"Tell him," I nodded to the miner.
"The Tehama House, on the waterfront at California and Sansome, was the swell hotel for army and navy people and all the Spanish rancheros when they came to town. You couldn't keep even your thoughts to yourself in that house, for it had thin board sidings and cloth and paper partitions, but it had lots of style, and Rafael set a great table. They moved it over to Montgomery and Broadway to make room for the Bank of California, and the fire caught it there. The What Cheer House," the old man's eyes brightened, "was on Sacramento and Leidesdorff, and that's where we miners went, if we could get in. Woodward was a queer chap. Took you in whether you could pay or not. But it was only a man's hotel. There wasn't a woman allowed about the place. He had the only library in town and everybody was welcome to use it. I've often seen Mark Twain and Bret Harte reading at the table."
"And the sacks?" queried the Bostonian.
But the old man had leaned back on the bench and his eyes wandered over the green grass and trees of the square. "It's much prettier than it used to be," he admitted, "but nothing happens here now. The Chinese children fly kites and the unemployed loaf on the benches and the grass, and I'm one of them. I wish you could have seen it in the early days." His eyes kindled with excitement. "It was only a barren hillside, but there was always something doing then. All the town meetings were held here in the open air and all the parades ended here for the speeches. The biggest celebration was in 1850, when the October steamer, flying all her flags, brought the news that California was admitted to the Union. We went wild, for we had waited for that word for more than a year. Every ship in the harbor displayed all her bunting and at night every house was as brilliant as candles and coal oil could make it. Bonfires blazed on all the hills and the islands and we had music and dancing all over the town 'til morning."
He paused in reminiscence. "But it wasn't so gay that moonlight night, the next February, when we hung Jenkins. He was a Sidney Cove and had just stole a safe, but that was the least of his crimes and of the whole gang. When we Vigilantes heard the taps on the firebell here in the Plaza, we gathered in front of the committee rooms. Nobody was excited; we just had to drive out the Sidney Coves and put an end to crime. We marched Jenkins here and hung him over there to the beam on the south end of the Custom House. Forty of us pulled on the rope, while a thousand more stood 'round as solemn as a prayer meeting to give us moral support and shoulder the responsibility. It wasn't no joke hanging a man, but it had to be done, if decent men was to live here."
He shook off his depression. "Everybody was in the Plaza sometime in the day, and once a month when Telegraph Hill signaled a steamer, everybody was here."
"Telegraph Hill? I never heard of it," he cast an accusing glance in my direction.
"It belongs to forty-nine," I retorted.
"All the shops closed immediately," continued the miner, "and Postmaster Geary was the most important man in town. The post-office was a block up the hill at Clay and Pike Streets, but the lines from the windows stretched down into the Plaza, and over among the tents and chaparral on California Street Hill. Men stood for hours, sometimes all night, in the pouring rain, and many a time I sold my place for ten dollars, and even twenty, to some fellow who had less patience or less time than I.
"But you should have been here on election day in fifty-one." The miner threw back his head and laughed aloud. "Colonel Jack Hays was running for sheriff," he resumed, "and his opponent hired a band to play in front of his store here on the Plaza as an advertisement. It worked fine! He was polling all the votes and the Colonel was about out of the running, 'til he got on his horse that he'd used on the Texas ranges and came cavorting into the square. He showed 'em some fancy turns they weren't used to and kept it up 'til the polls closed."