the last alcalde of the town, was elected its first mayor, and the city had her charter in due American form. It had stretched up and down the bay, the wharves were crowded with shipping. Had ever any other city such a marvellous story!
Yet in 1854, the world was still a little old-fashioned and friendly. Never was there a more peerless day. Over the hilltops came streams of brilliance with the rising sun that drove the fog before it into the ocean. The lowlands were alive with the slant rays that wavered and wandered about like seas of gold. Flowers seemed to have sprung up in the night. Flags were flying. The streets were full of men and boys; one would have thought it a grand procession. For New Year's calls were then the great fashion. The day was given over to the renewals of friendships. Men put on their Sunday best, and went from house to house with joyous greetings. And within doors were groups of women to welcome them, and rooms presented a gala aspect. Lovers found an opportunity to say sweet things, friends clasped hands, business was laid aside.
No doubt there were orgies here and there, quarrels over cups, and fights, but even among the lower ranks there was a great deal of jollity.
Then everybody went back to business. The great Express Building was opened, having been more than a year under way, and a big banquet given in the evening.
The weather underwent a sudden change. Ice froze in the pools about the streets. Icicles hung from the roofs of the houses and children thrashed them down, and went about eating them like sticks of candy. There was veritable snow on some of the hills, and those at Contra Costa were white and glittering in the sun. The old Californians, who were fond of lazing about in the sun, and smoking a pipe, laid it to those Yankee devils who had turned everything upside down. There would be no more good times in "Californy." Even the miners came in and grumbled. The rains in the fall and winter had been slight, then a sort of freshet had swollen the rivers, which were too full for "wet diggings," as the hill sides had been too dry for "dry diggings."
It seemed as if a series of misfortunes happened. The fine new clipper ship San Francisco missed her bearings and struck on the rocks on the north side of the channel. Some lives were lost, and a storm coming up, scattered much of the cargo. Added to this was a very general depression in business, but in all new cities there are lean years as well as fat ones.
The little girl had said nothing more about dancing school, although there was a very nice class that met twice a week not far from the school. She and Olive had a little "tiff," and now hardly spoke. She would have liked to consult some one, but Miss Holmes and Mrs. Personette were now very cordial friends, and she was not sure that she had been exactly right herself. She could not quite make up her mind to be blamed. She had said to Uncle Jason that she had changed her mind, she did not want to go to dancing school just yet.