Part 2

He laughed. "And I was foolish enough to believe you, since I had never been to the Pacific Coast."

The train came to a stop in the Ferry Building and we followed the other passengers onto the boat. "San Francisco is modern to the core," he continued. "Boston dates back generations, but you have hardly acquired your three score years and ten."

"If you don't like fine progressive cities, why did you come to California?" His fault-finding with San Francisco hurt me as if it had been a personal criticism.

"You know why I came," he said gently, with his eyes on my face.

I felt the blood creeping to my cheeks and turned quickly to look for an out-of-doors seat. In the crowd we were jostled by a little slant-eyed man of the Orient, resplendent in baggy blue silk trousers tied neatly at the ankles and a loose coat lined with lavender, whose flowing sleeves half concealed his slender brown hands.

"There's a man who has centuries at his back." My companion's eyes traveled from the soft padded shoes to the little red button on the top of the black skull cap. "Even his costume is the same as his forefathers'."

"If you are interested in the Chinese, I'll show you Oriental San Francisco. It lies in the heart of the city and its very atmosphere is saturated with Eastern customs. It is much more sanitary but not as picturesque as it was before the fire." I flushed as I saw his amusement, and quickly called his attention to the receding shores where the encircling green hills had thrown out long banners of yellow mustard and blue lupins. To the right was Mt. Tamalpais, a sturdy sentinel looking out to the ocean, its summit pressed against the sky's blue canopy and its base lost in a network of purple forests. In front of the Golden Gate was Alcatraz Island, like a huge dismantled warship, guarding the entrance to the bay, and before us, San Francisco rested upon undulating hills, its tall buildings piercing the sky at irregular intervals. We made our way to the forward deck in order to have the full sweep of the waterfront.

"You should see it at night!" I said, "it is a marvelous tiara. The red and green lights on these wharves close to the water's edge are the rubies and emeralds, while above, sweeping the hills, the lights of the residences sparkle like rows and rows of diamonds."

A crowd of passengers surged around us as the boat poked its nose into the slip. "There was nothing left of this part of the city but a fringe of wharves, after the fire." I bit the last word in two, for it was evident the expression was getting on his nerves. I was thankful that the clanging chains of the descending gang plank and the tramp of many feet made further conversation impossible.

"Hurry," he urged, "there's the Exposition car." We were in front of the Ferry Building and the crowd was jostling us in every direction.

"You surely are not going to the Exposition!" I exclaimed in mock surprise.

"Of course I am. Where else should we go?"

"But, my dear Antiquary, those buildings are only a few months old!"

He laughed good naturedly. "It ought to suit you Westerners, anyway," he retaliated. Then taking my arm, "Let us hurry! Look, the car is starting!"

"I am going to take the one behind," I announced. "There must be something old in San Francisco and I am going to find it."

"You'll have a long hunt," rejoined the skeptic, and with his eyes still on the tail of the disappearing Exposition car, he reluctantly followed me.

"Lots of strangers in San Francisco for the Fair," he remarked, as from the car window he watched the big turban of a Hindoo bobbing among the crowd on the sidewalk; then his eyes wandered to a Japanese arrayed in a new suit of American clothes and finally rested on a bright yellow lei wound about the hat of a swarthy Hawaiian. I smiled as I nodded to the Japanese who had worked in my kitchen for three years, and recognized in the dusky Hawaiian one of the regular singers in a popular café.

The train had now left commercial San Francisco behind and was climbing the hills to where the nature loving citizens had perched their houses in order to obtain a better view of the bay. We abandoned the car and following an upward path, finally stood on the lower shoulder of Twin Peaks. Tired from our exertions we sank upon the soft grass. The hills had put on their festival attire, catching up their emerald gowns with bunches of golden poppies and veiling their shoulders in filmy scarfs of blue lupins. The air was filled with Spring and the delicate blush of an apple-tree told of the approach of Summer. Below, the city, noisy and bustling a few moments ago, now lay hushed to quiet by the distance and beyond, the sun-flecked waters of the bay stretched to a girdle of verdant hills, up whose sides the houses of the towns were scrambling. To the left, resting on the top of Mt. Tamalpais, could be seen the "sleeping maiden" who for centuries had awaited the awakening kiss of her Indian lover.

"What a glorious play-ground for San Francisco." His voice rang with enthusiasm. "Look at the ferryboats plowing up the bay in every direction. A man could escape from the factory grime on the water front and in an hour be asleep under a tree on a grassy hillside."

"It is a splendid country to tramp through, but if a man wants to sleep, why not spend less time and money by selecting a nearer place? There are plenty of trees and grassy mounds in the Presidio and Golden Gate Park."

His eyes followed mine to the green patch edging the entrance to the bay and then ran along the tree-lined avenue to the parked section extending almost from the center of the city to the Pacific Ocean. Suddenly he stood up and took his field glasses from his pocket.

"There's a granite cross just visible above the trees in Golden Gate Park." He focused his glasses for a better view. "It's quite elaborate in design and seems to be raised on a hill."

He offered me the glasses but I did not need them. "It's the Prayer-Book Cross and commemorates the first Church of England service held on this Coast by Sir Francis Drake in 1579. I think it is a shame that we haven't also a monument for Cabrillo, the real discoverer, who was here nearly forty years earlier. If Sir Francis hadn't stolen a Spanish ship's chart, he would never have found the Gulf of the Farallones. Cabrillo sailed along the coast more than half a century before Massachusetts Bay was discovered," I added maliciously.

"I had forgotten the old duffer," he smiled back at me. Raising his glasses again, he scanned the sombre roofs to the right. "There's another monument," he volunteered, "rising out of the heart of the city."

I followed the direction indicated to where the outstretched arms of a white wooden cross were silhouetted against the sky.

"If I were in Europe," he continued, "I should call it a shrine, for the sides of the hill on which it stands are seamed with paths running from the net-work of houses to the foot of the cross."

"It is a shrine at which all San Francisco worships. Wrapped in mystery it stands, for when it was placed there no one knows. It comes to us out of the past--a token left by the Spanish padres. Three times it has fallen into decay, but always loving hands have reached forward to restore it, and as long as San Francisco shall last, a cross will rise from the summit of Lone Mountain."

"The Spanish padres!" The ring in his voice bespoke his interest. "Are there any other relics left?"