There are some curious old men here who tend cattle, sitting under the trees, with their knitting. I think they are Germans. They do not appear to understand when I speak to them. I thought they might be "broke miners," who are generally the most curious people here-abouts.
One of these "broke miners" is employed to take care of two little children near us, whose mother is dead. He dresses them with their clothes hind-side before, and liable at any moment to drop entirely off; but seems to succeed very well in amusing them, quilting up his dishcloths into dolls for them, and transforming their garments into kites. His failing seems to be that a kind of dreamy mood is apt to steal over him, in which he wanders on the beach, regardless of hours; and the master of the house, coming home, has to hunt high and low for him, to come and prepare the meal. On the last bright moonlight night, he wholly disappeared.
October 15, 1878.
We have finally been driven off by the wind from our cottage on the bay. Margie has been so accustomed to moving, that she takes it as easily as an Indian child would. A few days before we left, she gave me an account of the moving of the man opposite, which was all accomplished before breakfast in the morning. First, she said, he put all his things on a wagon, and then took his house to pieces, and put that on; and then he and the wagoner sat down and drank a pot of coffee together, and started off, on their load.
We did not take our house with us, but found a rather dilapidated one, in what is called Old Alameda. It is quite attractive, from the trees and vines about it, and the spacious garden in which it stands. It is owned by an old German woman, who lives next to us. She is rich now, and owns the whole block, but still holds to her old peasant customs, and wears wooden shoes. Opposite is a French family, who go off every year to a vineyard, to make wine; and, next to them, a poor Spanish family, who carry round mussels to sell.
March 3, 1879.
We have had a real winter; not that it was very cold or snowy,—that it never is here,—but so excessively rainy as to keep us a good deal in-doors. The grass grew up in the house, and waved luxuriantly round the edges of the rooms. The oak-trees surprised us by bursting out into fresh young green, though we had not noticed that they had lost any of their hard, evergreen leaves.
April 10, 1879.
While we were crossing the ferry between San Francisco and Oakland one day, a peculiar-looking person appeared on the deck of the boat, who saluted the assembled company in a most impressive manner. He was a large man, serene and self-possessed, with rather a handsome face. On his broad shoulders he wore massive epaulets, a sword hung by his side, and his hat was crowned with nodding peacock feathers. I noticed that he passed the gates where the tickets are delivered, unquestioned, giving only a courteous salute, instead of the customary passport. Upon inquiry, I learned that he was the "Emperor Norton, ruler of California," according to his fancy; and that he passed free wherever he chose to go,—theatres opening their doors to him, railroads and steamers conveying him without charge. He was an old pioneer, distraught by misfortunes, and humored in this hallucination by the people. He was in the habit of ordering daily telegraphic despatches sent to the different crowned heads of Europe. He had once been known to draw his sword upon his washer-woman, because she presumed to demand payment for his washing; whereupon the Pioneer Society, learning of the affair, took upon itself the charge of meeting all little expenses of this nature.
The Californians have a jolly, good-natured way of regarding idiosyncrasies, and a kind of lavish generosity in the distribution of their alms, quite different from the careful and judicious method of the Eastern people. We hear that some of the early miners, passing along the streets of San Francisco, just after it had been devastated by one of the terrible fires that swept every thing before them, and seeing a lone woman sitting and weeping among the ruins, flung twenty-dollar gold pieces and little packages of gold dust at her, until all her losses were made good, and she had a handsome overplus to start anew.