Amanda Douglas - A Little Girl in Old San Francisco

"Thank you for your hand in it;" and Miss Gaines nodded merrily.

"Hillo!" cried a bright voice, as Laverne stood talking to the beautiful big dog in the hall. "Why, I've not seen you for ever so long. Where have you been?"

"Home – I suppose that's home over there," and she nodded her head, while the dimple in her cheek deepened. "But it is all so queer. Well, when you are over on the other side of the world, – turned upside down" – and she looked half funny, half perplexed.

"Are you homesick? Do you want to go back to Maine?"

"But there isn't any one to care for me there," she said a little sadly. "Uncle Jason's all I have. It's so queer for winter, though. No snow, no sliding, no skating, no fun at snowballing. And between the rains things spring up and grow. I've tamed two funny little squirrels, so one of them will eat out of my hand. And the birds come to be fed."

"You can see snow enough up on the mountain-tops. It never melts away. I like the fun and stir and strange people. It makes you believe in Sir Francis Drake and the pirates and everything. But my! how they spend money and gamble it away! I hope your uncle will have a level head and hold on to what he gets."

"I've found three Spanish girls that are just lovely. There are so few little girls about," in a rather melancholy tone. "And Miss Holmes teaches me at home. I'd rather go to school, but it's too far, and uncle says wait until I get older."

"I guess that's best," returned the experienced youth. "Sometimes it is hardly safe for a little girl in the street. There are so many drunken rowdies."

"Oh, I never do go out alone, except over at the cedars. They are sort of scrubby and look like Maine. The little girls live there. I don't quite like their mother; she has such sharp black eyes. Why do you suppose so many people have black eyes?"

Dick considered a moment. "Why, the tropical nations are darker, and the Mexicans, and those queer people from Hawaii and all the islands over yonder. Your uncle will know all about them. When I am a few years older I mean to travel. I'll go up to the gold fields and make a pile, and you bet I won't come in town and gamble it away in a single night, the way some of them do. I'll go over to Australia and China."

Laverne drew a long breath. What a wonderful world it was! If she could be suddenly dropped down into the small district school and tell them all she had seen!

Some one called Dick. She sauntered back into the room, but the women were still talking business and clothes. There was a beautiful big hound who looked at her with wistful eyes, and she spoke to him. He nodded and looked gravely wise.

"You've a most uncompromising name," Mrs. Latham was saying. "You can't seem to Frenchify the beginning nor end. You must put a card in the paper." For the newspaper had been a necessity from the very first, and the Alta Californian was eagerly scanned.

"Yes," Miss Gaines returned, "Calista Gaines. It has a sound of the old Bay State. Well, I'm not ashamed of it," almost defiantly.

"And we shall have to get most of our fashions from the States for some time to come. We are not in the direct line from Paris. And I really don't see why we shouldn't have fashions of our own. Here are the picturesque Spanish garments that can be adapted. Oh, you will do, and we shall be glad enough to have you," giving a most hearty and encouraging laugh.

"Fortune-making is in the very air," declared Miss Gaines on the homeward way. "Well, I think I like a new, energetic country. And what a delicious voice that Jacintha has! I wonder if voices do not get toned down in this air. Our east wind is considered bad for them. And it is said a foggy air is good for the complexion. We may end by being rich and beautiful, who knows!"

Laverne ran out to look after her squirrels, and chattered with them. Then something bright caught her eye up among the tangles of vines and shrubs. Why, flowers, absolutely in bloom in December! She gathered a handful of them and hurried back overjoyed.

"Oh, see, see!" she cried, out of breath. "They are up here on the hill, and everything is growing. Isn't it queer! Do you suppose the real winter will come in July?"

"If stories are true we will hardly have any winter at all," was the reply.

"And they are all snowed up in Maine. Oh, I wish there was some one to write me a letter."

Christmas and New Year's brought a mad whirl. All that could, came in from the mines. The streets were thronged. Banjo and guitar were thrummed to the songs and choruses of the day, and even the accordion notes floated out on the air, now soft and pathetic with "Annie Laurie", "Home, Sweet Home," and "There's Nae Luck About the House," "The Girl I Left Behind Me," or a jolly song from fine male voices. Then there were balls, and a great masquerade, until it seemed as if there was nothing to life but pleasure.

Miss Gaines came in with some of the stories. But the most delightful were those of the three little Estenega girls about the Christmas eve at the church and the little child Jesus in the cradle, the wise men bringing their gifts, the small plain chapel dressed with greens and flowers in Vallejo Street. Laverne had not been brought up to Christmas services and at first was quite shocked. But the child's heart warmed to the thought, and Miss Holmes read the simple story of Bethlehem in Judea, that touched her immeasurably.

And then there seemed a curious awakening of spring. Flowers sprang up and bloomed as if the rain had a magic that it scattered with every drop. The atmosphere had a startling transparency. There were the blue slopes of Tamalpais, and far away in the San Matteo Range the redwood trees stood up in their magnificence. Out through the Golden Gate one could discern the Farallones forty miles away. The very air was full of exhilarating balm, and the wild oats sprang up in the night, it seemed, and nodded their lucent green heads on slender stems. And the wild poppies in gorgeous colors, though great patches were of an intense yellow like a field of the cloth of gold.

Sometimes Jason Chadsey of a Sunday, the only leisure time he could find to devote to her, took his little girl out oceanward. There were the seals disporting themselves, there were flocks of ducks and grebes, gulls innumerable, and everything that could float or fly. Ships afar off, with masts and sails visible as if indeed they were being submerged. What stores they brought from the Orient! Spices and silks, and all manner of queer things. And the others coming up from the Pacific Coast, where there were old towns dotted all along.

Or they took the bayside with its circle of hills, its far-off mountains, its dots of cities yet to be. Angel Island and Yerba Buena where the first settlement was made, growing so slowly that in ten years not more than twenty or thirty houses lined the beach. Or they boarded the various small steamers, plying across or up and down the bay. Miss Holmes did object somewhat to this form of Sunday entertainment. There was always a motley assemblage, and often rough language. Men who had come from decent homes and proper training seemed to lay it aside in the rush and excitement. Yet that there were many fine, earnest, strong men among those early emigrants was most true; men who saw the grand possibilities of this western coast as no eastern stay-at-home could.

Was the old legend true that some mighty cataclysm had rent the rocks apart and the rivers that had flowed into the bay found an outlet to the sea? Up at the northern end was San Pablo Bay into which emptied the Sacramento and its tributaries, and a beautiful fertile country spreading out in a series of brilliant pictures, which was to be the home of thousands later on.

And from here one had a fine view of the city, fast rising into prominence on its many hills as it lay basking in the brilliant sunshine. Irregular and full of small green glens which now had burst into luxuriant herbage and were glowing with gayest bloom, and diversified with low shrubbery; then from the middle down great belts of timber at intervals, but that portion of the city best known now was from Yerba Buena Cove, from North Beach to Mission Cove. Already it was thriving, and buildings sprang up every day as if by magic, and the busy people breathed an enchanted air that incited them to purposes that would have been called wildest dreams at the sober East.