Part 7

Slowly we moved forward, feeling every inch of the way, like one groping in the dark, passing boat after boat without accident. One, a three-masted schooner, loaded with lumber, came so near that we could toss a stone on board, and a woman who stood in the bow waved a large tin horn at us, and then applied herself to blowing it most industriously.

At last the bells on the piers at the ferry came floating across the waters, faint at first, but growing louder as we advanced, and never did bells sound sweeter or more welcome I imagine they were thrice welcome to our captain, for they gave him the direct course to our anchorage. Slower and yet slower we moved, our screw scarcely making a ripple on the water, for many other boats were cautiously feeling their way to their respective berths, and we must use all our caution not to run foul of them.

At last came the cry from some one, "There's the light," and flashing out from the pier, its electric rays cutting its way through the wall of fog, shone that intermittent flame, and we knew that only a few feet away was the dock and safety.

As the crowd hurried from the boat, anxious to reach their several places of business without further delay, many turned and looked up at the wheelhouse, to see the man whose nerve and faithfulness to duty had piloted us safe to port. In that blue-uniformed figure, still standing with hand upon the wheel, we saw a person boyish in appearance, but every inch a man.

Meiggs' Wharf

North from the ferry building, and near the foot of Powell Street, is one of the old landmarks of San Francisco, known as Meiggs' Wharf.

In the early sixties an old saloon was located on the shore end of this wharf, and connected with it was a museum which contained many quaint curios from other lands, some of them of considerable value.

The occupant of this saloon never allowed the place to be cleaned, and for years the spiders held undisputed possession, weaving their webs without fear of molestation, until every nook and corner was filled with their tapestry, and from ceiling and rafter hung long festoons of gossamer threads that swayed back and forth in the breeze. It was a place much visited by tourists, and a trip to San Francisco was not considered complete without visiting this "Cobweb Museum," a name bestowed upon it by its many guests.

It is said that Robert Louis Stevenson loved to visit this wharf and listen to the tales told by the hardy sailors, and that out of them he wove some of his most delightful South Sea Island stories.

Meiggs died in Peru in 1877, where he fled, a fugitive from justice, and has long since been forgotten except by the older residents. The wharf still remains, however, though more familiarly known to the people of this generation as "Fisherman's Wharf"; but the old cobweb saloon and museum are things of the past.

From here the Italian fishing boats leave for their fishing grounds out beyond the heads, and if you visit the wharf in the early morning you may see hundreds of these boats sail out past Land's End, and through the Golden Gate, making a picture worthy of an artist's brush.

When the sun comes flashing over the hills, and the dancing waves glisten with its rosy light, then the waters of the bay take on the color of the amethyst. Go then to Meiggs' Wharf, and see the fishing boats start out with lateen sail full set; hear the "Yo heave ho" of the swarthy Italian fishermen, as they set their three-cornered, striped sail to catch the breeze, and imagine yourself on the far-famed bay of Naples. Your imagination does not suffer by comparison, as San Francisco, like Naples, is built upon the hills, and Mount Tamalpais across the bay, with wreaths of fog floating around its summit, might well be taken for Mount Vesuvius.

Out through the portals of the Golden Gate they sail, like brown-winged pelicans, to drop their nets and cast their lines into the mighty deep; but these picturesque boats are fast giving way to more modern conveyances, and the fussy motorboat, that is not dependent upon wind or tide, will soon relegate the lateen sail to total obscurity.

Go again to the wharf in the late afternoon, and watch these same boats come laboring in against the tide, sunk deep in the water with their day's catch. See them unload, and spread the nets to dry, and if you can find one of these grizzled old salts off duty, and he feels so inclined, he will tell you (between puffs on his short, black pipe) strange and interesting stories of adventure at sea or of shipwreck on lonely island.

Then, as the sails are furled, and all made snug aloft and below, and the boats bob up and down on the long swells, straining at their moorings, the sun sinks down behind the ocean, leaving the wharf in shadow. The lights begin to gleam in the city, the tower of the ferry building gleams like a beacon, outlined with its thousands of incandescent lights, and the ferryboat takes us across the bay and home, to dream of queer-shaped sails, of ancient mariners, and the "Golden City" on the bay.

The Stake and Rider Fence

I love to let my fancy go wandering where it will, To the happy days of boyhood, to the meadow and the hill; To the brooks and quiet places, to the woods that seemed immense, But they always linger fondly at the stake-and-rider fence.

Here, cicadas sing their loudest, and the crickets draw the bow, And the 'hoppers and the locusts join the chorus, soft and low; And you hear the bees a humming like a fiddle with one string, While the air just seems to vibrate with a soothing kind of ring.

There the squirrel scolds and chatters as he runs along the rail, And you hear the rain-crow calling, and the whistle of the quail; And the catbird, and the blue jay, scold with vigor most intense, As they build among the branches by the stake-and-rider fence.

There grew the tasseled milkweed with its bursting silken pods, And the stately, waving branches of the yellow goldenrod; The mullein stalk and asters, with teasels growing dense, God's garden, in the angle of the stake-and-rider fence.

It was homely, but I loved it, and I wouldn't trade, would you? For all the hothouse beauties that a florist ever knew. Yes, I'd give up earthly honors, and count it recompense, Just to wander through the meadow by the stake-and-rider fence.

Moonlight

The beautiful California days, with warm sunshine tempered by the cool winds from the bay, are not surpassed in any country under the sun. But if the days are perfect, the brilliant moonlight nights lose nothing by comparison.

To tramp the hills and woods, or climb the rugged mountains by day, is a joy to the nature lover. But the same trip by moonlight has an interest and charm entirely its own, and mysteries of nature are revealed undreamed of at noonday.

The wind, that has run riot during the day, has blown itself out by evening, and the birds have gone to sleep with heads tucked under their wings, or settled with soft breasts over nestlings that twitter soft "good nights" to mother love. The dark shadows of evening steal the daylight, and cañon and ravine lose their rugged outlines, blending into soft, shadowy browns and purples. The moon peeps over the hilltop, the stars come out one by one, the day is swallowed up in night, and the moonlight waves its pale wand over the landscape.

In the deep woods it flickers through the branches, mottling the ground with silver patches, and throwing into grand relief the trunks of trees, like sentinels on duty. It touches the little brook as softly as a baby's kiss, and transforms it into a sheen of gold. It drops its yellow light upon a bed of ferns until each separate frond stands out like a willow plume nodding up and down in the mellow gleam. A flowering dogwood bathed in its ethereal light shimmers like a bridal veil adorning a wood nymph. It lays its gentle touch on the waterfall, transforming it into a torrent of molten silver, and causing each drop to glisten like topaz under its witching light.

Overhead fleecy clouds, like white-winged argosies, sail high amid the blue, or, finer spun, like a lady's veil, are drawn, gauzelike, across the sky, through which the stars peep out with twinkling brilliancy. The scent of new-mown hay laden with falling dew comes floating up from the valley with an intoxicating sweetness, a sweetness to which the far-famed perfume of Arabia is not to be compared.

The crickets, those little black minstrels of the night, chirp under the log upon which you are resting, and the katydids repeat over and over again "Katy's" wonderful achievement, though just what this amazing conquest was no one has been able to discover. The cicadas join the chorus with their strident voices, their notes fairly tumbling over each other in their exuberance, and in their hurry to sing their solos. Tree toads tune up for the evening concert, a few short notes at first, like a violinist testing the strings, then, the pitch ascertained, the air fairly vibrates with their rhapsody.