The Lure of San Francisco Part 2

"You must not go until you have seen the cemetery," said our guide as we moved toward the entrance, and throwing open a door to the right he admitted us to the neglected graveyard. Here and there a rude cross marked the resting place of an early Indian convert and an almost obliterated inscription on a broken headstone revealed the name of a Spanish grandee. Shattered columns, loosened by the hand of time and overthrown in recent years, lay upon the ground, while great willow and pepper trees spread out protecting arms, as if to shield the silent company from the inroads of modern enterprise. We picked our way along vine-latticed paths, past graves over which myrtle and roses wandered in untrimmed beauty, to where a white shaft marked the resting place of Don Luis Arguello, comandante of the San Francisco Presidio for twenty-three years and the first Mexican governor of California.

"How splendidly strong he looms out of the past," I said. "His keen insight into the needs of this western outpost and his determined efforts for the best interests of California will forever place him in the front rank of its rulers. I wonder if his young wife, Rafaela, is buried here also?" I drew aside the tangled vines from the near-by headstones. "She was always a little dearer to me than his second wife, the proud Dona Maria Ortega, perhaps because Rafaela belonged pre-eminently to San Francisco. Her father, Ensign Sal, was acting comandante of the Presidio when Vancouver visited the Coast, and Rafaela and Luis Arguello grew up together in the little adobe settlement."

"Go on," said the skeptic, leaning comfortably against a tree trunk.

"This old Mexican governor seems to have had an interesting romance."

"He wasn't old," I protested, "only forty-six when he died. He was a splendid type of a young Spanish grandee, tall and lithe of form, with the dark skin and hair of his race. He combined the freedom born of an out-of-door life with the courtly manners inherited from generations of Spanish ancestry. To Rafaela Sal, watching the soldiers file out of the mud-walled Presidio, it seemed that none sat his horse so straight nor so bravely as did Don Luis Arguello. And at night to the young soldier dozing before the campfire in the forest, the billowy smoke seemed to shape itself into the soft folds of a lace mantilla from which looked out the smiling face of a lovely grey-eyed girl, framed in an exquisite mist of copper-colored hair.

"There was no opposition on the part of the parents to the union of these young people. The elder Arguello loved the sweet Rafaela as if she were his own daughter, and Ensign Sal was proud to claim the splendid young soldier as a son-in-law. So the betrothal was solemnized, but since Don Luis was a Spanish officer, the marriage must await the consent of the king, and forthwith papers were dispatched to the court of Madrid. California was an isolated province in those days and the packet boat, touching on the sh.o.r.e but twice a year, frequently brought papers from Spain dated nine months previous, so the older people affirmed that permission could not be received for two years, while Luis and Rafaela declared that if the king answered at once--and surely he would recognize the importance of haste--word might be received in eighteen months.

"After a year and a half had pa.s.sed the young people could talk of little besides the expected arrival of the boat with an order from the king. Frequently Luis would climb the hills back of the Presidio where the wide expanse of the ocean could be seen. At last a sail was discovered on the horizon and the little settlement was thrown into a turmoil of excitement. Luis was first at the beach and impatiently watched the ship make its way between the high bluffs that guarded the entrance to the bay, and nose along the sh.o.r.e until it came to anchor in the little cove in front of the Presidio. Had the king's permission come? he eagerly asked his father, who was running through the papers handed him by the captain. But the elder man shook his head, and Luis turned with lagging steps to tell Rafaela that they must wait another six months. It seemed a long time to the impatient lovers and yet there was much to make the days pa.s.s quickly at the Presidio. The door of the commodious sala at the home of the comandante always stood wide open, and almost nightly the feet of the young people which had danced since their babyhood tripped over the floor of the old adobe building. Picnics were planned to the woods near the Mission and frequently longer excursions were undertaken; for El Camino Real was not only, the king's highway to church and military outposts, but also the royal road to pleasure, and when a wedding or a fiesta was at the end of a journey, no distance was counted too great. Luis watched his betrothed blossom to fuller beauty, fearful lest someone else might steal her away before word from the king should arrive.

"A year pa.s.sed, then another. Packet boats came and went every six months, bringing orders to the comandante in regard to the administration of the military forces, concerning the treatment of foreign vessels, and of numerous other matters, but still the king remained silent on the one subject which, to the minds of the two young people, overshadowed all else. Luis rashly threatened to run away with his betrothed, while Rafaela, frightened, reminded him that there was not a priest in California or Mexico who would marry them without the king's order. And so each time the packet boat entered the harbor their hearts beat with renewed hope and then, disappointed, they watched it disappear through the Gulf of the Farallones, knowing that months would pa.s.s before another would arrive.

"Thus six years had gone by since permission had been asked of the king; six interminable years, they seemed to the lovers. Again the packet boat was sighted on the distant horizon. Luis saw the full white sails sweep past the fort guarding the entrance; he heard the salute of the guns and watched the anchor lowered into the water before he made his way slowly down to the sh.o.r.e. It would be the same answer he had received so many times, he was, sure, and he dreaded to put the question again. Ten minutes later he was racing over the sand-dunes to the Presidio, his face radiant and his hand tightly clasping an official doc.u.ment. It had come at last--the order from the king! Where was Rafaela? He hurried to her house and, folding her close in his arms, be whispered that their long waiting was at an end; that she was his as long as life should last.

"But, oh, such a little span of happiness was theirs! Only two brief years, and then the cold hand of death was laid upon the sweet Rafaela."

For a moment my companion did not move. A bird sang in the tree above us and the wind sent a shower of pink petals over the green mound. Then, stooping, he picked a white Castilian rose from a tangle of shrubbery and laid it at the base of the granite shaft. "In memory of the lovely Rafaela," he said softly; I unpinned a bunch of fragrant violets from my jacket and placed, them beside his offering, then we silently followed the shaded path to the white picket gate and were once more on the noisy thoroughfare.

"A fitting resting place for the first Mexican governor of California,"

he said, glancing back at the heavy facade of the church, "so simple and dignified. Yet if Luis Arguello had lived in New England, we should have considered his house of equal importance with his grave and have placed a bronze tablet on the front, but you Westerners have, so little regard for old--"

"If you would like to see the home of Luis Arguello, I will show it to you. It is at the Presidio."

"A hopeless ma.s.s of neglected ruins, I suppose. But still I should like to see the old walls, if you can find them."

"Shall we take the Camino Real on foot, just as the old padres used to?"

"Not if I have my way. I'll acknowledge that the Spanish friars have left you Californians one legacy that no Easterner can vie with, that is your love of tramping over these hills. I've seen streets in San Francisco so steep that teams seldom attempt them, as is evident from the gra.s.s between the cobblestones, and yet they are lined with dwellings."

"Houses that are never vacant," I a.s.sured him. "We like to get off the level, and value our residence real estate by the view it affords."

Noticing that the sun was now high, my companion drew out his watch.

"Luncheon time," he announced. "Shall it be the Palace or St. Francis hotel?"

"Let's keep in the spirit of the times and go to a Spanish restaurant,"

I suggested, and soon we were on a car headed for the Latin quarter.

"May I replace the violets you left at the Mission?" he asked, as stepping from the car at Lotta's fountain, we lingered before the gay flower stands edging the sidewalk.

Before I had a chance to reply a fragrant bunch was thrust into his hands by an urchin who announced: "Two for two-bits."

"Two-bits is twenty-five cents," I interpreted, seeing the Easterner's mystified look.

"I'll take three bunches." His eyes rested admiringly on the big purple heads as he held out a dollar bill.

"Ain't you got any real money?" asked the boy, not offering to touch the currency.

Again the man's hand went to his pocket and drew out some small change, from which he selected a quarter, a dime and three one-cent pieces. The urchin turned the coppers over in his palm, then, diving below the heap of violets, he pulled out several California poppies. "We always give these to Easterners," he announced as he tucked them in among the violets.

"I wonder how that boy knew I was an Easterner?" the Bostonian reflected as we turned away. Then gently touching the golden petals, he asked: "Where did you get the odd name 'eschscholtzia' for this lovely flower?"

"It was given by the French-born poet-naturalist, Chamisso, in honor of the German botanist, Dr. Eschscholz, who came together to San Francisco on a Russian ship in 1816. However, I like better the Spanish names, dormidera--the sleepy flower--or copa de oro--cup of gold," I added as I pinned the flowers to my coat. The man's glance wandered around Newspaper Corners, when suddenly his look of surprise told me that he had discovered on this crowded section of commercial San Francisco a duplicate of the old bell hung in front of the Mission San Francisco de Asis.

"We are following El Camino Real from the Mission to the Presidio," I reminded him.

We turned toward the shopping district, but the lure of the place made our feet lag. We watched the people purchasing flowers at the corner, and the little newsboys drinking from Lotta's fountain.

"A tablet," he exclaimed delightedly, examining the bronze plate fastened to the fountain. "I didn't know you Westerners ever indulged in such things. 'Presented to San Francis...o...b.. Lotta, 1875,'" he read.

"Little Lotta Crabtree," I explained, "the sweet singer who bewitched the city at a time when gold was still more plentiful than flowers, and her song was greeted by a shower of the glittering metal flung to her feet by enthusiastic miners. But read the second tablet," I suggested.

"It was placed there with the permission of Lotta."

"Tetrazzini!" his voice rang with surprise.

"Can you picture this place surging with people as it was on Christmas night five years ago, when Tetrazzini sang to San Francisco?" I asked.

"The crowd began to gather long before the appointed time--the wealthy banker from his s.p.a.cious home on Pacific Heights, the grimy laborer from the Potrero and the little newsboy with the badge of his profession slung over his shoulder. Flushed with excitement, the courted debutante drew back to give her place to a tired factory girl and close to the platform an old Italian, who had tramped all the way from Telegraph Hill, patiently waited to hear the sweet voice of his country woman.

'Tetrazzini is here,' they said to one another; Tetrazzini, who had been discovered and adored by the people of San Francisco when, as an unknown singer, she appeared in the old Tivoli opera house. At last she came, wrapped in a rose-colored opera coat, and was greeted with shouts of joy from a quarter of a million throats. She was radiant; smiling and dimpling she waved her handkerchief with the abandonment of a child. The storm of applause increased, rolling up the street to the very summit of Twin Peaks. Suddenly the soft liquid notes of a clear soprano fell upon the air, and instantly the great mult.i.tude was wrapped in silence. Out over the heads of the people the exquisite tones floated, mounting upward to the stars. It was the 'Last Rose of Summer,' and as she sang her opera coat slipped from her, leaving her bare shoulders and white filmy gown silhouetted against the sombre background. She sang again and again, while the vast throng seemed scarcely to breathe. Then she began the familiar strains of 'Old Lang Syne,' and at a sign, two hundred and fifty thousand people joined in the refrain."

"There is not a city in all the world except San Francisco which could have done such a thing," enthusiastically rejoined my companion, but the next instant the eccentricities of the place struck him afresh.

"Furs and apple blossoms!" he exclaimed, observing a woman opposite.

"What a ridiculous combination!" Then, turning, he scrutinized me from the top of my flower-trimmed hat to the bottom of my full skirt until my cheeks burned with embarra.s.sment. "Why, you have on a thin summer silk, while that woman is dressed for mid-winter!"

"Of course," I a.s.sented. "She's on the shady side of the street."

But still his face did not lighten. "We've been in the sun all morning,"

I continued to explain. "People talk about San Francis...o...b..ing an expensive place to live in, but really it is the cheapest in the world.

If a woman has a handsome set of furs, she wears them and keeps in the shadow, or if her new spring suit has just come home, she puts that on and walks on the sunny side of the street, being comfortably and appropriately, dressed in either."

"Great heavens!" he cried, "what a city!"

We pa.s.sed through the shopping district and lingered for a moment at the edge of Portsmouth Square. My eyes rested affectionately on the clean-cut lawns and blossoming shrubs. Then I turned to the skeptic, but before I could speak, he had dismissed it with a nod.

"Too modern," he commented. "Looks as if it had been planted yesterday.

Now the Boston Common--"

A rasping discordant sound burst from a near-by store and the Easterner sent me a questioning glance.

"A Chinese orchestra," I replied. "We are in Oriental San Francisco."

"That park was doubtless made as a breathing place for this congested Chinese quarter," he glanced back at the green square. "A good civic improvement."

"That park is a relic of old Spanish days and one of the most historic spots in San Francisco," I said severely.

He stopped short. "You don't mean--I didn't suppose there was anything old in commercial San Francisco."

"Portsmouth Square was once the Plaza of the little Spanish town of Yerba Buena, and the public meeting place of the community when there were not half a dozen houses in San Francisco."