One day we went over to investigate the crowd that had gathered on the covered sidewalk in front of the Baker Block on North Main Street. Suddenly a man came balancing across the tight rope that was stretched above us. I saw him stop there over our open-mouthed heads and flip a flap-jack in the pan he carried. I do not know why he thus showed his prowess nor what his reward, but he furnished a passing entertainment for the inhabitants of Los Angeles back in the later seventies, and his ghost still walks in mid-air for me whenever I go through that old part of town.
His is not the only walking spirit. There in the Plaza still stands the shade of the peripatetic dentist, fore-runner of Painless Parker, who once stood for several days in a red and gold chariot containing a gorgeous, throne-like chair; for a consideration he pulled teeth of any who were in search of relief.
Still a third ghost walks and calls in unforgotten accents, “Ice Cream,” the white-clad Mexican who went about the town with a freezer on his head, and in his hand a circular tin carrier, with a place for spoons in the middle and holes for the six tumblers in which he served his wares. There was a great scurrying for nickels among the children when his cry was heard in the land.
In those days two street car lines meandered, the one way out to Agricultural Park (Exposition), a large bare space with a few old eucalyptus trees, and the grand stand beside the race-track; the other south on Spring to Sixth and then up to Pearl, the name of Figueroa street, north of Pico where the bend is. Each line boasted two cars so that simultaneous trips in opposite directions were possible. The cars were very small and drawn by mules; there was no separate conductor; we put our tickets—bought at the neighboring drug store—into a glass box near the door. It is told that on the Main street line it was the custom for the driver on late trips to stop the car, wind the reins around the brake handles, and escort lone lady passengers to their front doors,—so much for leisure and gallantry in old Los Angeles. Even as late as 1890 the car once waited while a lady ran into Mott’s market for her meat!
Sometimes we took the car for Sixth and Pearl and then walked on down to Twelfth, where Aunt Margaret lived for a time. The street was a grass-bordered road and along the west side the footpath followed a zanja (a ditch for water). Mr. H. K. W. Bent, the postmaster, and a man who was in every way a value to the community, had an orange grove here and lived in it. As I passed it I would meditate, not on his high position, (he was my Sunday School superintendent), but on the strange thing I had heard about him. He ate pie for breakfast! That was undoubtedly a taste brought straight from New England. We happened to import a different one; we had doughnuts twice a day every day in the year. His taste, being different, was queer. I guess each family had beans and brown bread at least once a week, with frequent meals of boiled codfish, attended by white sauce and pork scraps.
The trip on the other line was out past vineyards, an occasional house, one of them being the adobe mistakenly called the headquarters of General Fremont, far, far away to the race-track, to see our Silverheel trot.
But we did not go often, and then only as a concession to the fathers, for races were frowned upon by mothers as being unsuitable for Christians and girls.
The circus, however, was not under the ban, and “joy was unconfined” when we heard the shrill calliope in the streets and saw the line of elephants and caged lions and gay horsewomen filing along Spring Street. There were usually enough children in the family to provide excuses for all the men-folk who longed to attend the show as chaperones. Grandfather felt that seventy years of abstinence justified him in examining a circus thoroughly and Harry was his lucky escort, when, with his inhibitions released, he visited everything, even to the last side-show.
After a full fledged Barnum and Bailey the small tent on the lot now graced by the Times building where trained horses and dogs performed for a month was too tame for the gentlemen, but afforded pleasure to the children.
Once Los Angeles was small enough to be very happy during county fair week, with its races and shows of fine stock and the usual indoor exhibits of fruits and grains, its fancy work and jellies, and then the fair developed into orange shows and flower festivals and finally into the fiesta. We lined the streets with palms and decked the buildings with the orange, red and green banners and played and paraded for a week in April, the peak of Spring. We saw our redshirted firemen with their flower-garlanded, shining engines, drawn by those wisest of animals, the fire horses; bands played, Spanish cavaliers and señoritas appeared again in our midst, marvellous floats vied for first prize—gay days.