The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 11, 1897, Page 17

A BRIGHT AFTERNOON AT HARBOR VIEW, Wicked-looking little waves chased each | far away. *“It’s the only time T ever have | breakers, were better than a song—the other up sgainst the land, showing their | white teeth and blending their little fforts with the deep ocean roar. Cool and | and seaweedy was the ocean breeze z straight in from the hazy far away. coming A band maiden’s girdle, kept the deep, pulsating | of white across the heavens, like a | 1e from overflowing in the sea. rs Beach was apparently deserted. en from a distance I could distin- h one or two moving figures on the its joyousness you get there,”” some one hen look behind the rocks.” hind the rocks? That is where one finds sand-fleas, and clams, and worms, and crabs, and—and things, But T looked behind the rocks after reaching the resort and I found—| why, queer-looking little tents, from ! which would emerge a head and a collar- | neck, while a suspiciously bare-look- g baud and arm heid! tight the curtain, while anxious lips said “Don’t come in” and wide-open eyes looked beseeching. Not having any intention of venturing, t remarks seemed absurdly irrele- va but I sat down at a distance in the warm sand and let its shining bits run through my hand as 1 watched the| pleasure-scekers. Here and there sat the inevitable be- bloomered lady cyclist with her short- trousered and golf-stockinged accomplice and their wheels. One or two pairs of lovers coced softly to each other, oblivi- ous alike of sea and sky and earth and curiously staring humanity. Now and then from the curtsins of queer-looking tents'wouid emerge a form in nt bath- | ing attire, which would saunter down to | the water’s edge and stand shivering ang contemplating, to the infinite amusement and edification of the cyclists and small boys gathered about. | *Yes, there are lots of people about here on days,” vouchsafed the lady who sat near by with a book resting idly in hor lap and her tired eyes fixed on the hills £ [uin o D 2 | made answer. | worid forgot.” | | bathers, mingling with the roar of the i, % to rest. The children are so noisy.” *“And where are they now ?’ I asked. “Down there on the beach in their | Searching than a sermon. bathing suits with their father,’”’ she “I know thev are safe, and they enjoy il with him, and it gives me a little rest. *‘Yes,” I said, and I looked at the tired face and the drooping shoulders and the rough, thin hands, and then up into the big hungry eyes. *“It is beautiful?” I ventured. She leaned back against the rock and sighed. “Yes,” she replied. *It is the only beautiful thing I know of. I wait from Sunday night until the next Sunday morning for this quiet rest out here. We sent the children to Sunday-school, but now we come here, and my husband needs the change, too, and the bathing does him good. He can’t afford to leave his work and go away. He would not go and leave us and we would not go and leave him, and so we try this place. Over near the shelter of another rock, yet where she could catch the warmth of the sun, sat a woman with a sleeping chnild in her arms. She looked up, startled, and I saw traces of tears on her face. “The baby is not well,”” she answered, smoothing the little coat and the stray curls that had escaped from the confines of the pretty white bonnet. *“She—’’ the | woman’'s voice changed, ‘‘she will never be weil again!” And the pain in her face was pitifal. 1 work all week,” she said, “ana my mother keeps the baby for me—its father is dead. Sundays is the only time I have away from the store and so 1 bring her with me for the frest air. She loves it so!” The little one stirred with a plaintive | cry and the woman held her close and all tha pain the child could have felt was pictured on the mother’s face. How many reasons one finds for things | if they care to search for them. The were all happier there, these people with their needs and their tired hearts | and their loves and sorrows, there by the side of the sea with nature around about them—“the world forgetting, by the The merry voices of the [28 shi AT THE CLIFF HOUSE. moiher’s face more eloquent than a psalm —the words of the tired woman more * * * w Harbow View had not the calm beauty of the beach. There was something d:f- ferent, although the sky was just as blue and the waves just as wickedly happy. I think the sands looked warmer and the rocks and ways were more beautiful than those I had seen, but— Different? Yes, it was diifferent. There were crowds of men and women and boys and girls, and they laushed and shouted and sang until the voice of the ocean came faintly and the sands had a tawdry look. There were lovers here, too, and they sat in arbors drinking or walked along the sands openly boisterous. There were mothers there, too, and their children iought and screamed and ran about at will while they sat and talked together * e - | and the men puffed clouds of smoke up |into the erstwhile blue and the boys | played at ninepins with balls and sundry black bottles. And yet they seemed happy. Perhaps | it was the keenest joy they had in life— as keen a joy to them as our joys are to us. Who can say? » * * * * 2 Ho-ts of people lined the beach beyond [ the tall house on the cliff. A quiet crowd, wading with feet and ank'es bare and gleaming white against the brown sand« and the foamy waters. Little tots, scream- ing with delight and just a touch of fear as the waters rushed back to the sea and | the sands were shifted & bit beneath their bare, dimpled feet. And the passers-by smiled on their play as they wandered up to the Cliff, where they can sit idly and watch the seals and the passing ships and the great wealth of waters and listen to the patent organ that plays the same selection every five min- utes. “Ten cents to go in,” shouts the gray- whiskered, nervous-mannered muan at the entrance. “Then this shn entitles you ta 10 cents’ worth of retreshments—a cup of tea or—"’ What a student of character he isl—a truly valuable man. He doesn’t say *‘tea’” to every one. Iwatched him for ten minutes and then I passed in and | beauty is too near. i watched those he had spoken to and he badn’t made one mistake. There were toarists there, reveling in questions which seem so foolishly humor- ous to the one who knows all about tnem. There were those with thoughts of their own 'sittin: apart from the others and staring moodily out at the gleaming waters and the blue sky. There was a rastle of silks and the sound of laughter and the murmur of voices and a giance of bright eyes that mingled well with the voices of the waves, excepting when the orgun played its one strange selection. One story lower down had less of silk and laughter and more, distinctly more, of the sounds that tired children see fit to make. And there was a deal of sticky poocorn on the floors, as well as on the faces of the children looking inquisitively up into yours. There were mothers—many of them— gazing out at the seals and attending to the wants of their babes. There were fathers prowling about with anxious faces, I and numerous children clinging to their clothing. Young girls and young men chewed gum and talked ana laughed in- offensively, while the waiters hurrled about. “Bring me a cup of tea,” I said to one. I thought it mizht steady my nerves while I studied those about me for a little time. For these people are far from un- interesting with their unique ideas that require no thouaght and their attitudes toward each other and the world. He stared composedly a moment and tben— *'I guess you can get that better up- stairs, mum,” he said, and hurried away to fill a more important order. But, not caring particularly, I sat still. How well you can tell what they will do when the day of recreation is over and the workaday world is on its way again. How the babes will be fastened in the high chairs near the kitchen door and the older ones—those too young for school— kept in sight in the yard, while the mother bends over the hot suds and rinses one by one the clothing of the man she married one sunny day when there was laughter and flowers about. Complein? It was what her mother did before her. It was what her children will do aiter. And the girls will throw their gum and laughter 2way and. go back behind the counters to-earn another $5 with which to pay . their board and buy their clothing. And the young men—oh, they will go everywhere and do everything and be— nothing. And the next Sunday they will do the same. Why not? They do not know what a vacation is downstairs. Sunday i§ all they have. And upstairs it is always vacation for most, and they couldn’t do anything else, JEAN MoRRIS. Across tie bay at Tiburon—calied by those who visit it “the fishing resort”— the wind was blowing furiously. Not- withstanding that, the little skiffs rounded past the cliff and up toward California City with their freight of bright-faced Lu- man beings. “No sport like fishing,” declared an elderly gentleman with a golfing cap on the back of his gray head, and his jovial face beaming witk anticipation. ‘1’d rather go fishing than eat my dinner,” and he laughed heartily and cleared his throat and called to the giris to hurry, for the yacht was waiting. L “And we’ll miss a half-hour, my dears. and the wind’s coming up pretty strong.” And so be bundled them into the boat and they sailed away laughing and talk- ing in eager glee. “They’ll wish they hadn’t gone,” said a man near by. “It's a nasty day and I'll wager they don’t get a bite.”” I shivered mvoluntarily at the tone and the manner and tne expression of his face. It was liks the appearance of a clovd—a disa- greeable black cloud no larger than a man’s hand in front of the face of the sun. It casta gloom over most things, I went on up the road and watched fora tittle while as the fichers pulled one after another of the wiggling, shiny things out of the water and dropped them upon the pile of unfortunates. “What a number there are over here to-day,” I ventured to remark to a young girl who, in our grandmother’sday, would have screamed at the sight of a mouse, but who now, without the evidence of a pang of conscience or & wry face, baited the hooks with worms and fish and other unhandleable things. “Theve are not nearly as many as usual,” she said “Last year they used to come over in great big crowds—sometimes vver 500 on a Sunday from San Francisco, be- sides lots of people from Belvedere and around there. Fishing is wonderfully good—just haul them in if you know how.’ But Tiburon isn’t particularly lively, and 1t isn’t attractive except as a place to start from and to land again. It is too barren, and Belvedere with its sheltered And yet— “Don’t you think Sausalito is much pleasanter to spend a day in,” I suggested to one who was the proud possessor of a good-sized string of fish. He looked at me in an injured way and e answer: “Fishing 1s not good there. I'd rather stay at home, You might suggest going up the mountain for sport.” Ilooked up at Tamalpais and remem- bered how all the country had looked from there—how clear the high altitude was and how it had all looked so wonderfully infinite and yet so small, and I thought that I would mention it. But he had gone on down the road to the boat, S R T R S “Do you suppose we'll meet thera?" “Plenty of time. The people don’t get in from E! Campo until 8 o’clock.” “Oh, I wish we could ’a’ gone,”” moaned the first speaker,resting her thin, little face in her bare hand and looking far away with her weak, blue eyes, “We'd 'y’ bad such funl” m | And many afair one plucked at night The campers were just coming in, such crowds and crowds of them—mostly voung people—the girls carrying the now empty lnach baskets and the young men helping to carry the girls. “Have a good time ?” asked some one of a number as they passed by. They nodded tneir tired heads and smiled faintly. “Goin’ up to the dancs?"”’ ““A little while,” they said, and thena woman added, as she hurried a weary- looking child along: “Got to have as much fun as I can to- day. Five o’clock breakfast to-morrow morning.” *Yes,”” said another, leaning heavily against her partner. “I hate the thought of work to-morrow.” JEAN MORRIS. e THE ROSES OF CASTILE. AN IDYL OF JOsE. BY HOWARD & HERLAND. To the Mission of San Jose, 'Us said, The rich Castilian roses, With theirgo!den hearts and their petals red— Fit blooms for lovers’ posies— Were brought in the days now dead and vain, By the men who came from the land of Spain, To preach and teach the gospel. On many a Spanish maiden’s breast | These roses have been carried, Aud many a lover, who lost his rest, === Beside some rose bush tarried The while he t0:d of his quenchless love, And calied the stars in the sky above To witness Lis devotion. And many a youth has gone to death With uaught but such a flower To speak to his soul of his Joved one’s breath, And soothe him in that hour When a men must forth on the untracked ses, Where never a woman’s hand may be To cheer with tender pressure. | So rich and red were the roses then That the fathers being human, D1d love them well, as behooves poor men Who love not lovely woman. And later on, when they sailed away, They took to the mission in San Jose The red Castilian roses. And there they grew ’neath the gentle sun, Till the mission became a city, And many a priest. when the day was done, Would kneel and ask God’s pity Beside the roses whose petals told Their love for the land of green and gold— Toe yirgin California. A flower for her lover, didly. The etherizing of the plants will cost 4 or 5 ore (1 to-1}4 cents) each. The main point is to get the plants to shoot at any time before Christmas, even in Sep- tember and October. “It can be said that some progress has undoubtedly been made, but no one can tell to what asionishing recults this dis- covery may lead. Taulips, lilacs, ete., can be developed much earlier and have a pretty color and great durability, as the ether frees the plant of decomposable matter. To etherize the plants they are Riding the Park Donkeys. placed in an air-tight receptacle and ex- posed from twentyfour to ninety-six | hours (generally forty-eight hours) to the influence of the ether. Cylindrical glasses are used for small plants and for large plants an oil-painted box, the interior of which is lined with tinfoil 4 feet high and long and 214 feet broad. Inthe lid a small hole is made, which is closed with a cork, and the ether is conducted through this hole. As ether is very inflammable, great care must be taken not to bring candles or matches near it. The ether is dissolved at from 15 to 20 degrees centi- grade.” —St. Louis Globe-Democrat. ————— " A German doctor says :that the two sides of a face are never alike; in two FAMILY PICNIC AT EL CAMPO. = e e Ll i ) c2 D= - Returning From El Campo. cases out of five the eyes are outof Iin ; one eye is stronger than the other in seven persons out of ten; and finally that the right ear is generally higher than the left. Everyday Heroism. How many homes are there in our midst in which instances of everyday beroism have not set in with the early morning and continved till weary nature had de. manded rest? We have ever with us con- clusive evidences that all—yes, all—of ns contain some unknown possibilities, and | all have their weight and influence. The | heart-throbs of these brave ones are known only to Him who has said, “Yea, Iam with thee,” and if bhe is with them ’tis easy to understand why at times their very countenances seem illumined. I know mysel{ of a sister soul whose life is one succession of evidences of everydav heroism, but whose cheerful, sunny na- ture only evinces that inborn reliance on a foundation not of this world, but ofa nigher one. The little ones, when the hour seems the darkest, cling to their mother with feelings of security, the very act giving her renewed energy and stronger trusting power in the arm that er wearies of shielding his.own, Yet dgain, we mdet our everyday hero- ism where the home circle has been rudely | rent in twain by the grim intruder Death, or by circumstances infinitely worse, and the struggling ones left to vear the conse- quences have.done so withour a murmur, but with the unfaltering couraze of the soldier who faces the determined foe on the field ot battle. We have these evidences ever before us. Not long ago our papers told of a motner waking up in the weary night hours to find her home in flames. The first thought was for her chiidren. The struggle to grasp the sleeping forms ssemed to give her superhuman strength, and as the last precious one was hastily placed in safety she inwardly breathed a fervent “Thank God! we're all together yet,” and then turned to snatch up some belongings of the little ones. The dense smoke from some unseen quarter seemed to overcome her. That was all—only one more evie dence of our everyday heroism, The father, miles away at night work, ieturned to find his home gone, his wife, found by sorrowing hearts with the rem- nants of the children’s eifects held close o her bosom, yet lying there with a countenance not of fear or despair, but peacefal resignation. We too well know that her last thought wasof the dear tones whom she commended to Him whose promises are sure. The everyday life of those who wait and murmur not is marvelous and beyond our conception, and we cannot be in com- panionship long without a higher ap- preciation of the capacities of the soul when at times 1t illuminates as though the spiriv of God shone through. Whose eyes grew dim as the morning light Did threaten to discover His preseuce to those who kept apart A man and & maid who had one heart, Yet might not be united. Yet the roses heard, as in days of old, The dear familiar story— The tale of love by a lover told In the heyday of his giory. And oh! they nestled as quickly down On a breast of snow as a breast all brown. ’Tis a way they have, those roses. The lovers have gone to their dreamless sleep, Where no one is to love them; Beside their couches the roses weep Aundnod their heads above them. And others will come, and some day go, And over their graves the wind will blow The roses’ crimson petals. 0 fragrant flowers of San Jose, About whose presence lingers The mystic air of & long past day, The touch of a sweetheart's fingers, *Tis ye alone who shall lend your grace To lighten the gloom of the world’s sad face Throughout the deathless ages. —The Wasp. Anesthetics for Plants. United States Consul Kirk of Copen- bagen has forwarded to the State Depart. ment the following translation of a lec- ture delivered by Mr. Johannsen at the Agricultural High School recently on the results obtalned by the etherizing method, which consists in developing plants earlier than is their nature by exposing them to the influence of ether fumes. The lecturer says: s “By exposing sleeping plants to the in- fluence of ether and chloroform the result is obtained that each plant, after the treatment with ether, begins to shoot. They have thus probably been awakened from their previous condition of sleep or inactivity. Lilacs grow splendidly when piaced in an air-tight compartment and exposed forty-eight hours to the effect of 500 or 600 cubic centimeters of ether and then put in a hothouse. Just before Christmas the plants had developed splen-