Amanda Douglas - A Little Girl in Old San Francisco

Warmer grew the air with a languorous, permeating fragrance. Moonlight silvering the water that leaped softly up and down as if playing hide and seek with the next wave. All the boundless space lighted with it, going round the world, swelling, decreasing, a golden crescent, then a pale gibbous thing and afterward darkness when the ship crept softly along.

If one came in near the shore it was like the blast of a furnace. Then, passing the equator with the queer ceremony among the sailors, and looking across at the little neck of land joining the two countries, past Central America, which the little girl insisted made three Americas. She had listened to the tales of the early explorers and their cruel lust for gold until she had shuddered.

"Uncle Jason, are you going for gold in California, and will the people murder whole nations and rob them? I would rather not have the gold."

"No, my little girl; and the country that has the gold belongs to us. But it has many other delightful things as well. It is not like bleak Maine."

"What a strange journey it has been, and oh, how beautiful most of the time. I do not believe I shall ever be afraid of storms again."

"You have made a most excellent sailor. It will seem queer to be on land again. You will keep your sea legs for some time to come."

"Sea legs?" She laughed inquiringly.

"The faculty one acquires of walking with the roll of the ship. Sailors always do it on land. And you will see that you have an inclination to go from side to side as if the street was hardly wide enough;" and he looked at her out of humorous eyes.

He had a way of nearly shutting one eye, which gave an absolutely funny expression to his face. He had buffeted so many storms and narrow escapes that he looked fully ten years beyond his age, which was but thirty-five. He had a tall, vigorous frame, with a little stoop in the shoulders and a way of sitting down all in a heap. The little girl told him he made a cave for her to sit in. Every day she loved him more dearly, and to him she was the one thing that brightened his way and gave him new aims. He had been going to California simply to see a strange and new land. He had not been won by the wonderful tales of gold, he had cared very little for wealth. But now he would make a fortune for her and have it so safely invested that she should not come to want if she lived to be old. He could never forget the afternoon he had come to Laverne Westbury's home, that she had been warned to leave in the spring, and found her almost on the verge of starvation, too proud to keep asking charity, worn out and disheartened, with only the county house looming before her. Little Verne should never know this, never suffer as her mother had done.

And this was one reason he led her thoughts away from the old life. She was too young to know that he had loved her mother, she took the relationship for granted. And even on the long voyage there had been so much to entertain her. The only child on board, and a winsome one at that, she had been a universal favorite; and Jason Chadsey hardly less so. The trio, as the three single women had been dubbed, though the married ones often said "the old maids," after a little, established very friendly relations with Mr. Chadsey. Miss Holmes was past thirty, and had worn herself almost out teaching school. A sea voyage had been prescribed to avoid consumption, that scourge of the eastern towns. She had gained in health and strength, and certainly in looks. When she found the little girl and her uncle poring over their old map, she brought out some of her school books, to Laverne's great delight. Among them was the story of the Argonauts that caught the young imagination, and even Dick Folsom became interested in the various explorers who had dreamed of gold and of the straight route to China. Miss Gaines had been a dressmaker until a troublesome pain in her side warned her to seek a different occupation, and Miss Alwood had kept house, done nursing, and they had planned to make better fortunes in the new country, where there were fewer women. Mrs. Dawson was going out to meet her husband, who had been among the "Forty-miners," and now kept a sort of lodging ranch, that with her help could be transformed into a regular hotel, much in demand at that time.

And so they had made quite a little colony on shipboard. Slowly they came up the Pacific Coast, past the long peninsula of Southern California, and there, fairly in sight, was the Golden Gate.

Was it any wonder the old explorers missed the narrow outlet from the great bay when the hills from the farther shore cast a great gloomy shadow, and dreary rocks flanked the shore, inhabited by cormorants and auks and gulls, screaming out their discordant music? What if the tide did run out sweeping like a torrent – were they going to breast the danger back of it? Was the great rocky point worth their consideration? In the islands off the shore seals and sea lions had it all their own way and basked and frolicked in the sunshine.

It had changed then, in the early fifties, but half a century has almost forgotten the bareness of it then. And yet it was magnificent in the October sunset as the old ship made its way, puffing from the strains of its long journey. They had nearly all huddled on deck to view their land of promise. There are few enthusiastic emigrants now, everything is viewed with commercial eyes. Afar to the westward stretched the magnificent ocean, a sheet of billowy ranges tipped with molten gold, changing to a hundred iridescent tints and throwing up the gold again in prodigal fashion, sweeping it over to foreign seas. And, on the other hand, the mile-wide gap, the gateway to the wonderful land, tranquil enough now, with frowning rocks like the cave of Scylla on the one hand, that was to be transformed into a wonderful city. They are piloted through to the great magnificent bay that seems endless at the first glance of its seventy miles. Northward long lines of rolling hills, purple and blue and black, with glints of the setting sun fighting the shadows like some strange old gods with their fire-tipped arrows. At the south it fades into misty dreamland. Red Rock stands up defiant. And so they look at their new country and then at each other. There is shipping at the rude wharves, and they find a place to anchor, but it is too late to look for a home and so they make themselves content. But if they thought they were coming to great space, and semi-loneliness they were mistaken and confused by the noise and tumult, the crowds, the bustle of business, the people of all countries it seemed.

"Why, I had no idea," the women said to one another. "The place must be overcrowded."

What chance was there then for women who had come to seek their fortunes?

They soon found that San Francisco was the stopping place of nearly every nation, and yet there was room for more, and work for those willing to do it.

Mr. Dawson came down to meet his wife the next morning, and was made acquainted with the little party that had become such friends in their long journey.

"We can take some of you in if you will accept the accommodations," he said cordially. "They might be worse," with a shrug of the shoulders. "Luckily, I escaped being burnt out. Will you come and take a view of our town?"

What an odd place it was, built on the hills like Rome. On the ocean side great frowning rocks that suggested fortresses. At the extreme end, the highest of hills, the city began, and it spread out over little valleys and other hills, sloping to the busy, beautiful bay. And it seemed right in the heart of it lay devastation, débris and ashes. Hundreds of men were clearing, laying foundations again, rearing new structures.

"It was an awful fire," explained their guide. "We had thought fireproof bricks and iron-bound structures would at least stay the devastating hand of destruction, and even that proved useless. But for the loss one might have enjoyed the magnificent spectacle of the immense fiery field. The fierce roar of the flames, the shouts and shrieks of the flying people, the glowing crackling mass sending spires up to the very sky, it seemed, was something we shall never forget. It was said to have been visible a hundred miles away."