The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 6, 1896, Page 17

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1896. JHEROES WHO FACE AWFUL ODDS I THE “Iam a little begear girl, My mother she is dead; My father is a solcier, And he coesn’t bring me bread, 1 sit beside the window And hear the music play, Itsounds to me like mother, And she is far away.” Clearly and distinetly each word floated out throuzh the half-open windows of the incurables’ ward at the Children’s Hos- pital.. It was a child’s voice, yet so mag- netic in its sweetness that the sun-warmed | seemed to cling to the sounds as though loth to lose them forever. “I am a little beggar girl, My mother she is dead” Trembled softly on the breeze again, and then I heard no more. But across the | Way in the old cemetery the wind whis- | P the words through the branches of | tire cypress trees and they sighed on and | oh-over the white tombstones as though i1 qhest of something. “Yeou came to see our little band of he- rues?’” asked the bright-faced attendant who mietus at the door. Then she led the way-down the long hall and into the ward at thp farther end. On a couch lay a tiny form and from one end, where the bed- ¢lothing was turned down, emerged a lit- tle - woolly head. Two great, big, black eyes looked out from the wasted face. “This 1s Mamie Brown,” said the at- tendant. *‘Mamie, tell the lady what you | are. A spark of mischief flashed into the chisd’s eyes for a second, as shesaidina | low tired little voice, catching her breath between each word : ’se—a—little—pickaninny!" Then, reaching up one hand, she said, “Please give me a flower,” and holding the pink rose in her hand, she smiled and began, in a voice that quivered when she tried to make it strong: “When I walk dat levee roun’, roun’, roun’, I’ke lookin’ for dat nigger an’ he can’t be found.” ‘Are you feeling better to-day, Mamie?'’ | sm. Say, Chris'mas is comin nd what shall Santa Claus bring The pathetic face grew almost happy in its expression as she clasped her hands, tful of the rose. a big balloon. Yes! ared onel” all I tell him to bring it here?” ybe I'll go’way.” The voice was amt and weak. fOne had to bend low tch the sound. “But he’ll find me.” ray of sunlight streamed through the raised curtain and rested on the white coverlid, and just touched the transparent i that held the beautiful rose, and | stealing softly, it kissed the wasted Tke wind sighed into the room, ew the curtain sharply against the as it withdrew. s Don Inai, our brave Chinese | hanc Fhis boy,” said our attendant, as we stood in B avroom, where the little children | been Ye Fortune-Favored Ones, in Your Bour\’cg, Forget Not These at selves in chairs, or played languidly about on the warm, sunny floor. “I’ve got two hips,” volunteered Don, as I sat down beside him. “That is the common expression that we use,”’ the attendant said, laughing. “He means that he has the disease in both hips.” “I've been here four years,” said Don again, looking at me with his comical almond-shaped eyes and a queer smile on his round, polished face. “Yep, I like it; guess D’ll stay always,” he replied re- signedly. “What are vou, anyway, Don ?”’ asked 1, marveling at his pure English and correct pronunciation. “I'm a McKinley,”” exclaimed he proucly, trying to sit up on the stretcher. ““An a ’Merican,” he added, as we all laugbed. *‘What's Santa Claus goin’ to bring me? A box of paints, an’ a pair of reins. Then I can play horse with the foot of the stretcher an’ I won’t mind its hurting. Brave? Well, I couldn’t cry, ‘cause I'm a 'Merican, you know.” Bright, cheerful little spirit! Hasn’t it written somewhere that he who would receive a reward of happiness must become as a little child? Up the stairs we proceed and across the way to the finished incurables’ ward. The newly | 1ittle bodies turned on their beds of pain and the childish faces brightened as we entered. At the bedside of pretty Ger- trude Unfried our guide paused. And who could help pausing? In sharp contrast with the closely cropped heads and emaciated faces of the other sufferers were this child’s mass of thick brown curls and the rich coloring in her cheeks and lips. Half reclining | against the pillows with her small, per- fectly formed handslyingon an autoharp, out on stretchers, or wheeled them- 1she made a picture of beauty one would 0dd Anticipations of Merr A deep-sea Santa Claus! “ “Eight bells” are struck, and it is mid- day on tke water front. Men of heavy burild wearing long white apronsare stand- ing in doorways or behind bars ready to serve steam beer and free lunch for a nickel. Landlubbers from the ferries are entering cable and electric cars through their ““booby hatches” and scooting away with the aid of steam and electricity, lay- heir courses in various directions. sht bells” play a tune good for hun- ry men to hear, for it is time to eat. There are certain small wooden structures on the water front, having a *list”’ to port or starboara, standing, like jovial tars, a ttle unsteadily, braced as if not guite sire of their sea legs. On the weather se several sons of Italy owning ands use shoebrushes ostensi- yut their real mission is to holy-stone he corns of their patrons, which they | with every indication of keen delight. Just after *‘eight bells” comes the soci- able time of the day on the front. True it is that eating seems to be something to be done like stowing cargo—that is, it must be doue with some speed—but when the midday cargo of lunch isin there is a slack | time when everything is discussed, from the Sharkey-Fitzsimmons fight upward | and downward. Neptune’s sons, nephews | and longshoremen —distant relatives — take in the sunshine, sniff the familiar odors of salt water and tar commingled, and are unconscious of the vague suspicion of countrymen that they are so “salt” that barnacles are growing on them. That is to say, that the whole commu- nity, for a depth of a block or twoand a gpod part of a degree of Iatitude, is dis- tinctly aquatic, sun-browned, muscular, speaking all the *!lingoes” of the civilized globe, and of much éarea that s less civil- ized, with an inherent love of fun and in- | berited tendencies for walking with hands | in pockets and with coat collars invari- ably turned up in the back of the neck. | An easier-tempered and kindlier-hearted | set of men never formulated thoughts, which, like seagulls, are upon the water | most of the time. 0dd characters came in on ships, odd types of Jack, the man behind the gun,” types of men from every island or main- | land where stormy breezes blow or billows | break along the shore. They are. one| and all—the odd people, that is to say— | .semi - humorously inclined. Some are | hairy and some hairless; | | some with a| stock of sea yarns reminiscent of Sinbad; | some with a capacity for drinking that would make them prime favorites with | both Bacchus and Gambrinus—prime min- isters in their bibulous couris, keepers-in- chief of the keys of the royal wine cellars | and breweries—men sble to wrestle with king John Barleycorn long and faithiully. Latterly there has appeared at the noon | bour at one of the sailor boarding-houses | the oddest of all odd characters, his real | name unknown, but jocularly called by | chance acquaintances ‘‘Captain Jack Whiskers,” also cailed by others ‘‘the Sea Santa Claus.)’ This last title f.icates, not only his general appearance, but also suggests a new line of thinking. Suppose that some day, when thefog trumpets and fog sirens about the bay | * seemed to be calling for more fog, a stout, rather ander-sized man in a pea-jecket, the collar being turned up in the back as a matter of course, should dispense such \ an aroma of Medford rum at a boat land- ing as he came ashore as to make it seem | #afe to bet that he could be sniffed out by his fragrant wake at a distance of a block. Suppose that from his bushy whiskers heshould skake off drops of fog, like snow- fiakes, just like a real Santa Clans—as real asany. Then, drawing from the depths of bis pocket a short, black pipe and a y Ghristmas bag of tobacco, suppose he should begin to emit smioke, his mild, blue eyes taking on the look of languorouscontentment which belongs to the sun-baked children of the tropics, bis lips ripe and red as coral, for instance, and the fat upon him, as the story-books say, “shaking like jelly.”” Brown of whisker and ruddy as to com- plexion, both hands thrust deep in his pockets, his watchchain showing a dang- ling anchor as a charm, rolling a little in his gait as becomes a loyal seaman, a nay- igator and a sailoring gentteman. who fol- lows the ses for the sake of fresh air—and gets not much else. That is he. The whole water-front population, espe- cially the younger part, are ready to adopt a maritime Santa Claus—brown whiskers, pea-jacket, submarine Christmas gifts, shells for the Christmas tree instead of gewgaws irom the shops as adornments, mermaid baby dolis and all. The marine Santa Claus is something new. And why not reaily have a nautical Santa Ciaus for 8an Francisco? Our artist has humorously caught the spirit of the demonstration which will at- tend a wider knowledge of ““Captain Jack Whiskers’ as be navigates the water-front streets, but he has not imagined the sailors’ Christmas-tree celebration. Im- agine the services beginning with the lusty “‘chantey’’: 0ld horse, old horse, how came you here? It may be only a coincidence, happening along just before Christmus time, but the fact is that Ilately tne stocking peddler has been through all the hannts of sailors on East, Stenart and other water-front streets. Sailors, taking turns back and forth, to and fro on the sidewalks, never stopping as they vigor- ously talked, walking as if they were on the aecks, have been among his auditors, but his sales have been few. He appeared aboat the time that the ‘‘Sea Santa Claus’’ began to amuse the water front. “In all latitnaes,” said one sailor, I Yuletide's (racious Season like to remember always. When she laughed the dimples came and went in a most bewitching manner, and she did not show her sufferings at all save when her face was in repose; then she looked old— ROSE PENDERGAST oh, so old, and sad. “I am 11 years old,” she said with a little lisp that wasfascinating. ‘“Whatdo I want for Christmas? I don’t know. I hadn’t thought anything about it; but I think I'd like best—to—to see mamma.”’ I ! Behind the forest-covered hill. The gloomy, cloudy day is dyin; 1L A gray, sad day, but watch its The dull clouds part and now And sparkling in the ruddy g IL The colored rays strike down v, V. i VI The light that gleams abov mountain Has driven shadows from her And in its saft beams she sits w: The summons from her care VIL O, golden sunset, flash your b 0, dying eyes, shine out you Teach weary souls the end is gl And sorrow brings its own sui MARY C. have found that when I was hard up a hole would wear longer than a patch. There is very little need for a sailor's Christmas stocking and the Santa Claus act don’t go.” Sound asleep on the ‘‘Barbary Coast” TWO SUNSETS. Across the vale the sun is sinking, The cold November wind is still. Their edges, golden, silver, crimson, The west grows bright with rosy beaming. The day is smiling e’en while dying, { And death and all his terrors fail. | I know a life whose sun is sinking | Behind death’s dark and misty hill; A cloudy, storm-tossed life is closing, A weary heart will soon be still. \ A gray, sad life, but watch its closing ; The old eyes see beyond the gloom, And clouds that were so dark and heavy Show lights of gold and flecks of bloom. The sweet voice broke, and the brown head sank lower into the pillows. they were full of longing. *I'm afraid I am,” she said. *‘I went home once, but I had to come back and—and at night GERTIE UnFRIES “Are you homesick?"’ She raised her blue eyes to my face and i’s—it’s lonely. But I'll be well pretty soon,” she added, hopefully. “The next one I want you to see,” said the attendant, as we turned away, 25 closing. they show low. the vale; 7 Wi 2 7 e death’s life, aiting and strife. rightness! r peace § adness, rcease. BANTZ. was found one of the oddest persons, who may be waiting for the ‘‘Sea Santa Claus’’ to get his present ready. Above him was the motto, “Square Meal, 5 Cents.” In. dulging in the inexpensive luxury of a dram he may have been Captain Jack Emily Gasmann. She has suffered, per- haps, more than any of the other chil- dren, but she Is the bravest child I have ever seen. [think we become haraened here—Iam afraid we do; but when that child’s wounds Jwere being dressed—we had not given her an anesthetic because it affects her injuriously—after she had borne the pain as long as she could she said to the doctor, ‘Wait just a minute and I'll sing, and then I can bear it Whiskers dealing out gifts with a royal hand for Christmas. Every one of them has a cork in it 17 BATTLE OF LIFE | better!” Then she shut her teeth and caught her breath and began to sing. “It was awful,” the young woman went on, after a slight pause, during which the whole room seemed to become dim. *“We stood it as long as we could, but one by one of the nurses and doctors broke down, and before we had finished every one was crying. And now she always sings; but—" and the young woman paused and looked out of the window, across to where the cypress trees were waving their long arms 1n the afternoon breeze. ‘‘The sun looks warm,” she said. And then our eyes met and we walked on to where lay the child who could sing during the keen- est agony. Were the old-time martyrs more heroic? She was such a frail being; so delicate, so white and wan. She looked at me with eyes large and sad and smiled with lips as colorless as her cheeks. “Iam 11 years old,” she said, faintly; she was so weak. “What do I want at Curis’mas? Oh,” she said, “L do love books!"’ : “Miss May Daily is our vocalist. She ! sings all day long, and not only soothes herself but keeps the other children lis- tening. Don’t you, Mary?” May was sitting up in her little bed, a child of seven years, with marks of great suffering on her baby face. She smiled in answer. and then looked at me. “Yes; I know Chrig’mas is comin.” I was goin’ to ask Santa Cluus for a doll and doll’s cradle, but if I can only get well again, s0’s I can go down into the play- room, I wouldn’t care. Yes; Ilike tosing, and when I get big I'm going tobe a great singer, and wear a pink-satin dress and make people love me.”” She called me back when I turned to another cot. “‘Please,”’ she whispered, “if you think it’s too much don’t tell Santa Claus about the doll’s cradle; I'll be satisfied.” The “Little Mother,” as tiny Rose Pen- dergast is called, is 11 years old, and has been in the hospiial seven years. She ha wasted away until her little frame has only the skin stretched over it. “I have a spine!” she remarked de- murely, as she closed her lips together like & Iittle old woman. There is nothing about the w. ole hospital that Rose doesn’t know. She tells the nurses where to find everything that is needed, she orders the doctors and attendants about,and there is not a child on her side of the ward who does not obey the slightest sound of her thin little voice. Rose knows the exact state by her temperature each day, but she is always hopeful and brave, and never complains. But Rose wasn’t quite sure that it was not 1o childish to ask for Christmas presents, and she wasn’t quite sure which, of all the things she heard about, she wanted the most. i As I turned away the attendant whis- pered, “The children, May and Emily, are going to sing for you.” Softly at first and ther more strongly the two little voices trembled upon the air. The child who could not lift her head, nor scarcely her hand, from weak- ness, lay pouring out her soul in a sweet, plaintive voice, while the other sang with all the fervor of sweet hopefulness, “I am a little beggar-girl.” There was na other sound in the ward. Even the little babes hushed their fretful plaints and lay with their big, earnest eyes wide open, listening. Only one little child reacned out ber hand and caught mine and smiled up into my face. Tears? How can we shed tears in the presence of angels? As the pathetic melody died away the silence was broken only by a sigh from the child who held my hand. “What is it, dear?”’ “Nothing, only—only my mamma is in San Jose, and—and she’s had a pretty hard time; she’s so sick now, and she can’t work, you know, and I haven’t seen my papa since I’ve been here, and—oh— on—"" The little heart-broken sobs and the nurse’s low, comforting voice reached me as we went down thestairs. Innocent, and suffering such physical pamn, and home- sick, too! “Iam glad that somebody somewhere wrote, ‘Of such is the kingdom of heaven.’ | I suppose it will be all right if parents and balloons and reins and dolls come pouring in here to-morrow, won't it?"’ The attendant looked her surprise. But after I got into the air there came to me the whole verse from that old Bible: ‘“‘Suf- fer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the king- dom of heaven!” “I suppose they would be happier to en~ ter into that heaven, but I think we need them here!”’ “What are you talking about?”’ asked the artist. “The brightness of the sunbeams,”” said I—*'and the cypress!"” JEAN MORRIS. A Splendid Tribute to a Faithful Slave When & man has been dead forty-six years it is rather late to write a tribute to his memory. But this is an instance where & conjunction of circumstances crowded out the facts, and the good which the man did was almost interred with his bones. A writer for the New York Sun re- cently made a journey into the countiy near Harrisville, Mo., the county seat of Cass, the county adjoining that in which Kansas City is situate. A few miles from the county seat two graves were seen from the highway. They were conspicuous more from neglect than otherwise. The man who was acting as guide said, in & matter-of-fact manner, as he coaxed the team: ,“‘One is in the grave of the mistress; the other, that of her faithful negro man. He was buried beside her, as you see, at her request.” = Of course, he explained, they died about the same time, The mistress was told a short time before her death that theold slave was dead. *They were victims of the cholers,” continued the guide, “‘when that awful scourge swept over the country. It almost depopulated Harrisonville. Every doctor in the town was stricken down, and then the only men in the town who sold drugs or knew anything about medicine dropped dead in their work. After that those who were left died in their turn, it seemed, and without any assistance. Two of the latter lot were those who are buried in the graves we have just passed. The women was the wife of the oldest and best doctor in the town, John McReynolds. “When the California gold fever struck the whole country Dr. McReynolds caught it, and he joined that long procession which whitened the plains and crossed the mountains, He took with him his faithful body servant, an old regro who Stammering is almos: unknown among savage tribes. The Christmas stocking vender of the Wafter front; ™ 2| fis better 15 have lovéd qnd jos+— than never 1o CopteIp Jack Whskers wwiyg vesembles Septo Clou 7 had been his property from infancy. He had attended his master so long that the | master regarded him as necessary to his welfare. The old servant often accom- panied his master 1n the calls of the latter on his patients. “When the doctor reached the gold country he gave up ais profession and be- came a miner, and the old servant was his assistant in that, as he had been in other things in the States. They were success- ful. At the end of a year the old doctor had $1v,000 in gold, and that was a fortune then. Butin the midst of his luck he was taken sick and died. His nurse, attendant and undertaker was his faithful servant Asa. They did not waste much time on funerals out in that country in those days. After Asa had buried his master he owned himself. He wasin a country where there was no slavery and had the entire pos- sessions of his master in his own hands. No legal steps that might have been taken n Missouri could bave reached him. He was a rich man. “I have been told, but I do not remem- ber the particulars, that some of the people in the mines, who believed that Dr. Mc- Reynolds left a fortune, undertook in various ways to get it. But the old servant thwarted them all, and succeeded in getting out of the country. His journey back across the plains was an eventful one. He was followed and tracked and often forced to resort to strategy to evade his pursuers. Once he buried the fortune of his master in the sand of the desert when he was hard pressed, and in escap- ing from a band of desperadoes he found himself a captive of Indians. What his fate might have been you can guess if he had not had a bit of good luck about that time. Some sort of an epidemic had broken out in the tribe where he was held, and as Asa was a sort of a doctor from ob- servation he experimented on the ‘sick reds with such success that they regardea him_ as a special dispensation for their benefit from the hands of the Great Spirit. In this way he ‘regained his freedom, re- turned to the place where he had buried the fortune of his master, resurrected it and resumed his journey without further molestation. *“He reachied Independence, Mo., and called upon a man who had been a patient and friend of his master. This friend accompanied him to Harrisonville, and was the messenger who gave Mrs. Mc- Reynolds the first information concerning the death of her husband. Then the friend told her about her faithful servant Asa; and this was followed by calling in the old servant from the negro quarters, and he rendered to his mistress an ac- count of his stewardship, with the larger amount of his master's fortune. +I have been told by some of the very old-timers that Asa was the first colored man who ever received anything like an ovation in Missouri. When Harrisonville heard of the old negro’s return he was in- vited to the homes of the people, and had greater %lory than any white man who has ever lived there since. “His mistress gave him his freedom and some of the money; I don’t know how much. But he remained her faithful servant. He refused to accept his free- dom as long as his mistress lived. *The cholera came, as I have said, and one of the victims was the mistress of Asa. He cared for her and was her attendant until he was stricken himsell. When he failed to respond to her call she suspected the reason, and then it was told her thau be was dead. She knew her time had come and she hardiy had time to request that his remains be placed besides her’s, and it was done. And there are their graves. Only a few people living know even the names of the dead, and not many know the story 1 have told you. IfI were a rich man I would put a monument over the grave of that coloted man, and I would just bave a few words on it after his name something like this: Fatthtul unto death.