Warner's at Meigg's Wharf
VII.
A BOY'S OUTING
HERE was joy in the heart, luncheon in the knapsack, and a sparkle in the eye of each of us as we set forth on our exploring expedition, all of a sunny Saturday. Outside of California there never were such Saturdays as those. We were perfectly sure for eight months in the year that it wouldn't rain a drop; and as for the other four months—well, perhaps it wouldn't. It is true that Longfellow had sung, even in those days:
Unto each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
Our days were not dark or dreary,—indeed, they could not possibly be in the two-thirds-of-the-year-dry season. It did not rain so very much even in the rainy season, when it had a perfect right to; therefore there was joy in the heart and no umbrella anywhere about when we prepared to set forth on our day of discovery.
We began our adventure at Meigg's Wharf. We didn't go out to the end of it, because there was nothing but crabs there, being hauled up at frequent intervals by industrious crabbers, whose nets fairly fringed the wharf. They lay on their backs by scores and hundreds, and waved numberless legs in the air—I mean the crabs, not the crabbers. We used to go crabbing ourselves when we felt like it, with a net made of a bit of mosquito-bar stretched over an iron hoop, and with a piece of meat tied securely in the middle of it. When we hauled up those home-made hoop-nets—most everything seems to have been home-made in those days—we used to find one, two, perhaps three huge crabs revolving clumsily about the centre of attraction in the hollow of the net; and then we shouted in glee and went almost wild with excitement.
Just at the beginning of Meigg's Wharf there was a house of entertainment that no doubt had a history and a mystery even in those young days. We never quite comprehended it: we were too young for that, and too shy and too well-bred to make curious or impertinent inquiry. We sometimes stood at the wide doorway—it was forever invitingly open, —and looked with awe and amazement at paintings richly framed and hung so close together that no bit of the wall was visible. There was a bar at the farther end of the long room,—there was always a bar somewhere in those days; and there were cages filled with strange birds and beasts,—as any one might know with his eyes shut, for the odor of it all was repelling.