“‘He has gone to try to get some food,’ said the girl. ‘She imagines that she is in her own home, before her dressing table, and is having me do up her hair against some of her friends dropping in.’
“‘She must have suffered,’ I said, ‘to cause such a mental derangement.’
“The girl’s eyes filled with tears. She told me that her mistress had seen her brother killed by falling timbers while they were hurrying to a place of safety. A little farther on I saw two women concealed as best they might be behind a tuft of sand brush, one lying face down on the ground, while the other vigorously massaged her bare back. I asked if I might help, and learned that the ministering angel was the unmarried daughter of one of the city’s richest merchants, and that the girl whom she succored had been employed as a servant in her father’s household. The girl’s back had been injured by a fall, and her mistress’ fair hands were trying to make her well again.
“Thus has this overwhelming common woe levelled all barriers of caste and placed the suffering multitude on a basis of democracy. On a rock behind a manzanita bush near the edge of Stow Lake I saw a Chinaman making a pile of broken twigs in the early morning. The man felt inside his blouse and swore a gibbering, unintelligible Asiatic oath as his hand came forth empty. Observing my escort, the Chinaman approached and said:
“‘Bosse, alle same, catchee match?’
“My escort gave him the desired article, and the Chinaman made a fire of his pile of twigs. ‘Why are you making a fire, John?’ I asked.
“‘Bleakfast,’ he replied laconically.
“I asked him where his food might be, and he gave us a quick glance of suspicion as he said briefly, ‘No sabbe.’
“We stood watching him, evidently to his great distress, and finally he made bold to say, ‘You no stand lound, bosse. You go ‘way.’
“We left him, but after making the tour around the lake came back to the same place. There sat four people on the ground eating fried pork, potatoes and Chinese cakes. In a young woman of the group I recognized one whom I had seen dancing at one of Mr. Greenway’s Friday Night Cotillion balls in the Palace Hotel’s maple room during the winter. They offered to share their meal with us, but we told them that we had just come from breakfast in Oakland. I told them about the strange conduct of their Chinaman, who was traveling back and forth from his fire to the ‘table’ with the food as it became ready to serve.