Kitabı oku: «A Little Girl in Old San Francisco», sayfa 5

"Move!" in a tone of surprise.

"Yes. We haven't much worldly goods, as these traps do not belong to us. But we can take ourselves, Bruno, and Pelajo."

"Where would we go?"

"Quite far from here. Up on Telegraph Hill."

"Oh, that would be splendid! We could always see the bay, and over the strait to all the mountains beyond. Yes, I should like to go."

"Well, I am glad. It will be more convenient for me, but we would have to go, anyhow. This place has been sold."

"Is there a stable? And I think I would like a garden. And at least one tree."

He laughed.

"They have been taking down part of the hill. No doubt some day they will take it all down. That is the fashion of cities. But our end not being so high will not be disturbed for some time to come."

"This has been nice," she said retrospectively. "But I shall like the new place, and the bay, and – and – "

"And the change," he laughed. Then he called Miss Holmes, who had put away the last of her dishes.

He had talked this over with her before, but he had not made his bargain until to-day. Then they settled a few of the most important points. There were to be some repairs made, but they could go the next week. And to-morrow he would take them up to see it.

"Will you like to go?" Laverne asked of Miss Holmes as they were preparing for bed.

"Yes, I think I shall. We shall be so much nearer everything. We can often walk down among the stores. And we shall be nearer Miss Gaines. You will miss the Estenega girls."

"But there may be other girls. I'd like to know some new ones," and there was a sound of delightful expectation in her voice.

CHAPTER VI
A DIFFERENT OUTLOOK

It was almost being in a new town, Laverne thought. They had trotted all over this bluff, to be sure; they had looked over to Sausalito, up and down the bay, and to the wonderful ocean that reached to China. But before they had been rather hidden away in a valley between the ridges, and from the windows you could see very little. She was quite wild at first, running from window to window, and calling on Miss Holmes to see this or that.

Then they had a Chinaman to come in and help them settle, and that amused her very much. He understood, but could not speak much English, and she did wonder why he should tack another syllable to the short words by adding the double e. But he was very handy and obedient, quick to see, and the soft shoes that made no clatter allowed him to go about so quietly that he often surprised one. His name was Ah Ling.

"I think I like Pablo better," she said gravely. "Then he knows so many things about the country and the missions and the priests, and the races of the Spaniards, and they did have bull fights, you know, they have some now. Uncle Jason said he must not tell me about them, they were too cruel. Do you suppose Pablo will come?"

Jason Chadsey had made the old Mexican an offer to come and live with them, but he was loath to leave his little hut and his independence. He knew Pablo could be trusted anywhere with the little girl, and that he was a good gardener. He had even offered him a new hut, and Pablo was taking matters into consideration as he lolled in the sun and smoked his pipe. He did not want to be too hard worked, what good did so much money do these Americanos; they went on working and working and hustling the life out of one.

Here was the old Franciscan Mission where the first settlement was made by the Fathers. It might have had the semi-solitude in those early years, for all about was poetic enough. When it became a Mexican province early in the century it had been stripped of its treasures, and was even now a poor unsightly ruin with its few padres eking out their subsistence and saying prayers for the living and the dead in the little Campo Santo. Presently a modern cathedral was to overshadow it, but that had not come yet, with the shops and dwellings that were to crowd it still closer. But now there were outlying fields, tangles of shrubbery and vines run wild. Not so many trees as farther down, but still some that withstood the ocean blasts. And there was Alcatras and Buena Yerba; almost within a stone's throw, it seemed, in the clear air that often foreshortened space. Laverne never wearied studying the marvellous pictures, and when her thoughts went back to the dreary little Maine village she always gave a shiver.

The house was a newer one, its first story of adobe, as so many were in the early days. It was not nearly so small, to begin with, and there was so much entertainment buying furniture and supplying household needs. Jason Chadsey had picked up a number of curious articles from the ships coming in from foreign ports, some that would have been the envy of a connoisseur.

But the early spring was rushing on again and every leaf and spear and weed grew as if by magic.

One morning they had a visitor who came in a carriage, and Miss Holmes glanced out in some surprise.

"Why, it's my friend Miss Alwood – you remember Miss Grace, Laverne. I haven't seen her this long while," and the next instant she was welcoming her warmly.

"We thought you had dropped out of existence. Why, even the Dawsons have heard nothing from you – let me see – you went down to Santa Cruz with an invalid lady – "

"Yes." Miss Alwood gave a short amused sound that was hardly a laugh, and continued: "Well, there was plenty of money, but she was about as queer as they make them. She had come from Baltimore, but she had some of the worst New England features, though I think they do not belong altogether to the Puritan birthright. But it kept one on the alert attending to her whims. When she had been there a month her brother came to see her. He thought she had better go on farther south – I think she had consumption, the sort of wasting away without a cough. While we were making preparations she was taken down to her bed. Mr. Personette had to return here on urgent business matters. Four weeks later she died. So he came back and there was the burial and all – "

Miss Alwood paused and a flush with an amused expression passed over her face.

"And so you were released from bondage," suggested Miss Holmes; and she, somehow, smiled, too.

"And accepted another. Mr. Personette, being a widower, made me an offer of marriage. We are to be a not very far-away neighbor, as he owns a house on Mason Street, and is really well-to-do, as we say at home. There is a son of seventeen, a daughter two years younger, and one of twelve. I went to hunt you up, but found the place deserted, then looked up Miss Gaines and have been spending a week over wedding gowns, though it is to be just a quiet marriage in church. He has had housekeepers that were unsatisfactory, indeed, he was afraid the last one would marry him out of hand," and this time she did laugh heartily. "So you see I have made my fortune the first of the trio."

"Let me congratulate you on your good fortune. I suppose it is that."

"Why, yes, as far as one can see. I'm not a romantic young girl, and he is just forty, has made one fortune and lost it, and now is – well, he spends money as if there would be no end to it. Do you remember the old story of the bees that were taken to a place where the flowers bloomed all the year round, and ceased laying up honey? That seems the way with so many here. There were people who lost everything in the great fire and in no time were on their feet again. It is in the air, I think, or perhaps the fusion of so many people from everywhere. And now Mr. Personette is prospering, and I am to share the prosperity and have a home of my own, and like the bees, I'm not going to worry about the future. You see I am already a recreant Yankee. Where is your little girl?"

The little girl had been sitting on the window ledge of the next room, and remembering the long journey round the Horn, often cheered by the brightness of Miss Alwood. She sprang down now and came forward.

"What a little dot she keeps! Laverne, I am going to be your neighbor, and I am to have a little girl who will be a playmate for you. I can't answer about the other, girls begin to put on airs so soon. Do you go to school?"

"No, I have taught her thus far. But it is rather lonely for a child. There was no one about where we lived, but some distance below a Spanish family which hardly knew whether to affiliate or not."

"They are very brilliant farther down the coast. Monterey is the place to see them in their glory. I wish we had gone there, but Miss Personette hated the strumming of a guitar and the click-clack of the language, as she termed it. And now, can't you leave household cares and come for a drive?"

"I have a splendid pony," said Laverne.

"Why, that is quite delightful. But you will not disdain my carriage, I hope."

Miss Holmes rather hesitated, but Miss Alwood overruled all the objections. And she remembered that Mr. Chadsey said they need not expect him home to dinner. Now that he was so much nearer he came back to an old-fashioned love for a midday dinner.

First they went down to Mason Street. There was quite a fine finished block of houses, detached, with gardens on both sides. Down below it was unfinished but the street had been straightened, the low places were being filled up, the hillocks levelled.

"Oh," Miss Holmes began, with a depth of feeling that touched her friend, "you can't think how glad I am this has happened to you. We have had some hard things in our lives, and now we have really gone into a new world."

"And I wish you the same good luck. I did not quite like your being buried down in that out-of-the-way place."

"There were so few houses to be had when we came."

"Yes; there were people living in tents. There are a few of them now on the outskirts. And building is going on everywhere. Oh, what do you suppose it will be in twenty years?"

That really brought a stretch to the imagination and they looked blankly at each other.

Improvements were going on everywhere with a rush startling to these New England women.

There were new stores opened in the past two months. They passed Russ Garden, one of the public places near the Mission Road, devoted to amusements of various kinds, and thronged on Saturday afternoons. Down by the Plaza the "steam paddys" were levelling the numerous sand hills that lay between that and Happy Valley. Even the burned district of less than a year ago was rising rapidly from its ashes.

"I've never had quite such a fine view of the town," Miss Holmes said. "Heretofore we have only taken it in parts. What it will be when finished – "

"Only New England cities get finished. I think I have heard of some places that were fenced in and whitewashed, but they must have been mere country towns," declared Miss Alwood laughingly.

They made a call on Miss Gaines, who now had a workroom full of girls and piles of dazzling material. Nothing was too rich or too expensive for these California dames, whose husbands made fortunes in a month or cleared thousands of dollars in a day. Those early years were an Arabian Nights' tale.

The three friends had a genial time together, and then Miss Holmes and the little girl were set down at their own door. She was very quiet.

"What are you thinking of?" Miss Holmes asked at length.

"Of the little girl Miss Alwood is to have, and whether I shall like her. Of course, she will not be like the Estenegas. And it seems queer to have a new mother who isn't a real mother."

"You will understand that better by and by."

Laverne nodded. She could never have a new mother. She wondered a little about her father. Uncle Jason never spoke of him. Of course he was dead also.

Mrs. Dawson was very anxious to give Miss Alwood a wedding feast, and indeed was fain to have her married in the parlor, but she preferred the church. Mr. Personette was well known, and the church was crowded. The two daughters walked in front and strewed flowers in their path, there were congratulations and good wishes, and a luncheon at the Dawson House, when the new husband and wife took a short journey, and ended the festivities by a reception at their own home.

Laverne thought it was very fine to have a new white frock, lace-trimmed, and a knot of blue ribbons on one shoulder, with long streamers. Isabel Personette was tall of her age, and quite a young lady, rather pretty. Olive had large, dark eyes, and shining chestnut hair, was round, plump, and merry-looking.

"Our new mother has been telling us about you," she began, grasping Laverne's hand. "And that you came from Maine with her. What a long, long journey. Weren't you awfully afraid? I looked up Maine on the map. But you had to go round the Horn. What did it look like?"

"It's a cape, you know."

"But – I supposed there was something," in a surprised tone. "Perhaps they blew a horn?"

"They didn't do anything as I remember," and Laverne smiled a little.

"I've never been farther than Monterey. But father went up to British Columbia once. It is desperately cold up there. And there is a Russian country where it is colder still. And you have snows in Maine."

"Oh, dreadful snows that do not go off all winter, and it seems so queer not to have any here. It was such fun to snowball and have sled-rides and build snowhouses."

"You didn't live in them?" in surprise.

"Oh, no! But sometimes we brought in dry hemlock branches and brush, and had a fire. It looks so pretty."

"Didn't it melt the house?"

"Oh, yes, a little. But you see it froze again."

"Which do you like best – there or here?"

"Oh, this is the most beautiful, for there are so many flowers and lovely places. And – I think I like the pleasant weather best."

"How many cousins have you?"

"None," answered Laverne rather regretfully.

"Oh, isn't that queer? I have four over to Oaklands. And two in London. And one of father's sisters married a Mexican, and lives way down to Santa Barbara. They have ever so many children with queer names. Aunt Amy died a little while ago, and as she hadn't any children, she left some money to us and the Oakland cousins. But not to have any – "

Olive Personette looked very sympathetic. Presently she said, "How many little girls do you know?"

"Only three, and they are Spanish. There were none where we lived before. It was a kind of wild place. I like this ever so much better."

"Did you love them?"

Laverne considered, while her eyes wandered off into space.

"I think I didn't really love them. I liked them. They came up to learn English, and Miss Holmes and I studied Spanish. And we played about. They had a queer old house and a lovely garden, with fruit and flowers, and tame birds, and everything. And I had a squirrel I tamed. We brought him up here, and I kept him two weeks in a little pen, but when I let him out he ran away."

"I'll tell you what I'll do. We'll make believe to ourselves that we are cousins. Mother said she hoped I would like you a good deal. You see, Isabel begins to go with big girls, and they just push you out when they tell secrets, and they have so many to tell. Do you know any secrets?"

Laverne shook her head gravely.

"But sometimes you do bad things and you don't want to tell anybody."

"Why, I tell Uncle Jason everything. And – "

Did she ever do anything very bad? She didn't always study when Miss Holmes told her to, and she sometimes tore her frocks scrambling up or down the hills. She had been brought up to be truthful and obedient, and now these traits were part of her nature.

"Well, it's this way – you must not tell your uncle the things I tell you, and you must find something to tell me – when Miss Holmes is cross to you."

"But she isn't ever cross."

"Oh, yes, everybody has a cross streak in her, or him. I'm cross often. And I do hope our new mother won't scold. Father said she was so good to Aunt Amy, and Aunt Amy was dreadful at times. Then the Mrs. Barr we had for housekeeper was just awful. She said naughty words, too, like the men. No one is good always. You can't be. And when I get in a taking I'm a terror at school. Miss Carson once wrote a note to father, but I begged so she tore it up. I wanted a watch for Christmas and I was afraid he would not give it to me if he knew. That was a secret I've kept until now, but he gave me the watch. I let it fall and it had to go away to be repaired. And I have three rings. See, are they not pretty? That garnet is getting tight. I'll have to give it away," and she laughed.

Her new mother came around to them.

"Are you making friends?" she asked. "That is right. Laverne, are you having a nice time? Come and see the dancing."

They were waltzing up and down the spacious hall. There had been dancing on shipboard among the men, but this was something that fascinated the little girl. The beautiful dresses and sparkling jewels, the delicate laces that floated like clouds, and among the men were two or three young Spaniards. One of them wore a beautiful fringed sash about his waist.

"Do you go to dancing school?

"No," replied Laverne.

"But you will. I began last winter. Isabel dances. See, some one has taken her out. Oh, dear, I wish I could grow up in a night, just three years. Wouldn't it be funny to have it happen in your sleep?"

Jason Chadsey had been looking about for his little girl. He had insisted at first that he could not come, that he was too old, and such a plain fellow, that he would look queer among the fine people. But Mrs. Personette had written him a special invitation, and he had compromised with Miss Holmes by promising to come for them. He knew Mr. Personette a little in a business way, and he was really gratified at Miss Alwood's good fortune. So he had gone to the tailor's and treated himself to a new suit of clothes, and looked fully five years younger.

Laverne stared at him a moment, then a lovely smile illumined her face as she slipped her hand in his and rather bashfully introduced her new friend.

"I have been making the acquaintance of your brother and your sister," he said. "I hope you and my little girl will be friends."

"Oh, we have promised to," declared Olive. "I am coming to see her pony, and I am very glad to know her."

He nodded and escorted the children about, or rather followed Olive, who gracefully made herself mistress of the occasion and chatted with an ease that amused him. But it was getting late, and as he had performed his round of duties, he proposed now that they should return home. Olive kissed her new friend with much fervor.

"Parties are just splendid," Laverne said, as she danced alongside of Uncle Jason. "Can't you have a party unless you are married?"

"Oh, yes, there are birthday parties and Christmas parties and parties just for fun."

"But you have to know a good many people, don't you?"

"I think I have seen three or four little girls have a party."

"I know four now."

"And perhaps by Christmas you will know four more," returned Uncle Jason.

She was very tired and sleepy when she reached home, and they all retired. And it so happened she slept late the next morning and had her breakfast alone. Pablo had found it very lonely without them and had decided to accept Mr. Chadsey's offer. So she ran out now to say good-morning to him and Pelajo.

Something scampered along at her feet, and then made a sudden dash among the vines. Two bright eyes peeped out and there was a peculiar little chatter.

"Why, if it isn't Snippy," she cried. "Snip, Snip!" and she knelt down in the gravelly path. "Snip!"

There was a sudden rush, and the squirrel ran up her arm, across her shoulders, and fairly nestled in the little curve below her ear. And then he began to chatter as if he was telling over his journey and his tribulations and expressing his joy. Surely no squirrel was ever more eloquent to his mate in love-making time. Laverne laughed until the tears came into her eyes, and she had a vague suspicion that she was crying as well, but it was for very joy.

Snippy wriggled out of the warm embrace presently and questioned her with his bright beady eyes, as if the voice might have led him into a mistake. But no, this was his little mistress sure enough.

She gathered him up and ran into the kitchen where Miss Holmes was making a pie.

"Oh," she cried, "Snippy has come back, my dear, darling Snippy."

He had come by his name in a rather unexpected fashion. When Laverne first had him tame enough to come into the house, throw his beautiful bushy tail up his back, and let the feathery end droop over his ears like a bit of Spanish lace, a trick of the Señoras, and eat a fragment of cracker, Miss Holmes said one day, "He looks so pert and snippy one has to smile at his daintiness."

They had tried on several names that did not seem to fit. It was easy enough to get something for a dog or a horse.

"Oh, that will just do, Snippy," and Laverne danced around in delight. "Then we can call him Snip when we are in a hurry – he is such a dear little dot, too. His tail is as big as his body; Snippy, Snippy!"

Perhaps there was something in the sound that attracted him, for he glanced up out of brightest eyes and winked as if he approved it.

He did soon come to know his name. Perhaps it was because it became connected with some tidbit, for when the little girl called him she always had a dainty morsel for him.

He glanced about the room now, and then thrust his head under Laverne's arm. Miss Holmes spoke and he peered out. Yes, he knew that voice surely, but the place was strange.

"Oh, Snippy, you can't imagine how glad I am to have you. I've been homesick for you, though I like this place better, and we're nearer the grand ocean, and can look over into the Golden Gate, and golden it is in the sunset. Oh, why did you run away?"

Snippy said something in his own language and struggled to get free. She let him run down her skirt and leap to the floor. He glanced round with sharp, inquiring eyes, then ran to one corner where, in the old place, he used to find nuts and perhaps a crust. Oh, it wasn't the same place. He fairly scolded, up went his tail, and he scampered out of the door. Laverne ran, calling him. Over the path, the rockery Uncle Jason had built for her, plunging into the great ferns that grew as high as her head, and shook off an odorous fragrance at being disturbed.

"Oh, Snippy! Snippy!" in a beseeching tone.

The little girl sat down on a stone and cried. Sorrow had followed so on the heels of delight. Bruno came and put his nose in her hand and looked comfort out of great wistful eyes.

Miss Holmes came out presently.

"I think he will come back," she said hopefully. "You see he found the way once and he can again. And now come in and study a lesson. There is nothing like work to lighten sorrow."

"If he only would come back! Bruno, if you see him, come and tell me at once."

Bruno nodded sagaciously.