Part 10 (1/2)
Once more away from Sacramento we visited Marysville, which is a beautiful brick town, laid out with great regularity and width of street, each house nestling in flower-garden and shade, and is a place of extensive manufactures and trade. We went from there to Colusa, where I reaped a rich harvest of gain. Indeed I never found a people more lavish in the expenditure of money, seeming to value it only for the good it dispensed.
Leaving Colusa, elated with the success we had met, we journeyed to Marysville in a very happy state of mind that was doomed to undergo a severe reverse on our arrival. When we started there were three hundred dollars in ”hard money” in my trunk, and when we arrived in Marysville my heart sank within me and I could feel the blood leave the surface and my face grow deadly cold when I learned that my trunk, which we had seen stowed in the ”boot” of the stage on starting, was not there on our arrival. After a few moments, in which I considered what should be done, I went to the stage agent, who telegraphed back to Colusa, and, after an hour of deep and painful suspense, the answer came back that the trunk was safe. By some singular omission the straps of the boot had not all been buckled and my trunk had fallen out. It was picked up by some honest farmer, who, believing that it belonged to a pa.s.senger in the stage, had sent it to the office. The next morning it came to me, and I was amply compensated for the delay in the kindness of the agent, who not only expressed great regret for the mishap, but voluntarily defrayed all extra expense incurred.
We next visited Chico, at that time the terminus of the Central Pacific Railway, where I hoped to meet Elder Hobart, the friend I had so loved in my childhood. After some search I found his daughter, from whom I was pained to learn that he had closed his earthly pilgrimage but a short time before. My pain was not for him who rested from such faithful labors, but for those bereft. The daughter, although married, forgot not the friend of early days; and I accepted with alacrity her invitation to visit her house, where we had a season fraught with pleasant reminiscence.
We took the stage here for Red Bluff, the rain pouring in torrents and the night dark as Erebus, it being the beginning of the regular rainy season of this country. During the night we reached the Sacramento River, which we could almost have imagined to be the Styx, with the sombre Charon for a ferry-man, for we soon learned that we were obliged to cross upon a flat boat. The wind was blowing in so fierce a gale that the boatmen could not near the sh.o.r.e, and called upon the pa.s.sengers for a.s.sistance. All the gentlemen responded but one pa.s.senger, who, although a man, was not gentle, settled himself upon the back seat and declared he would not pay his pa.s.sage and work it too. All attempts of the ladies to shame him into activity were useless. He could not be induced to leave his snuggery, and even as we talked he was l.u.s.tily snoring. So do some selfish natures smoothly slip through the emergencies of life, leaving to others the responsibilities and exertion; and this man I was afterwards told was a professional humorist, actually a humorous writer for the press, and I must accept this as one of his jokes.
After three weary hours we drifted to the sh.o.r.e, and next day went to Red Bluff, a wild, uncanny place, but abounding in wealth and replete with generous hearts, of whose bounty I was a rich recipient.
Thence we went to Shasta, where Mr. Hudson, a cousin of Hattie, had rooms in readiness for us at the American Hotel. The meeting of the cousins, after a separation of nineteen years, was a joyous one, their animated conversation keeping time with the quick, impetuous throbbing of their hearts. The pleasure of our day there was also much enhanced by the sprightly--even brilliant conversation of the hotel proprietress, Mrs.
Green, whose three-score years and ten were worn as gracefully as many a maiden's sweet sixteen.
As a protracted rain seemed inevitable, and all business possibilities were precluded, we a.s.sented to Mr. Hudson's proposition to visit his bachelor quarters in the country, which we found to be one of the most romantic, sylvan shades imaginable, with its little three roomed-cot embowered in vines and running roses, then in full bloom, and after the storm, radiant in color, freighted with perfume and sparkling with liquid gems. Alone he had occupied this secluded spot for nineteen years, and in his isolation--
”Had made him friends of mountains; With the stars and the quick spirits of the Universe, He held his dialogues, And they did teach to him The magic of their mysteries.”
He was as familiar as a hunter, with every trail in the vicinity, and he took us through every romantic, winding path, one of which led us to an elevation commanding a view of Mount Shasta, the highest peak of the Coast Range.
Reluctantly we left this ”pleasure dome,” which, although less stately than that ”in Xanadu of Kubla Kahn,” held all the fairy charms of a bright Eutopia; and with the vain regrets which all must feel who leave some fancy realm for the cold regions of reality, we took the stage route for Weaversville, forty miles farther up the mountain heights, whose crests were now white with snow, and the road in many places running within six inches of the ragged chasms, thousands of feet in depth.
Our stage was drawn by four horses, and, at one time, the snow acc.u.mulated around the foot of one of the leaders until it formed a huge ball, and with this impediment he was partially precipitated over the edge of a precipice. This n.o.ble animal exhibited more presence of mind than would have characterized many human beings under similar circ.u.mstances, and, with great judgment, gradually extricated the foot from its snowy burden, and resumed his journey, but not before the face of every pa.s.senger was blanched with terror.
After a few days at Weaversville, we returned to Sacramento, feeling that we had enjoyed a pleasant and profitable trip.
CHAPTER x.x.x.
”A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays, And confident to-morrows.”
We made a trip to San Francisco at a time when life seemed a continued carnival season, for there winter is the most delightful portion of the year. We rented apartments in a delightful New England family, named Collins. This, at that time, was the most comfortable way of living, for in no part of the United States did restaurants furnish such good and liberal fare at such reasonable rates. The characteristic cheerfulness of California became intensified in San Francisco, where every face looked radiant and happy as if all who entered the Golden Gate found a City of the Sun.
We had so often asked the reason of this, and were as often told that ”it was all owing to the climate.” We finally concluded that the climate carried an unusual weight of responsibility; indeed, according to Joaquin Miller, among ”the first families of the Sierras,” every unusual phenomenon of nature, whether it came in the form of a fascinating widow, a spooney man, a premature birth, or a fish with gold in its stomach, was all owing to ”this glorious climate of Californy.”
Although San Francisco is pervaded by the business activity of a great commercial metropolis, it is not possessed of the spirit of excessive drudgery in the hot pursuit of the ”almighty dollar” which prevails in many other places. Every Sat.u.r.day afternoon there is a lull in the labor routine, business being entirely suspended, and the fas.h.i.+onable promenades, Montgomery and Kearney Streets, are thronged with pleasure seekers; husbands and wives, lovers and sweethearts, happy children, gay colors and brilliant equipages.
Among the beautiful resorts is that of the Woodward Gardens, with zoological and floral departments, parks, lakes, dancing halls and skating rink. A friend kindly accompanied us to the Cliff House, a delightful resort upon the beach, about six miles from the city, and too well known to require description.
We remained in San Francisco about three months and a half, became every day more fascinated with its charms, and would fain have rested longer under the spell, but duty called us to many places on the coast, among them the floral Oakland, a perfect bijou garden and grove, and, like Alemeda, a beautiful, suburban home for the merchant princes of San Francisco.
We visited San Rafael and Santa Cruz, the Newport of California. At the former place there was an incident, which, although of a personal nature, we mention as ill.u.s.trative of the magnanimous character of the Californian, p.r.o.ne to err, but ever ready to confess a wrong. We entered the office of the County Clerk and offered him a book. Without removing his feet from the counter, upon which they were elevated at an angle of forty-five degrees, he threw down a dollar and bade us ”go along.”
We ”stood not upon the order of our going,” but went, taking care to leave the dollar. A bystander said to me: ”Take it! he is rich!” I quietly a.s.sured him that I never accepted money without rendering an honest equivalent, and as I left I heard the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n: ”She's plucky, isn't she.” On entering a livery stable on the opposite side of the street, a gentleman took the proffered book and opened to a page containing the name of Aunt Nancy Lee. With an exclamation of surprise he said: ”I have an aunt of that name.” This led to further conversation and a better acquaintance, the person really proving to be his aunt. While we were talking, the four gentlemen from the office of the County Clerk came in, and I being introduced in a new light they each bought a book, and the clerk made an ample apology for his abruptness, which I readily accepted as an ”amende honorable.”
We went to Santa Barbara by steamer and greatly enjoyed the sail. Finding no pier upon our arrival, we had to descend an almost perpendicular ladder to a small boat. In this apparently perilous process, the boatmen were actively a.s.sisted by Captain Johnson, whose mellow toned voice softened and cheered the transit. In the descent, a woman dropped her baby into the water, and, although it was quickly rescued by the seamen, her continued screams even after its safe delivery quite intimidated me, but with the usual sure-footedness of the blind, I went down with so much ease that I was greatly complimented by the astonished captain. Our skiff-ride to sh.o.r.e was a pleasant episode, and the romance was much heightened by the floating sea plants around us, which could be easily touched with our hands. There were no good hotels in Santa Barbara, but we were comfortably accommodated in a private family. The climate is finer there than in any locality in the State, the thermometer most of the time standing at seventy degrees, hence it is so greatly sought by consumptives.
It was to me a delightful pastime to spend an occasional hour with the fishermen on the coast, who are so happy to impart any information regarding their own calling, and from whom I learned many a valuable lesson.
From Santa Barbara we went down the coast to a little railroad landing and took the train bound inland; after leaving the beach the road pa.s.ses through dense, fragrant orange-groves and rich, fruitful vineyards. A ride of twenty-five miles brought us to Los Angeles, a town with the same beautiful surroundings. It was, at that time, a quaint, old, dilapidated Spanish place, with an air of shabby gentility, but the subsequent tide of immigration and trade has doubtless transformed it. We returned to the coast and took the steamer to San Diego, which, with its arid, sandy waste, has little to recommend it to the visitor, save its truly, palatial hotel, which must have been built in antic.i.p.ation of the many projected railways diverging from this point.