Abroad At Home Part 42

Suppose that to be true. Suppose that she had been away for several weeks. What was her feeling at seeing, again, the crimson beacon in her own window? What must it be like to get home, when home is such a place? Could one's mental att.i.tude become so warped that one might actually look forward to returning--to being greeted by the "family"?

Could it be that, at sight of that red light, flaring over there across the tracks, one might heave a happy sigh and say to oneself: "Ah! Home again at last! There's no place like home"--?

One thing the Western Pacific Railroad does that every railroad should do. It publishes a pamphlet, containing a relief map of its system, and a paragraph or two about every station on the line, giving the history of the place (if it has any), telling the alt.i.tude, the distance from terminal points, and how the town got its name.

From this pamphlet I judge that some one who had to do with the building of the Western Pacific Railroad, or at least with the naming of stations on the line, possessed a pleasantly catholic literary taste. Gaskell, Nevada, one stopping place, is named for the author of "Cranford"; Bronte, in the same State, for Charlotte Bronte; Poe, in California, for Edgar Allan Poe; Twain for Mark Twain; Harte for Bret Harte, and Mabie for Hamilton Wright Mabie. Other stations are named for British Field Marshals, German scientists, American politicians and financiers, and for old settlers, ranches, and landmarks.

Had there not been washouts on the line shortly before we journeyed over it, I might not have known so much about this little pamphlet, but during the night, when I could not sleep because of the violent rocking of the car, I read it with great care. Thus it happened that when, towards morning, we stopped, and I raised my curtain to find the ground covered with a blanket of snow, I was able to establish myself as being in the Sierras, somewhere in the region of the Beckwith Pa.s.s--which, by the way, is by two thousand feet, the lowest pa.s.s used by any railroad entering the State of California.

Some time before dawn the roadbed became solid and I slept until summoned by my companion to see the canon of the Feather River.

Dressing hurriedly, I joined him at the window on the other side of the car (I have observed that, almost invariably, that is where the scenery is), and looked down into what I still remember as the most beautiful canon I have ever seen.

The last time I had looked out it had been winter, yet here, within the s.p.a.ce of a few hours, had come the spring. It gave me the feeling of a Rip Van Winkle: I had slept and a whole season had pa.s.sed. Our train was winding along a serpentine shelf nicked into the lofty walls of a gorge at the bottom of which rushed a mad stream all green and foamy. Above, the mountains were covered with tall pines, their straight trunks reaching heavenward like the slender columns of a Gothic cathedral, the roof of which was made of low-hung, stone-gray cloud--a cathedral decked as for the Easter season, its aisles and altars abloom with green leaves, and blossoms purple and white.

Throughout the hundred miles for which we followed the windings of the Feather River Canon, our eyes hardly left the window. Now we would crash through a short, black tunnel, emerging to find still greater loveliness where we had thought no greater loveliness could be; now we would traverse a spindly bridge which quickly changed the view (and us) to the other side of the car. Now we would pa.s.s the intake of a power plant; next we would come upon the plant itself, a monumental pile, looking like some Rhenish castle which had slipped down from a peak and settled comfortably beside the stream.

Once the flagman who dropped off when the train stopped, brought us back some souvenirs: a little pink lizard which, according to its captor, suited itself to a vogue of the moment with the name of Salamander; and a piece of glistening quartz which he designated "fools' gold." And presently, when the train was under way again, we saw, far down at the water's edge, the "fools" themselves in search of gold--two old gray-bearded placer-miners with their pans.

At last the walls of the canon began to melt away, spreading apart and drifting down into the gentle slope of a green valley starred with golden poppies. Spring had turned to summer--a summer almost tropical, for, at Sacramento, early in the afternoon, we saw open street-cars, their seats ranged back-to-back and facing outwards, like those of an Irish jaunting-car, running through an avenue lined with a double row of palms, beneath which girls were coming home from school bareheaded and in linen sailor suits.

Imagine leaving New York on a snowy Christmas morning, and arriving that same afternoon in Buffalo, to find them celebrating Independence Day, and you will get the sense of that transition. We had pa.s.sed from furs to shirtsleeves in a morning.

Late that afternoon, we left the valley and began to thread our way among the Coast Range hills--green velvet hills, soft, round and voluptuous, like the "Paps of Kerry." We were still amongst them when the sun went down, and it was night when we arrived at the terminal in Oakland.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

SAN FRANCISCO

Leaving the train in Oakland, one is reminded of Hoboken or Jersey City in the days before the Hudson Tubes were built. There is the train shed, the throng headed for the ferry, the baggage trucks, and the ferryboat itself, like a New York ferryboat down to its very smell. Likewise the fresh salt wind that blows into your face as you stand at the front of the boat, in crossing San Francis...o...b..y, is like a spring or summer wind in New York Harbor. So, if you cross at night, you have only the lights to tell you that you are not indeed arriving in New York.

The ferry is three miles wide. There are no skysc.r.a.pers, with lighted windows, looming overhead, as they loom over the Hudson. To the right the myriad lamps of Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda are distributed along the sh.o.r.e, electric trains dashing in front of them like comets; and straight ahead lies San Francisco--a fallen fragment of the Milky Way, draped over a succession of receding hills.

Crossing the ferry I tried to remember things I had been told of this city of my dreams, and to imagine what it would be like. Of course I had been warned time and again not to refer to it as "'Frisco," and not to speak of the Earthquake, but only of the Fire. I had those two points well in mind, but there were others out of which I endeavored to construct an imaginary town.

San Francisco was, as I pictured it in advance, a city of gaiety, gold money, twenty-five cent drinks, flowers, Chinamen, hospitality, night restaurants, mysterious private dining rooms, the Bohemian Club, openhearted men and unrivaled women--superb, majestic, handsomely upholstered, six-cylinder self-starting blondes, with all improvements, including high-tension double ignition, Prestolite lamps, and four speeds forward but no reverse.

That is the way I pictured San Francisco, and that, with some slight reservations, is the way I found it.

Several times in the course of these chapters, I have been conscious of an effort to say something agreeable about this city or that, but in the case of San Francisco, I find it necessary to restrain, rather than force my appreciation, lest I be charged with making noises like a Native Son.

The Native Sons of the Golden West is a large and semi-secret organization of men born in California who, I was informed, are banded together to help one another and the State. Its activities are largely political and vocal.

It was a Native Son who, when asked by an Englishman, visiting the United States for the first time, to name the Seven Wonders of America, replied: "Santa Barbara, Coronado, Del Monte, San Francisco, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe and Mount Shasta."

"But," objected the visitor, "all those places are in California, aren't they?"

"Of _course_ they're in California!" cried the Native Son. "Where else would they be?"

That is the point of view of the Native Son and the native Californian in general. Meeting Californians outside their State, I have been inclined to think them boasters, but now, after a visit to California, I have come to understand that they are nothing of the kind, but are, upon the contrary, adherents of cold truth. They want to tell the truth about their State, they try to tell it, and if they do not succeed it is only because they lack the power of expression. When it comes to California everybody does--a fact which I shall now a.s.sist in demonstrating further.

Take, for instance, the climate. The exact nature of the California climate had been a puzzle to me. I had been in the habit of considering certain parts of the country as suited for winter residence, and certain other parts for summer; but, in the East, when I asked people about California, I found some who advised it as a winter subst.i.tute for Florida, and others who recommended it as a summer subst.i.tute for Maine.

Therefore, on reaching San Francisco, I took pains to cross-examine natives as to what they meant by "climate."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The salt-water pool, Olympic Club, San Francisco]

As I did not visit Southern California I shall leave the climate of that section to the residents, who are not only willing to describe it, but who, from all accounts, can come as near doing it adequately as anybody can. But in San Francisco and the surrounding country I think I know what climate means.

There are two seasons: spring, beginning about November and running on into April; autumn, beginning in April and filling out the remaining six months. Winter and summer are simply left out. There is no great cold (snow has fallen but six times in the history of the city) and no great heat (84 degrees was the highest temperature registered during an unusual "hot spell" which occurred just before our visit). It is, however, a celebrated peculiarity of the San Francisco climate that between shade and sun there is a difference so great as to make light winter clothing comfortable on one side of the street, and summer clothing on the other. The most convenient clothing, upon the whole, I found to be of medium weight, and as soon as the sun had set I sometimes felt the need of a light overcoat.

One of the finest things about the California weather is its absolute reliability. In the rainy season of spring, rain is expected and people go prepared for it; but with the arrival of the sunny season, the rain is really over, and thereafter you need not fear for your straw hat or your millinery, as the case may be.

Small wonder that the Californian loves to talk about his climate. He loves to discuss it for the same reason the New Yorker loves to discuss money: because, with him, it is the fundamental thing. All through the West, but particularly on the Pacific Coast, men and women alike lead outdoor lives, compared with which the outdoor lives of Easterners are labored and pathetic. The man or woman in California who does not know what it is to ride and camp and shoot is an anomaly. Apropos of this love of outdoors, I am reminded that the head of a large department store informed me that, in San Francisco, rainy days bring out the largest shopping crowds, because people like to spend the sunny ones in the open. Also, I noticed for myself, that small shopkeepers think so much of the climate that in many instances they cannot bear to bar it out, even at night, but have permanent screen fronts in their stores.

All the year round, flowers are for sale at stands on corners, in the San Francisco streets, and if you think we have no _genre_ in America, if you think there is nothing in this country to compare with your memories of picturesque little scenes in Europe--scenes involving such things as the dog-drawn wagons of Belgium; Dutch girls in wooden shoes, bending at the waist to scrub a sidewalk; embroidered peasants at a Breton pardon; proud beggars at an Andalusian railway station; mysterious hooded Arabs at Gibraltar; street singers in Naples; flower girls in the costume of the _campagna_, at the Spanish Steps in Rome--if you think we cannot match such bits of color, then you should see the flower stands of San Francisco upon some holiday, when Chinese girls are bargaining for blooms.

But I am talking only of this one part of California. When one considers the whole State, one is forced to admit that it is a natural wonder-place. It is everything. In its ore-filled mountains it is Alaska; to the south it is South America; I have looked out of a train window and seen a perfect English park, only to realize suddenly that it had not been made by gardeners, but was the sublimated landscape gardening which Nature gave to this state of states. I have eaten Parisian meals in San Francisco and drunk splendid wines, and afterwards I have been told that our viands and beverages had, without exception, been produced in California--unless one counts the gin in the c.o.c.ktail which preceded dinner. But that is only part of it. With her hills San Francisco is Rome; with her harbor she is Naples; with her hotels she is New York. But with her clubs and her people she is San Francisco--which, to my mind, comes near being the apotheosis of praise.

So far as I know American cities San Francisco stands out amongst them like some beautiful, fascinating creature who comes suddenly into a roomful of mediocrities. She is radiant, she has charm and allure, those qualities which are gifts of the G.o.ds, and which, though we recognize them instantly when we meet them, we are unable to describe.

I have not forgotten the charm of Detroit, nor the stupendousness of Chicago, but--there is only one Paris and only one San Francisco. San Francisco does not look at all like Paris, and while it has a large foreign population the people one meets are, for the most part, pure-blooded Americans, yet all the time I was there, I found myself thinking of the place as a city that was somehow foreign. It is full of that splendid vigor which one learns to expect of young American cities; yet it is full of something else--something Latin. The outlook upon life even of its most American inhabitants is touched with a quality that is different. The climate works its will upon them as climate does on people everywhere. Here it makes them lively and spontaneous. They are able to do more (including more sitting up at night) than people do in New York, and it seems to tell upon them less. They love good times and, again owing to the climate, they are able to have them out of doors.

The story of the Portola fete, as told me by a San Franciscan, nicely ill.u.s.trates that, and also shows the San Francisco point of view.

"In 1907," he informed me, "we decided to put over a big outdoor New Year's fete, with dancing in the streets, the way they have it in Paris on the Fourteenth of July. But at the last minute it rained and spoiled the outdoor part of the fun. Once in a while, you see, that can happen even in San Francisco.

"Everybody agreed that we ought to have a regular established festival, and as we didn't want to have it spoiled a second time, we hunted up the weather records and found that in the history of the city there had never been rain between October seventeenth and twenty-ninth. That established the time for our fete; the next thing was to discover an excuse for it. That was not so easy. After digging through a lot of history we found that Don Caspar de Portola discovered San Francis...o...b..y October twenty-second, 1679--or maybe it was 1769--that doesn't matter.

n.o.body had ever heard of Portola until then, but now we have dragged him out of oblivion and made quite a boy of him, all as an excuse to have a good time."

"Then you don't celebrate New Year's out here?" I asked.

"Don't we though!" he exclaimed. "You ought to be here for our New Year's fete. It is one of the most spontaneous shows of the kind you'll see anywhere. It's not a tough orgy such as you have on Broadway every New Year's Eve, with a lot of drunks sitting around in restaurants under signs saying 'Champagne Only'--I've seen that. We just have a lot of real fun, mostly in the streets.

"One thing you can count on out here. We celebrate everything that can be celebrated, and the beauty of a lot of our good times is that they have a way of just breaking loose instead of being cooked-up in advance.

It has often happened that on Christmas Eve some great singer or musician would appear in the streets and sing or play for the crowds. A hundred thousand people heard Tetrazzini when she did that four years ago. Bispham and a lot of other big singers have done the same thing, and three years ago, on Christmas Eve, Kubelik played for the crowds in the streets. Somehow I think that musicians and artists of all kinds have a warm feeling for San Francisco, and want to show us that they have."

There can be no doubt that that is true. Many artists have inhabited San Francisco, and the city has always been beloved by them; especially, it sometimes seems, by the writing group. Mark Twain records that on his arrival he "fell in love with the most cordial and sociable city in the Union," and countless other authors, from Stevenson down, have paid their tribute.

As might be expected of a country so palpitantly beautiful and alive, California has produced many artists in literature and the other branches, and has developed many others who, having had the misfortune to be born elsewhere, possessed, at least, the good judgment to move to California while still in the formative period.

Sitting around a table in a cafe, one night, with a painter, a novelist and a newspaper man, I set them all to making lists, from memory, of persons following the arts, who may be cla.s.sified as Californians by birth or long residence.