CADY'S HOUSE ON THE SONOITA, NEAR BLOXTON, 1914. BUILT IN 1868[ToList]
After working as cook for a short time for a company that was constructing a railroad from Wilmington to Los Angeles, I moved to the latter place and obtained employment in the Old Bella Union Hotel as chef. John King was the proprietor of the Bella Union. Until Christmas eve I stayed there, and then Sergeant John Curtis, of my company, who had been working as a saddler for Banning, a capitalist in Wilmington, came back to the kitchen and said:
"John, old sport, let's go to 'Frisco."
"I haven't," I told him, "enough change to set 'em up across the street, let alone go to 'Frisco."
For answer Curtis pulled out a wallet, drew therefrom a roll of bills that amounted to about $1,000, divided the pile into two halves, laid them on the table and indicated them with his forefinger.
"John," he offered, "if you'll come with me you can put one of those piles in your pocket. What do you say?"
Inasmuch as I had had previously little opportunity to really explore San Francisco, the idea appealed to me and we shook hands on the bargain. Christmas morning, fine, cloudless and warm, found us seated on the San Jose stage. San Jose then was nearly as large a place as Tucson is now—about twenty odd thousand, if I remember rightly. The stage route carried us through the mission country now so widely exploited by the railroads. Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Monterey were all towns on the way, Monterey being probably the largest. The country was very thinly occupied, chiefly by Spanish haciendas that had been in the country long before gold was discovered. The few and powerful owners of these estates controlled practically the entire beautiful State of California prior to '49, and at the time I write of still retained a goodly portion of it. They grew rich and powerful, for their lands were either taken by right of conquest or by grants from the original Mexican government, and they paid no wages to their peons. These Spaniards, with the priests, however, are to be credited with whatever progress civilization made in the early days of California. They built the first passable roads, they completed rough surveys and they first discovered the wonderful fertility of the California soils. The towns they built were built solidly, with an eye to the future ravages of earthquakes and of Time, which is something the modern builder often does not do. There are in many of their pueblos old houses built by the Spaniards in the middle part of the eighteenth century which are still used and occupied.
We arrived in San Francisco a few days after our departure from Los Angeles, and before long the city had done to us what she still does to so many—had broken us on her fickle wheel of fortune. It wasn't many days before we found ourselves, our "good time" a thing of the past, "up against it."
"John," said Curtis, finally, "we're broke. We can't get no work. What'll we do?"