Chapter 8
San Francisco!

There is no way to describe our three days in the great city of San Francisco! I wish I knew more of what Uncle Nick calls “them fifty-cent words.” Maybe then I could give a better idea.

The fog seemed attracted to the water, because as soon as we got away from where our steamer landed, the sun started peeking through hole after hole. Before long, everything was shining in the bright afternoon sunlight.

We took a horse-drawn cab from the pier to the hotel, and on the way Mrs. Parrish pointed out many of the sights. She even had the cabman take a short detour up a steep hill so I could look down on the city from the top. She showed me where some of San Francisco’s newspapers were, where the Star began on Clay Street, and down by the waterfront where the California’s offices were located.

She pointed out a bookshop—“That’s where I go whenever I’m here to see if I can find something for you,” she said. “We’ll visit it later”—and a dressmaker’s shop, which she also said we’d visit.

Everywhere there was building going on. Mrs. Parrish said San Francisco was growing faster than any city in the country. Although our hotel must have been half a mile or more up the hill, we could see and hear the workers all day long and half into the night working on the huge Montgomery Block. Mrs. Parrish said there had never been anything so big or so elegant built anywhere in California. It was four stories tall and the walls were three feet thick. It was so huge there were going to be offices in it, a big hotel, restaurants, saloons, and all sorts of places. Mrs. Parrish said when it was done it was sure to be the center of San Francisco’s business and social life.

I had never seen so many Chinese people as I saw in San Francisco, come to help with the construction. The cab driver told us that hundreds of these Chinese men worked eighteen-hour days hauling big numbered blocks of granite for the new Parrott’s bank building. I can hardly believe it myself, but he said every piece of granite came from China—along with the men to put them up—and they all had to go in a certain place. It was a four-story building too, but there were so many workmen it was done in just a few months.

Usually when she came to San Francisco, Mrs. Parrish said she stayed at a boardinghouse. But this was a special occasion, she said, and she intended to treat me first class. I wasn’t prepared for all the sights that met my eyes when we pulled up in front and then went inside the Oriental Hotel, a fine new building on Hyde Street.

The foyer was carpeted in a rich red and black carpet. There was a chandelier overhead and velvet chairs and couches all around in the lobby. It was the kind of place I’d only imagined in cities like Paris, France!

A man in a red coat took our luggage right away. Mrs. Parrish spoke with the clerk at the front desk, while I just stood on that thick carpet and kept staring all about me, probably with my mouth hanging open and my eyes full of country-girl wonder!

“Must be your first time in the city,” came a voice into the middle of my musing.

“What?” I said, looking around.

“First-timer, eh?” he said again. “I figured—I can always tell.”

I saw a boy, around my own age, maybe a little older, standing looking at me. He wasn’t much bigger than I was, and since he was slender, I couldn’t really tell his age. He looked young, but he sounded so sure of himself and confident that he must have been seventeen or eighteen, though he only looked fifteen. His voice was high-pitched. His eyes were as blue as the night, and looked somewhat mischievous. He wore a dirty, gray hat that was tilted to the right. Out from under it stiff blond curls fell onto his forehead.

“Yes, it is,” I answered, finally getting hold of my wits.

“Yeah, I knew it. Being in the newspaper business, you see, I got a nose for people.” Now he was starting to sound cocky, and I had the feeling he was looking down on me. But then I noticed the bundle of newspapers he was carrying under his arm and thought maybe he deserved another chance.

“You work for a newspaper?” I said, probably a little too eagerly.

“That’s right.”

“What do you do? You’re not a reporter . . . a writer?” I asked.

“I do whatever they tell me,” he answered. “I’m what they call in the business a jack of all trades. So, yeah, I’ve done a little reporting in my time—” The superior slant of his mouth crept back. “You see, my editor, he knows that a fella like me, out on the streets, is likely to pick up better stories than them desk reporters.”

“I’d like to write for a newspaper some day,” I said.

“Where you from?”

“Miracle Springs.”

His first response was a great laugh. “Boy, are you from the sticks! You ain’t gonna do no newspaper writing there! Ha, ha, ha!”

“What do you mean?” I said back, my face getting red. “We have a newspaper there.”

“You mean ol’ Singleton’s rag! Ha, ha! It ain’t nothing but an advertising sheet—mining tools, mail-order brides, spent claims, and worn out jackasses! We cover real news stories here in the city. You must have just lit fresh from the overland trail! So, what are you doing in San Francisco?”

Even as he asked the question he was still smiling that patronizing smile of his, and I didn’t know whether to be hurt or mad.

“We’re just—that is, I came with that lady over there,” I glanced to where Mrs. Parrish was just finishing up with the clerk.

“Well, sounds to me like the two of you could do with a guide while you’re here, and I know this city like the back of my hand. Robert T. O’Flaridy is the name! And besides newspapering, I offer my services to out-of-town young damsels such as yourself to keep them out of distress! My rates are most reasonable, and I—”

He was interrupted, just as Mrs. Parrish walked up, by the desk clerk’s irritated-sounding voice calling out from behind the desk.

“Robin O’Flaridy, what are you doing accosting my guests again!”

Robin—that fit him better than his fancy “Robert T.”—flashed a big grin, sheepish, but with a dash of cunning in it too.

“Just trying to make a living, Mr. Barnes,” he answered, throwing a wink in our direction.

“Well, your job is not to bother our people, as I’ve told you fifty times, but to deliver those newspapers. If you can’t do that properly, you may well lose that job, too!”

“Okay, okay!” He tipped his cap toward us. “It was a pleasure meeting you ladies. Remember, I’m the best guide in this city.”

He deposited the bundle of papers on the desk and made a hasty exit.

“I apologize for the annoyance, ma’am,” the clerk said.

“No trouble at all, Mr. Barnes,” replied Mrs. Parrish. “Perhaps if he is as good a guide as he says, we might consider engaging his services.”

“Believe me, ma’am, the boy is all wind. All he does is deliver papers to a few of the large hotels in town, and he tells everyone he’s a reporter.”

“He doesn’t write for the paper?” I said.

“Write! Did he tell you that? Ha, that’s a good one! He’s nothing but a confidence man in the making. No, ma’am, if you employed him as a guide, you’d have to chain your pocketbook to your arm. Nobody even knows where the boy lives. He’s always on the streets looking for some likely target to fleece, and an hour or two a day he delivers papers and pretends to be the senior editor’s right hand man! No, I’ve seen him mixing with some bad customers, and wouldn’t want you associating with him.”

“Well, I appreciate your candid advice, Mr. Barnes,” said Mrs. Parrish. “But surely, the boy could be trusted. If you hire him—”

“I don’t hire him, ma’am. If I had my way, I’d never see him setting foot in my lobby again. No, he’s the newspaper’s doing, and I’m stuck with him. But the paper isn’t the only outfit he runs errands for, if you get my meaning,” he added with a look of significance. “And like I say, some of the other types he hangs around aren’t the sort a lady like you wants to have anything to do with.”

With plenty to think about, we followed the man with the red jacket up to our room. I didn’t realize it, but I must have been so tuckered out that I fell asleep in my clothes almost the minute I lay down on the beautiful soft bed.

Mrs. Parrish had a short nap, too, but when I woke she was sitting at the dressing table fixing her hair. She suggested that if I felt rested enough, we get a little something to eat and then see more of the city. We still had most of the afternoon ahead of us, and her meetings didn’t start until the next day. She didn’t have to ask me twice! I jumped up and washed my face and was ready in a twinkling.

Mrs. Parrish hired us a carriage, but she didn’t need a guide. She knew the city as well as any native, or any guide like that O’Flaridy boy said he was. First she took us up onto Telegraph Hill to see the windmill, and then clear across town to the point overlooking the “Gate,” where we could see the Pacific and the opening of the bay on the other side. It was beautiful when the fog still clinging to the water would lift or part. It was pretty windy, though the sun was shining warm. What you could see of the water was so blue, just like the sky, and when the sun was just right, even the patches of fog swirling around here and there could be pretty. I thought San Francisco was about as grand a place for a city to sit as anywhere in the world!

Wherever we went in the city we saw different sights—fancy business men, Chinese workmen, fishing boats of all sizes, and big ships from all over the world. On the waterfront I heard many strange languages being spoken. And of course, there were lots of saloons with rough-looking men coming in and out of them.

I guess it was what you would call “colorful,” but Mrs. Parrish said that lots of terrible things happened around there. They even called one stretch of the waterfront the “Barbary Coast,” after the pirate coast of North Africa. She said that there were bad men and women in those saloons and boardinghouses, and I have to admit I didn’t like the looks of the ladies who came out of them, dressed in bright colors with painted faces and red lips, sometimes hanging on to men in fine clothes with ruffled lace shirts. Those men had a different look than the businessmen you saw around the Montgomery Building. And after our day’s outing when she took me to see the city, I was glad when we got away from there.

Just as we were climbing into our cab, while Mrs. Parrish was telling the driver where to go, I glanced back for one last look at the waterfront, with its saloons and people and the fishing boats and bay behind it. My mind was on the whole panorama of blue sky, clouds, the pretty expanse of water, but my eyes fell instead on a figure just at that moment stumbling out of one of the buildings nearest to where we sat.

My mouth fell open in disbelief. It couldn’t be! And just as quickly as I saw him, I turned my head away. Even if it was, I didn’t want to see that face a second time. I never wanted to see it again!

I stared down at the floor of the cab, afraid to say anything to Mrs. Parrish. Yet, somehow I sensed that, drunk as he was, the man had seen my face too, and was even now walking uncertainly toward us.

What a relief when at last the cabman shouted to his horse and I felt the cab lurch into motion. I didn’t look back. I never wanted to see the Barbary Coast again!

I kept quiet most of the way back to the hotel. I wanted to tell Mrs. Parrish, but something inside me couldn’t. I was afraid, flooded by so many unpleasant memories so unexpectedly, and I just wanted to try to forget. By the time we got back to the hotel, we were talking again and I tried to put the incident behind me and out of my mind.

I’ll never forget that evening as long as I live!

When we got back to the middle of the city, it was late in the afternoon and the wind coming in off the ocean was pretty chilly, but some shops were still open. Before we returned to the hotel, the carriage stopped in front of the dressmaker’s shop Mrs. Parrish had pointed out earlier.

She told the cabman to wait, then took me inside and said she was going to buy me a new dress. After all she’d already done for me, I could hardly bear thinking of her doing even more!

But she insisted, and said, “Corrie, you have to let me do this for myself, for the pleasure it will give me! I doubt I’m ever going to know the joy of having a daughter of my own, and you’re just about the closest to one I’m likely to get.”

As she spoke her eyes started to get big and shiny from the tears filling them, as she sometimes does when a conversation gets real personal, and I knew I couldn’t argue with her. I couldn’t help thinking about Rev. Rutledge, and I was about to say something about maybe her getting to have a daughter of her own after they were married. Whether she had an inkling of what I was thinking, I don’t know, but before a word got out of my mouth, she put a finger softly to my lips to silence me.

“You’re like a daughter to me in many ways, Corrie. I’m so thankful to God for you! Sometimes I think maybe it’s even more special to have a friend like you I can think of as a daughter in the Lord, than to have a daughter of my own flesh. Because in you I’m always reminded of God’s love and goodness and grace. Now, let’s have some fun, and find you a bright, pretty new dress—and maybe even a bonnet to go with it!”

And it was fun! We stayed in that shop for an hour, Mrs. Parrish and the woman from the shop holding up dress after dress to me, draping them over my shoulders, having me look in the mirror and asking me what I thought. They made me feel so special that I might have cried if we hadn’t been laughing and talking and enjoying ourselves so much. I must have tried on six or seven different dresses in all colors. I forgot all about the cab driver waiting outside and the time passing.

The dress we finally picked was the prettiest of all, mostly a light green. I wouldn’t have chosen pink as a color to go with green. A couple of the other ones I tried on mixed yellow with green. But this particular dress had such light colors that the two blended in a way I just loved. It was made mostly out of polished cotton, with a full skirt in green. The skirt was loose and soft, but not so full that I had to wear hoops and petticoats underneath. It felt comfortable, like I could walk around free and easy. Above the waist, the bodice was pink, and a wide collar folded down over the pink all the way around, with a green piping around its edge. They called the sleeves leg of mutton sleeves, the full part from my shoulders down to just below my elbows made of the green, with the tight forearms in plain white. Only the top in front and in back was pink, and little pink fabric-covered buttons stretched all the way down the back, matching those on the sleeves.

Best of all was the satin and lace—dark green, with rows of satin stretching down from the shoulders over the pink and down to the waist where the green began. The wide waistband was dark green satin, with a bow tied in back. In between the satin stripes, which were three inches apart down the bodice, were sewn little delicate strips of lace, a lighter green than the satin, but darker than the dress. The same lace went down the wide part of the sleeves too, all the way to where the narrow white began.

The bonnet must have been made at the same time, because the wide floppy brim was of the exact same light green as the dress. The crown was of the same pink, and around the base of the pink was a wide strip of the dark green satin that exactly matched the waistband of the dress. It was all so pretty, and made me feel so fine and grown-up!

Walking out of that shop carrying that parcel, the smile on my face must’ve been six inches wide.

When we went back to the hotel, Mrs. Parrish dismissed the cabman. We walked up to the second floor to our room and got ready for the evening. We put our dresses on—Mrs. Parrish had bought a new one for the occasion too. Then Mrs. Parrish fixed her hair up all nice and then helped me with mine, so it would look nice flowing out from under the pink and green bonnet. At last we left the room and walked back downstairs.

As we walked through the hotel lobby, I saw several men’s heads turn in our direction. I could feel the red coming up my neck and into my cheeks, but Mrs. Parrish just kept straight for the door without even flinching at some of the calls at her.

I guess that’s one of the things I always liked about her, that she could be such a lady, so tender and nice, and could cry with you and talk about girl things. But she could be strong in a man’s world like San Francisco too. I’d never yet seen her cowed by anyone, man or woman. And walking through that hotel lobby beside her, I felt as safe as if I’d been with Pa and Uncle Nick and Captain Grant—all three of them!

Mrs. Parrish took me to dinner that night at a fancy restaurant. It was close enough that we could have walked, but she said this was our “night out in San Francisco,” and that we were going to “go first class all the way.” So she ordered another cab—a covered one, this time, with fringe hanging down all the way around—and we rode down Montgomery Street, lit up with the brand-new gas street lights, to the International House restaurant.

On the way I asked her why we didn’t eat at the dining room of the hotel. “The Oriental is one of the city’s nicest hotels,” she answered, “but there is an element present there which I would rather avoid. Sam Brannan and other of the city’s leaders may have suites there, but I do not choose to dine with them, and I do not think most respectable women would care to do so either.”

I felt like such a lady that night, sitting there in my new dress in that expensive restaurant, with well-dressed people all about—businessmen, Mrs. Parrish said, from all around the world. I didn’t even know what half the food was that Mrs. Parrish ordered, but she explained it all to me, and everything was delicious! There was music playing as we ate too—real music—and a lady who sang. It was like being part of a world I never even dreamed of seeing but had only read about once or twice in books.

By the time we got back to the hotel I was tired—but happy, too! What a wonderful day it had been! As I lay down in my bed, all the things that I’d seen and heard that evening ran back and forth through my mind.

But not for long, because I was asleep before I knew it.