The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 21, 1902, Page 13

1ITS of the > means a rs old erner sex are by ity in California. rs become 0 ac- hing it” on long into the Sierras »mmon sequestered the sequoias in the upper e down to housekeeping with no companion other, than old dog Bhep and perhaps a faithful burro. Native v have become di- ate acres not infre~ in some remote canyon once their land and nook valleys Iy alone to a ripe old age. y is such in this semi- tropic land that coffee and tobacco are the only necessaries in the scheme of male ex- istence that the hermit needs to purchase —and if Le has energy enough he can sTow the tobacco. But women hermits are a decided inno- wvation in the land of gold and sunshine, and & wongn hermit who has immured herself upol desert island with no com- panionship save her six-year-old boy and & half-bred ccllle is a feature as interest- ing as it is extraordinary. In San Francisco Bay, well within the Golden Gate, midway in the channel off Point San Pablo, lie two tiny islands known on the map as East and West Ma- rin. For years they have slumbered on the summer sea untenanted save by the wild fowl that frequent the bay, and un- trodden by human foot except in the rare instance when the seamen from some trim white yacht land there in search of water. It was in the waning of the summer of 1901 that the yachtsmen and infrequent duck hunter became consclous that living beings had taken up their abode upon West Ma: As the yachts scudded by the northeastern shore of the islet an un- couth bundie of shaggy, tawny hair, which resolved itself into the semblance of a collie, bourded from behind a point fo lowed the shimmer of the shingle, barking vo- in 2 punt to rescue the canine estr y to be confronted by 2 woman, still young, barefooted and bareheaded, who “What do you want with my you doing on my isi- it became noised among the mem- sam e shelter upposed live anywhere hout paying privilege, and the ut their heads together and de- his outrage upon law and cease at once. They to row poanemOp s female the U3 iv y of removing at with her child to the county poor fz while the dog was to be delivered over tc the tender mercies of the poundmaster. Mrs. Adelaide Willia: for such proved to be the name of this feminine Crusoe, listened complaisantly to all that the del- egation had to say and then, standing at the door of her pidated tent, hoiding her little blue-eyed son by -the d, she delivered her ultimatum. No, she would not take her child and go into the alms- house; they were quite comfortable; they got emough to eat and had sufficient clothing to cover them, and what was better, freedom and health to enjoy it; they troubled no one and all they asked in return from d was to live their lives undisturbed by interference. The committeemen reasoned, expostu- lated, cajoled and finally threatened. Villiams moti t its first growl to its boat, vow- hould pack Mrs. belongings next ouse. On their ry and they Attorney and he at once informec that the sovereign county of Ma ised no authority whatever over the two islands which bore its name. These isiands, it appeared, had been re- served by the United States Government for military purposes, and thus th stituted a kind of legal n The Secretary of War at Washington, in the exercise of the sound diseretion vested in him by Congress, might order an offi- cer with a suflicient force of marines to proceed to West Marin with all due dis- h and remove therefrom Mrs., Wil- likewise her chila d sought ve g TWILLIAMS Hore mightn’t. At all events it was certain that nobody else had authority to. put them off. 8o Mrs® Williams held her island all last winter, and when in November a hur- ricane swept the bay, wrecking tne fish- ing smacis and driving even larger ves- #els ashore, the relief party fitted out by kindly fisher folk at San Quentin found the woman, the baby and the dog very wet to be sure, but healthy, happy and fully determined to remain on the island. The fishermen rigged up the ragged old tent in a new and more protected place— for it had been blown down by the gale— and having persuaded Mrs. Willlams to accept a couple of sacks of flour, two hams and some minor groceries, th a hearty hand-shake and !‘good luck,” they left the determined little woman to the wintry perils of wind and wave, The awaking of spring found her with spirits undaunted. From the shore on clear days one could see her in her ram- shackle boat, with dog and youngster perched high in the stern, steadily fishing in the rock-bound channel between the islands. Once or twice duck hunters, lured by the long strings of wild fowl taut-drawn along the eastern horizon, visited the islands for flight-shooting, and on their return reported that the inhab- itants were thriving. One man brought back three large bass which he had pur- . chased from Mrs. Willlams, caught with her own hands. Summer weather has brought her other visitors. Gaily gowned ladies from the big hotels that stud the valley, cavallered by youths in faultless negligee, have pic- nicked on her island and have inspected, through wreathes of cigarette smoke, its mistress as though the island were a zoological garden and the brave little woman who lives there some new and extraordinary animal. Mri ‘Williams doesn't like it. Neither does she fancy another, albeit a more charitably dis- posed visitor, who has invaded her island home of late and has interrupted her fish- ing, which means her source of livelihood, with long talks upon the condition of her soul—*“just as if I wasn’t doing the very best I could for the boy and for myself,” comments Mrs. Williams. And then seated on a wavewashed pack- ing case Mrs. Willlams told her story— simple little story enough. “My husband was a shoemaker and we lived in Cloverdale. Work was scarce and we had a hard time to get along, al- though there were only three of us—my husband, myself and Willie, that's our littie boy. There! I declare, I nearly for- got our old dog ‘Scamp,” who was really one of the family. “We were very happy in our little four- roomed cottege, but my husband used to worry dreadfully when work was scarce, though I didn't worry much. I guess I was too happy then to worry any. I came of New England stock—poor people—used to getting along on mighty little. “Winter before last my brother died in Lynn. He had never married and there were only the two of us, and along in the spring the administrator sent me his money. It wasn't very much—only $262— but it was more than my husband and I had ever had before. £ “Then he got crazy to go to Klondike to make our fortune and he and I talked it over and I let him have my money, for J A oeLAaIDE- WLtlAy I knew that if he got a chance at all he Would succeed. So we sold the goodwill of his shop for $40 and he took his tools with him and sailed from San Francisco in the Bella. “He got there safe, too, for I got a let- ter from him from Dawson. Just that one letter. He had got frost bit on the trail, but was better and had a promise of work on a mine further up the river. That ‘was more than a year ago, and I am afraid, oh, so afrald, when I get thinking it all over, that he is dead, or he would write to me, I know he would"— and tears stood In Mrs. Williamg' ayes as her glance fell on little Willle digging in the sunshine. “And how did I get along? Finely at first. I washed clothes and ironed and got a day’s charring now and again, but after three months work got very scarce and I couldn’'t pay the rent of the cot- tage—it was only $6—and one day when I got back from half a day's work I found all my furniture out in the street and my little boy sitting on the steps crying. The landlord had turned us out. *“Then I sold all I had and took my boy and went to San Francisco to look for a - place to do housework. I tell you folks are bitter cruel in that big city. I guess I went to every employment office there and saw dozens of people, but nobody ‘wanted a child about their plac ‘Quite out of the question,’ said one; My! I could never consent to have a nolsy child about my kitchen,’ sald another. “My money was giving out and I went back to the country, up to Mendocino County, and got a job picking hops, but this was soon over. Them I thought I would try a small town, and I stayed In Petaluma for three weeks, but only made a bare living for Willie and me. Some people there wanted me to go to the poor farm, but I wouldn’'t have my boy brought up on a poor farm. I guess they meant kindly, but they scared me and I left town that very night with my boy, and walked down to Black Point. “There 1 worked for an old fisherman and his wife for our board for three weeks and learned to mend nets and to catch fish, too. They were poor people, but they were good to me and they told me of this island and gave me this old tent, made out of a sail, and some other things, and a sack of flour and an old bodt, and I came down here and I have lived here ever since. “Yes, we had a pretty hard time during the storm, but it is a healthy life, and only once or twice have Willie and I gone hungry to bed. That was when it was too rough to fish and too rough to dig clams. I have sold some of my fish at San Quentin and with the money bouj fons, and I have sold to people that prov have come here in boats. There a of rabbits on this little island and has caught a good many for us and we have snared others. ‘No, I shall not put poor farm. I am asking charity of anybody and shall ay right here and wait until I get some word from my poor isband, if he is living. “I guess Uncle .Sam isn't going to her a woman who is doing her level st to ke a living and isn't troubling anybody,” and remarking that it was time to set her net out, Mrs. Willilams gathered her boy up, whistled to her dog and rowed her boat to the narrow chan- nel between the two islands where the striped bass most do congregate. PHOTCGRAPHIC POINTERS FOR AMATEURS. THE lover of the unusual in photog- vy boy om any raphy will find opportunity for beautiful pictorial effects n follow- Ing the lead of some of the em- Inent amateurs of this and other countries in night photography. By this flash light i3 not meant, but such means of {llumination as are to be found in the streets or parks of the larger cities, and in-this work there are two distinct kinds of pictures that may be obtained, each of which is different from the other, but extremely Interesting and realistic. One famillar with photography would naturally ridicule the idea of photographic enthusiasm carrying the worker to tho point of standing for half an hour under an umbrella In a driving rain at night making a picture of a city street or pubic square; and yet this has been done most successfully In many cases. If this work Is done on a rainy or misty night the effect will be materially hefght- ened by the lights from the street lamps and lighted windows of houses and bufld- Ings reflected and multiplied from the wet pavements and sidewalks, and the scene will be full of mysterious atmos- pheri¢ qualities, which in most cases are very pleasing. The writer has in mind several exquisite examples of such night photography and earnestly advises all who are enthusiastic to undertake it for themselves. For work of this kind the lens should be used with a wide opening, say FTors, and &n exposure of from fifteen to twenty minutes, given in accordance with the general condition ot light. In developing plates made in this way {t must be re- membered that fine detall is not to be looked for anywhere excepting In the lights themselves and their reflections and that everything else must of necessity be more or less dimly outlined and ndis- tinet.” Development should be carrfed up to a point, hewever, where all possible de- tall has been obtained, but not so far that the lights will be blocked up and lose thetr form In a mass of halation. Backed or non-halation plates should always be used for this purpese. A few experiments along this line will lead to many very Interesting developments, This same kind of work, if done on a clear, dark night and illuminated prin- cipally from behind the camera, produces effects entirely different from those de- scribed above. The writer has before him a picture of this kind, showing a large publl_c bullding illuminated by a single are I'zht that happened to be directly be- hind the camera and perhaps twenty feet from the ground. In this picture the operator gave an exposure of twenty minutes with his lens stopped to F-3 and obtained a negative that is remarkable for its fullness of detall and generally good photographic qualities. A pecullar feature of this negative consists in its e: treme brilliancy, and fn many ways the effect resembles that of intense sunlight. Still another night subject that is ca- pable of rendering pictures of extreme beauty is to be found in the photographe ing of bits of public parks or of scemery In which' a considerable amount of foliage and strongly defined tree forms are pre- sented, together with more or less elec- tric light, which can be so concealed by the f!*llz}ge and tree trunks that in pho- tographing no direct point of light will be visible. If the camera Is placed so that each of the individual lights is absolute- 1y hidden from the lens, bhut the diffused light from which is plainly to be seen n paths and flashes of light across the plate with heré and there Indications of the foliage cut out in light tracery agalnst the blackness of the night, effects of re- markable beauty may be had. The present season of long evenings affords an excellent opportunity to be- come familiar with this kind of work, and the coming of snow a little later on will furnish new conditions full of artistie possibilities. —_—— Two centuries ago missionaries taught the natives of Paraguay to make lace by hand. The art has been handed down from generation to generation, and in some of the towns lacemaking is the ehlef occupation. Almost all the women gnd children and many of the men are engaged in it. A singular fact about the Paraguay laces is that the designs are berrowed from the curious webs spun by the semi-tropical spiders, which abound in that country. For thias reason the lace is called by the natives “nandutl,” an Indian word that means “spider web.” * * In to-day’s fssue of The Sunday Call appears the sec- ond installment of “The Gos- pel of Judas Iscariot,” by Aaron Dwight Baldwin—a novel that is proving the sen- sation of two continents. This book will be published complete in three issues of The Sunday Call’s Magazine Sectien — December 14, 21 and 28. BE SURE TO READ IT. IT IS THE NOVEL OF THE HOUR. Our next novel will be “When Enighthood Was in Flower,” by Charles Major, illustrate. by photographs of scenes in Julia Marlowe’s play of the same name. L oo e~ e