Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
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[Illustration: "THE DEVIL SIT IN FILON'S EYES AND LAUGH--LAUGH--SOME
TIME HE GO AWAY LIKE A MAN AT A WINDOW, BUT HE COME AGAIN.
M'siu, he live there!" From a Painting by E. Almond Withrow.]
THE SPINNERS' BOOK OF FICTION
BY
GERTRUDE ATHERTON, MARY AUSTIN
GERALDINE BONNER, MARY HALLECK FOOTE
ELEANOR GATES, JAMES HOPPER, JACK LONDON
BAILEY MILLARD, MIRIAM
MICHELSON, W. C. MORROW
FRANK NORRIS, HENRY MILNER RIDEOUT
CHARLES WARREN STODDARD, ISOBEL STRONG
RICHARD WALTON TULLY AND
HERMAN WHITAKER
WITH A DEDICATORY POEM BY GEORGE STERLING
COLLECTED BY THE BOOK COMMITTEE OF THE SPINNERS' CLUB
ILLUSTRATED BY LILLIE V. O'RYAN, MAYNARD DIXON ALBERTINE RANDALL
WHEELAN, MERLE JOHNSON E. ALMOND WITHROW AND GORDON ROSS INITIALS AND
DECORATIONS BY SPENCER WRIGHT
PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY SAN FRANCISCO AND NEW YORK
_Published in behalf_ _of The Spinners' Benefit Fund_
_Ina D. Coolbrith_ _First Beneficiary_
_Copyright_, 1907 _by_ PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY
* * * * *
TO INA D. COOLBRITH
WITH WILDER SIGHING IN THE PINE
THE WIND WENT BY, AND SO I DREAMED;
AND IN THAT DUSK OF SLEEP IT SEEMED
A CITY BY THE SEA WAS MINE.
TO STATELIER SPRANG THE WALLS OF TYRE
FROM SEAWARD CLIFF OR STABLE HILL;
AND LIGHT AND MUSIC MET TO FILL
THE SPLENDID COURTS OF HER DESIRE--
(EXTOLLING CHORDS THAT CRIED HER PRAISE,
AND GOLDEN REEDS WHOSE MELLOW MOAN
WAS LIKE AN OCEAN'S UNDERTONE
DYING AND LOST ON FOREST WAYS).
BUT SWEETER FAR THAN ANY SOUND
THAT RANG OR RIPPLED IN HER HALLS,
WAS ONE BEYOND HER EASTERN WALLS,
BY SUMMER GARDENS GIRDLED ROUND.
TWAS FROM A NIGHTINGALE, AND OH!
THE SONG IT SANG HATH NEVER WORD!
SWEETER IT SEEMED THAN LOVE'S, FIRST-HEARD,
OR LUTES IN AIDENN MURMURING LOW.
FAINT, AS WHEN DROWSY WINDS AWAKE
A SISTERHOOD OF FAERY BELLS,
IT WON REPLY FROM HIDDEN DELLS,
LOYAL TO ECHO FOR ITS SAKE....
I DREAMT I SLEPT, BUT CANNOT SAY
HOW MANY DREAMLAND SEASONS FLED,
NOR WHAT HORIZON OF THE DEAD
GAVE BACK MY DREAM'S UNCERTAIN DAY.
BUT STILL BESIDE THE TOILING SEA
I LAY, AND SAW--FOR WALLS O'ERGROWN--
THE CITY THAT WAS MINE HAD KNOWN
TIME'S SURE AND ANCIENT TREACHERY.
ABOVE HER RAMPARTS, BROAD AS TYRE'S,
THE GRASSES' MOUNTING ARMY BROKE;
THE SHADOW OF THE SPRAWLING OAK
USURPT THE SPLENDOR OF HER FIRES.
BUT O'ER THE FALLEN MARBLES PALE
I HEARD, LIKE ELFIN MELODIES
BLOWN OVER FROM ENCHANTED SEAS,
THE MUSIC OF THE NIGHTINGALE.
GEORGE STERLING.
THE STORIES
CONCHA ARGÜELLO, SISTER DOMINICA
_by Gertrude Atherton_
THE FORD OF CRÈVECOEUR
_by Mary Austin_
A CALIFORNIAN
_by Geraldine Bonner_
GIDEON'S KNOCK
_by Mary Halleck Foote_
A YELLOW MAN AND A WHITE
_by Eleanor Gates_
THE JUDGMENT OF MAN
_by James Hopper_
THE LEAGUE OF THE OLD MEN
_by Jack London_
DOWN THE FLUME WITH THE SNEATH PIANO
_by Bailey Millard_
THE CONTUMACY OF SARAH L. WALKER
_by Miriam Michelson_
BREAKING THROUGH
_by W. C. Morrow_
A LOST STORY
_by Frank Norris_
HANTU
_by Henry Milner Rideout_
MISS. JUNO
_by Charles Warren Stoddard_
A LITTLE SAVAGE GENTLEMAN
_by Isobel Strong_
LOVE AND ADVERTISING
_by Richard Walton Tully_
THE TEWANA
_by Herman Whitaker_
THE ILLUSTRATIONS
"The devil sit in Filon's eyes and laugh--laugh--some time
he go away like a man at a window, but he come again.
M'siu, he _live_ there!"
_from a painting by E. Almond Withrow_
"She was always very sweet, our Concha, but there never was
a time when you could take a liberty with her."
_from a painting by Lillie V. O'Ryan_
"The petal of a plum blossom."
_from a painting by Albertine Randall Wheelan_
"Not twenty feet from me Miller sat upright in his canoe as
if petrified." _Opp. Page_
_from a painting by Merle Johnson_
"All their ways lead to death."
_from a painting by Maynard Dixon_
"Dawn was flooding the east, and still the boy lurched and
floundered on and on."
_from a painting by Gordon Ross_
WHEREFORE?
_Wherefore this book of fiction by Californian writers? And why its
appeal otherwise than that of obvious esthetic and literary qualities?
They who read what follows will know._
_The fund, which the sale of this book is purposed to aid, was planned
by The Spinners soon after the eighteenth of April, 1906, and was
started with two hundred dollars from their treasury. To this, Mrs.
Gertrude Atherton added another two hundred dollars. Several women's
clubs and private individuals also generously responded, so that now
there is a thousand dollars to the credit of the fund. A bond has been
bought and the interest from it will be paid to Ina D. Coolbrith, the
poet, and first chosen beneficiary of the fund. The Spinners feel
assured that this book will meet with such a ready sale as to make
possible the purchase of several bonds, and so render the accruing
interest a steady source of aid to Miss. Coolbrith._
_All who have read and fallen under the charm of her "Songs from the
Golden Gate," or felt the beauty and tenderness of the verses "When the
Grass Shall Cover Me," will, without question, unite in making
"assurance doubly sure" to such end._
_From the days of the old_ Overland Monthly, _when she worked side by
side with Bret Harte and Charles Warren Stoddard, to the present moment,
Miss. Coolbrith's name has formed a part of the literary history of San
Francisco._
_The eighteenth of April, 1906, and the night which followed it, left
her bereft of all literary, and other, treasures; but her poem bearing
the refrain, "Lost city of my love and my desire," rings with the old
genius, and expresses the feeling of many made desolate by the
destruction of the city which held their most cherished memories._
_When Miss. Coolbrith shall no longer need to be a beneficiary of the
fund, it is intended that it shall serve to aid some other writer,
artist or musician whose fortunes are at the ebb._
_To the writers, artists and publishers who have so heartily and
generously made this book possible, The Spinners return unmeasured
thanks._
_San Francisco, June 22, 1907._
CONCHA ARGÜELLO, SISTER DOMINICA
BY
GERTRUDE ATHERTON
DEDICATED TO CAROLINA XIMÉNO
Written for THE SPINNERS' BOOK OF FICTION _All Rights Reserved_
SISTER TERESA had wept bitterly for two days. The vanity for which she
did penance whenever her madonna loveliness, consummated by the white
robe and veil of her novitiate, tempted her to one of the little mirrors
in the pupil's dormitory, was powerless to check the blighting flow.
There had been moments when she had argued that her vanity had its
rights, for had it not played its part in weaning her from the
world?--that wicked world of San Francisco, whose very breath,
accompanying her family on their monthly visits to Benicia, made her
cross herself and pray that all good girls whom fate had stranded there
should find the peace and shelter of Saint Catherine of Siena. It was
true that before Sister Dominica toiled up Rincon Hill on that wonderful
day--here her sobs became so violent that Sister María Sal, praying
beside her with a face as swollen as her own, gave her a sharp poke in
the ribs, and she pressed her hands to her mouth lest she be marched
away. But her thoughts flowed on; she could pray no more. Sister
Dominica, with her romantic history and holy life, her halo of fame in
the young country, and her unconquerable beauty--she had never seen such
eyelashes, never, never!--_what_ was she thinking of at such a time?
She had never believed that such divine radiance could emanate from any
mortal; never had dreamed that beauty and grace could be so enhanced by
a white robe and a black veil----Oh, well! Her mind was in a rebellious
mood; it had been in leash too long. And what of it for once in a way?
No ball dress she had ever seen in the gay disreputable little
city--where the good citizens hung the bad for want of law--was half as
becoming as the habit of the Dominican nun, and if it played a part in
weaning frivolous girls from the world, so much more to the credit of
Rome. God knew she had never regretted her flight up the bays, and even
had it not been for the perfidy of--she had forgotten his name; that at
least was dead!--she would have realized her vocation the moment Sister
Dominica sounded the call. When the famous nun, with that passionate
humility all her own, had implored her to renounce the world, protested
that her vocation was written in her face--she really looked like a
juvenile mater dolorosa, particularly when she rolled up her
eyes--eloquently demanded what alternative that hideous embryo of a city
could give her--that rude and noisy city that looked as if it had been
tossed together in a night after one of its periodical fires, where the
ill-made sidewalks tripped the unwary foot, or the winter mud was like a
swamp, where the alarm bell summoned the Vigilance Committee day and
night to protect or avenge, where a coarse and impertinent set of
adventurers stared at and followed an inoffensive nun who only left the
holy calm of the convent at the command of the Bishop to rescue brands
from the burning; then had Teresa, sick with the tragedy of youth, an
enchanting vision of secluded paths, where nuns--in white--walked with
downcast eyes and folded hands; of the daily ecstasy of prayer in the
convent chapel misty with incense.
And in some inscrutable way Sister Dominica during that long
conversation, while Mrs. Grace and her other daughters dispensed egg-nog
in the parlor--it was New Year's Day--had made the young girl a part of
her very self, until Teresa indulged the fancy that without and within
she was a replica of that Concha Argüello of California's springtime;
won her heart so completely that she would have followed her not only
into the comfortable and incomparably situated convent of the saint of
Siena, but barefooted into that wilderness of Soledad where the Indians
still prayed for their lost "Beata." It was just eight months tonight
since she had taken her first vows, and she had been honestly aware that
there was no very clear line of demarcation in her fervent young mind
between her love of Sister Dominica and her love of God. Tonight, almost
prostrate before the coffin of the dead nun, she knew that so far at
least all the real passion of her youth had flowed in an undeflected
tide about the feet of that remote and exquisite being whose personal
charm alone had made a convent possible in the chaos that followed the
discovery of gold. All the novices, many of the older nuns, the pupils
invariably, worshipped Sister Dominica; whose saintliness without
austerity never chilled them, but whose tragic story and the impression
she made of already dwelling in a heaven of her own, notwithstanding
her sweet and consistent humanity, placed her on a pinnacle where any
display of affection would have been unseemly. Only once, after the
beautiful ceremony of taking the white veil was over, and Teresa's
senses were faint from incense and hunger, ecstasy and a new and
exquisite terror, Sister Dominica had led her to her cell and kissing
her lightly on the brow, exclaimed that she had never been happier in a
conquest for the Church against the vileness of the world. Then she had
dropped the conventional speech of her calling, and said with an
expression that made her look so young, so curiously virginal, that the
novice had held her breath: "Remember that here there is nothing to
interrupt the life of the imagination, nothing to change its course,
like the thousand conflicting currents that batter memory and character
to pieces in the world. In this monotonous round of duty and prayer the
mind is free, the heart remains ever young, the soul unspotted; so that
when----" She had paused, hesitated a moment, then abruptly left the
room, and Teresa had wept a torrent in her disappointment that this
first of California's heroines--whose place in history and romance was
assured--had not broken her reserve and told her all that story of many
versions. She had begged Sister María Sal--the sister of Luis Argüello's
first wife--to tell it her, but the old nun had reproved her sharply for
sinful curiosity and upon one occasion boxed her ears. But tonight she
might be in a softer mood, and Teresa resolved that when the last rites
were over she would make her talk of Concha Argüello.
A few moments later she was lifted to her feet by a shaking but still
powerful arm.
"Come!" whispered Sister María. "It is time to prepare. The others have
gone. It is singular that the oldest and the youngest should have loved
her best. Ay! Dios de mi alma! I never thought that Concha Argüello
would die. Grow old she never did, in spite of the faded husk. We will
look at her once more."
The dead nun in her coffin lay in the little parlor where she had turned
so many wavering souls from fleeting to eternal joys. Her features,
wasted during years of delicate health, seemed to regain something of
their youth in the soft light of the candles. Or was it the long black
eyelashes that hid the hollows beneath the eyes?--or the faint
mysterious almost mocking smile? Had the spirit in its eternal youth
paused in its flight to stamp a last sharp impress upon the prostrate
clay? Never had she looked so virginal, and that had been one of the
most arresting qualities of her always remarkable appearance; but there
was something more--Teresa held her breath. Somehow, dead and in her
coffin, she looked less saintly than in life; although as pure and
sweet, there was less of heavenly peace on those marble features than of
some impassioned human hope. Teresa excitedly whispered her unruly
thoughts to Sister María, but instead of the expected reproof the old
nun lifted her shoulders.
"Perhaps," she said. "Who knows?"
* * * * *
It was Christmas eve and all the inmates of the convent paused in their
sorrow to rejoice in the happy portent of the death and burial of one
whom they loyally believed to be no less entitled to beatification than
Catherine herself. Her miracles may not have been of the irreducible
protoplastic order, but they had been miracles to the practical
Californian mind, notwithstanding, and worthy of the attention of
consistory and Pope. Moreover, this was the season when all the vivacity
and gaiety of her youth had revived, and she made merry, not only for
the children left at the convent by their nomadic parents, but for all
the children of the town, whatever the faith of their somewhat anxious
elders.
An hour after sundown they carried the bier on which her coffin rested
into the chapel. It was a solemn procession that none, taking part, was
likely to forget, and stirred the young hearts at least with an ecstatic
desire for a life as saintly as this that hardly had needed the crown of
death.
Following the bier was the cross-bearer, holding the emblem so high it
was half lost in the shadows. Behind her were the young scholars dressed
in black, then the novices in their white robes and veils, carrying
lighted tapers to symbolize the eternal radiance that awaited the pure
in spirit. The nuns finished the procession that wound its way slowly
through the long ill-lighted corridors, chanting the litany of the dead.
From the chapel, at first almost inaudible, but waxing louder every
moment, came the same solemn monotonous chant; for the Bishop and his
assistants were already at the altar....
Teresa, from the organ loft, looked eagerly down upon the beautiful
scene, in spite of the exaltation that filled her: her artistic sense
was the one individuality she possessed. The chapel was aglow with the
soft radiance of many wax candles. They stood in high candelabra against
the somber drapery on the walls, and there were at least a hundred about
the coffin on its high catafalque before the altar; the Argüellos were
as prodigal as of old. About the catafalque was an immense mound of
roses from the garden of the convent, and palms and pampas from the
ranch of Santiago Argüello in the south. The black-robed scholars knelt
on one side of the dead, the novices on the other, the relatives and
friends behind. But art had perfected itself in the gallery above the
lower end of the chapel. This also was draped with black which seemed to
absorb, then shed forth again the mystic brilliance of the candles; and
kneeling, well apart, were the nuns in their ivory white robes and black
veils, their banded softened features as composed and peaceful as if
their own reward had come.
The Bishop and the priests read the Requiem Mass, the little organ
pealed the _De Profundis_ as if inspired; and when the imperious
triumphant music of Handel followed, Teresa's fresh young soprano
seemed, to her excited imagination, to soar to the gates of heaven
itself. When she looked down again the lights were dim in the incense,
her senses swam in the pungent odor of spices and gum. The Bishop was
walking about the catafalque casting holy water with a brush against the
coffin above. He walked about a second time swinging the heavy copper
censer, then pronounced the _Requiescat in pace_, "dismissing," as we
find inscribed in the convent records, "a tired soul out of all the
storms of life into the divine tranquillity of death."
The bier was again shouldered, the procession reformed, and marched,
still with lighted tapers and chanting softly, out into the cemetery of
the convent. It was a magnificent, clear night and as mild as spring.
Below the steep hill the little town of Benicia celebrated the eve of
Christmas with lights and noise. Beyond, the water sparkled like running
silver under the wide beams of the moon poised just above the peak of
Monte Diablo, the old volcano that towered high above this romantic and
beautiful country of water and tule lands, steep hillsides and canons,
rocky bluffs overhanging the straits. In spite of the faint discords
that rose from the town and the slow tolling of the convent bell, it was
a scene of lofty and primeval grandeur, a fit setting for the last
earthly scene of a woman whose lines had been cast in the wilderness,
but yet had found the calm and the strength and the peace of the old
mountain, with its dead and buried fires.
The grave closed, the mourners returned to the convent, but not in
order. At the door Teresa felt her arm taken possession of by a strong
hand with which she had had more than one disconcerting encounter.
"Let us walk," said Sister María Sal in her harsh but strong old voice.
"I have permission. I must talk of Concha tonight or I should burst. It
is not for nothing one keeps silent for years and years. I at least am
still human. And you loved her the best and have spoiled your pretty
face with weeping. You must not do that again, for the young love a
pretty nun and will follow her into the one true life on earth far
sooner than an ugly old phiz like mine."
Sister María, indeed, retained not an index of the beauty with which
tradition accredited her youth. She was a stout unwieldy old woman with
a very red face covered half over with black down, and in the bright
moonlight Teresa could see the three long hairs that stood out straight
from a mole above her mouth and scratched the girls when she kissed
them. Tonight her nose was swollen and her eyes looked like appleseeds.
Teresa hastily composed her features and registered a vow that in her
old age she would look like Sister Dominica, not like that. She had
heard that Concha, too, had been frivolous in her youth, and had not she
herself a tragic bit of a story? True, her youthful love-tides had
turned betimes from the grave beside the Mission Dolores to the lovely
nun and the God of both, and she had heard that Doña Concha had proved
her fidelity to a wonderful Russian throughout many years before she
took the veil. Perhaps--who knew?--her more conformable pupil might have
restored the worthless to her heart before he was knifed in the full
light of day on Montgomery Street by one from whom he had won more than
thousands the night before; perhaps have consoled herself with another
less eccentric, had not Sister Dominica sought her at the right moment
and removed her from the temptations of the world. Well, never mind, she
could at least be a good nun and an amiable instructor of youth, and if
she never looked like a living saint she would grow soberer and nobler
with the years and take care that she grew not stout and red.
For a time Sister María did not speak, but walked rapidly and heavily up
and down the path, dragging her companion with her and staring out at
the beauty of the night. But suddenly she slackened her pace and burst
into speech.
"Ay yi! Ay de mi! To think that it is nearly half a century--forty-two
years to be precise--for will it not be 1858 in one more week?--since
Rezánov sailed out through what Frémont has called 'The Golden Gate'!
And forty-one in March since he died--not from the fall of a horse, as
Sir George Simpson (who had not much regard for the truth anyway, for he
gave a false picture of our Concha), and even Doctor Langsdorff, who
should have known better, wrote it, but worn out, worn out, after
terrible hardships, and a fever that devoured him inch by inch. And he
was so handsome when he left us! Dios de mi alma! never have I seen a
man like that. If I had I should not be here now, perhaps, so it is as
well. But never was I even engaged, and when permission came from Madrid
for the marriage of my sister Rafaella with Luis Argüello--he was an
officer and could not marry without a special license from the King, and
through some strange oversight he was six long years getting it--; well,
I lived with them and took care of the children until Rafaella--Ay yi!
what a good wife she made him, for he 'toed the mark,' as the Americans
say--; well, she died, and one of those days he married another; for
will not men be men? And Luis was a good man in spite of all, a fine
loyal clever man, who deserves the finest monument in the cemetery of
the Mission Dolores--as they call it now. The Americans have no respect
for anything and will not say San Francisco de Assisi, for it is too
long and they have time for nothing but the gold. Were it not a sin,
how I should hate them, for they have stolen our country from us--but
no, I will not; and, to be sure, if Rezánov had lived he would have had
it first, so what difference? Luis, at least, was spared. He died in
1830--and was the first Governor of Alta California after Mexico threw
off the yoke of Spain. He had power in full measure and went before
these upstart conquerors came to humble the rest of us into the dust.
Peace to his ashes--but perhaps you care nothing for this dear brother
of my youth, never heard of him before--such a giddy thing you were;
although at the last earthquake the point of his monument flew straight
into the side of the church and struck there, so you may have heard the
talk before they put it back in its place. It is of Sister Dominica you
think, but I think not only of her but of those old days--Ay, Dios de
mi! Who remembers that time but a few old women like myself?
"Concha's father, Don José Dario Argüello, was Commandante of the
Presidio of San Francisco then; and there was nothing else to call San
Francisco but the Mission. Down at Yerba Buena, where the Americans
flaunt themselves, there was but a Battery that could not give even a
dance. But we had dances at the Presidio; day and night the guitar
tinkled and the fiddles scraped; for what did we know of care, or old
age, or convents or death? I was many years younger than Rafaella and
did not go to the grand balls, but to the little dances, yes, many and
many. When the Russians came--it was in 1806--I saw them every day, and
one night danced with Rezánov himself. He was so gay--ay de mi! I
remember he swung me quite off my feet and made as if he would throw me
in the air. I was angry that he should treat me like a baby, and then he
begged me so humbly to forgive him, although his eyes laughed, that of
course I did. He had come down from Sitka to try and arrange for a
treaty with the Spanish government that the poor men in the employ of
the Russian-American Company might have breadstuffs to eat and not die
of scurvy, nor toil through the long winter with no flesh on their
bones. He brought a cargo with him to exchange for our corn and flour
meanwhile. We had never seen any one so handsome and so grand and he
turned all our heads, but he had a hard time with the Governor and Don
José--there are no such Californians now or the Americans would never
have got us--and it took all his diplomacy and all the help Concha and
the priests could give him before he got his way, for there was a law
against trading with foreigners. It was only when he and Concha became
engaged that Governor Arillaga gave in--how I pick up vulgar expressions
from these American pupils, I who should reform them! And did I not
stand Ellen O'Reilley in the corner yesterday for calling San Francisco
'Frisco'?--_San Francisco de Assisi!_ But all the saints have fled from
California.
"Where was I? Forgive an old woman's rambling, but I have not told
stories since Rafaella's children grew up, and that was many years ago.
What do I talk here? You know. And I that used to love to talk. Ay yi!
But no one can say that I am not a good nun. Bishop Alemany has said it
and no one knows better than he, the holy man. But for him I might be
sitting all day on a corridor in the south sunning myself like an old
crocodile, for we had no convent till he came eight years ago; and
perhaps but for Concha, whom I always imitated, I might have a dozen
brats of my own, for I was pretty and had my wooers and might have been
persuaded. And God knows, since I must have the care of children, I
prefer they should be mothered by some one else for then I have always
the hope to be rid of them the sooner. Well, well! I am not a saint yet,
and when I go to heaven I suppose Concha will still shake her finger at
me with a smile. Not that she was ever self-righteous, our Concha. Not a
bit of it. Only after that long and terrible waiting she just naturally
became a saint. Some are made that way and some are not. That is all.
"Did I tell you about the two young lieutenants that came with Baron
Rezánov? Davidov and Khostov their names were. Well, well, I shall tell
all tonight. I was but fourteen, but what will you? Was I not, then,
Spanish? It was Davidov. He always left the older people to romp with
the children, although I think there was a flame in his heart for
Concha. Perhaps had I been older--who knows? Do not look at my whiskers!
That was forty-two years ago. Well, I dreamed of the fair kind young
Russian for many a night after he left, and when my time came to marry I
would look at none of the caballeros, but nursed Rafaella's babies and
thought my thoughts. And then--in 1815 I think it was--the good--and
ugly--Dr. Langsdorff sent Luis a copy of his book--he had been surgeon
to his excellency--and alas! it told of the terrible end of both those
gay kind young men. They were always too fond of brandy; we knew that,
but we never--well, hear me! One night not so many years after they
sailed away from California, they met Dr. Langsdorff and another friend
of their American days, Captain D'Wolf, by appointment in St. Petersburg
for a grand reunion. They were all so happy! Perhaps it was that made
them too much 'celebrate,' as the Americans say in their dialect. Well,
alas! they celebrated until four in the morning, and then my two dear
young Russians--for I loved Khostov as a sister, so devoted he was to my
friend--well, they started--on foot--for home, and that was on the other
side of the Neva. They had almost crossed the bridge when they suddenly
took it into their heads that they wanted to see their friends again,
and started back. Alas, in the middle of the bridge was a section that
opened to permit the passage of boats with tall masts. The night was
dark and stormy. The bridge was open. They did not see it. The river was
roaring and racing like a flood. A sailor saw them fall, and then strike
back for the coming boat. Then he saw them no more. That was the last of
my poor friends.
"And we had all been so gay, so gay! For how could we know? All the
Russians said that never had they seen a people so light-hearted and
frolicking as the Californians, so hospitable, so like one great family.
And we were, we were. But you know of that time. Was not your mother
Conchitita Castro, if she did marry an American and has not taught you
ten words of Spanish? It is of Concha you would hear, and I ramble.
Well, who knows? perhaps I hesitate. Rezánov was of the Greek Church. No
priest in California would have married them even had Don José--_el
santo_ we called him--given his consent. It was for that reason Rezánov
went to obtain a dispensation from His Holiness and a license from the
King of Spain. Concha knew that he could not return for two years or
nearly that, nor even send her a letter; for why should ships come down
from Sitka until the treaty was signed? Only Rezánov could get what he
wanted, law or no law. And then too our Governor had forbidden the
British and Bostonians--so we called the Americans in those days--to
enter our ports. This Concha knew, and when one knows one can think in
storeys, as it were, and put the last at the top. It is not so bad as
the hope that makes the heart thump every morning and the eyes turn into
fountains at night. Dios! To think that I should ever have shed a tear
over a man. Chinchosas, all of them. However--I think Concha, who was
never quite as others, knew deep down in her heart that he would not
come back, that it was all too good to be true. Never was a man seen as
handsome as that one, and so clever--a touch of the devil in his
cleverness, but that may have been because he was a Russian. I know not.
And to be a great lady in St. Petersburg, and later--who can
tell?--vice-Tsarina of all this part of the world! No, it could not be.
It was a fairy tale. I only wonder that the bare possibility came into
the life of any woman,--and that a maiden of New Spain, in an unknown
corner, that might as well have been on Venus or Mars.
"But Concha had character. She was not one to go into a
decline--although I am woman enough to know that her pillow was wet many
nights; and besides she lost the freshness of her beauty. She was often
as gay as ever, but she cared less and less for the dance, and found
more to do at home. Don José was made Commandante of the Santa Barbara
Company that same year, and it was well for her to be in a place where
there were no memories of Rezánov. But late in the following year as the
time approached for his return, or news of him, she could not contain
her impatience. We all saw it--I was visiting the Pachecos in the
Presidio of Santa Barbara. She grew so thin. Her eyes were never still.
We knew. And then!--how many times she climbed to the fortress--it was
on that high bluff beside the channel--and stared out to sea--when 1808
and the Spring had come--for hours together: Rezánov was to return by
way of Mexico. Then, when I went back to San Francisco soon after, she
went with me, and again she would watch the sea from the summit of Lone
Mountain, as we call it now. In spite of her reason she hoped, I
suppose; for that is the way of women. Or perhaps she only longed for
the word from Sitka that would tell her the worst and have done with it.
Who knows? She never said, and we dared not speak of it. She was always
very sweet, our Concha, but there never was a time when you could take a
liberty with her.
[Illustration: "SHE WAS ALWAYS VERY SWEET OUR CONCHA,
BUT THERE NEVER WAS A TIME WHEN YOU COULD TAKE A LIBERTY WITH HER."
FROM A PAINTING BY LILLIE V. O'RYAN.]
"No ship came, but something else did--an earthquake! Ay yi, what an
earthquake that was! Not a _temblor_ but a _terremoto_. The whole
Presidio came down. I do not know now how we saved all the babies,
but we always flew to the open with a baby under each arm the moment an
earthquake began, and in the first seconds even this was not so bad. The
wall about the Presidio was fourteen feet high and seven feet thick and
there were solid trunks of trees crossed inside the adobe. It looked
like a heap of dirt, nothing more. Luis was riding up from the Battery
of Yerba Buena and his horse was flung down and he saw the sand-dunes
heaving toward him like waves in a storm and shiver like quicksilver.
And there was a roar as if the earth had dropped and the sea gone after.
Ay California! And to think that when Luis wrote a bitter letter to
Governor Arillaga in Monterey, the old Mexican wrote back that he had
felt earthquakes himself and sent him a box of dates for consolation!
Well--we slept on the ground for two months and cooked out-of-doors, for
we would not go even into the Mission--which had not suffered--until the
earthquakes were over; and if the worst comes first there are plenty
after--and, somehow, harder to bear. Perhaps to Concha that terrible
time was a God-send, for she thought no more of Rezánov for a while. If
the earthquake does not swallow your body it swallows your little self.
You are a flea. Just that and nothing more.
"But after a time all was quiet again; the houses were rebuilt and
Concha went back to Santa Barbara. By that time she knew that Rezánov
would never come, although it was several years before she had a word.
Such stories have been told that she did not know of his death for
thirty years! Did not Baránhov, Chief-manager of the Russian-Alaskan
Company up there at Sitka, send Koskov--that name was so like!--to
Bodega Bay in 1812, and would he fail to send such news with him? Was
not Dr. Langsdorff's book published in 1814? Did not Kotzbue, who was on
his excellency's staff during the embassy to Japan, come to us in 1816,
and did we not talk with him every day for a month? Did not Rezánov's
death spoil all Russia's plans in this part of the world--perhaps, who
knows? alter the course of her history? It is likely we were long
without hearing the talk of the North! Such nonsense! Yes, she knew it
soon enough, but as that good Padre Abella once said to us, she had the
making of the saint and the martyr in her, and even when she could hope
no more she did not die, nor marry some one else, nor wither up and spit
at the world. Long before the news came, indeed, she carried out a plan
she had conceived, so Padre Abella told us, even while Rezánov was yet
here. There were no convents in California in those days--you may know
what a stranded handful we were--but she joined the Tertiary or Third
Order of Franciscans, and wore always the grey habit, the girdle, and
the cross. She went among the Indians christianizing them, remaining a
long while at Soledad, a bleak and cheerless place, where she was also a
great solace to the wives of the soldiers and settlers, whose children
she taught. The Indians called her 'La Beata,' and by that name she was
known in all California until she took the veil, and that was more than
forty years later. And she was worshipped, no less. So beautiful she
was, so humble, so sweet, and at the same time so practical; she had
what the Americans call 'hard sense,' and something of Rezánov's own
way of managing people. When she made up her mind to bring a sinner or a
savage into the Church she did it. You know.
"But do not think she had her way in other things without a struggle.
Don José and Doña Ignacia--her mother--permitted her to enter upon the
religious life, for they understood; and Luis and Santiago made no
protest either, for they understood also and had loved Rezánov. But the
rest of her family, the relations, the friends, the young men--the
caballeros! They went in a body you might say to Don José and demanded
that Concha, the most beautiful and fascinating and clever girl in New
Spain, should come back to the world where she belonged,--be given in
marriage. But Concha had always ruled Don José, and all the protests
went to the winds. And William Sturgis--the young Bostonian who lived
with us for so many years? I have not told you of him, and your mother
was too young to remember. Well, never mind. He would have taken Concha
from California, given her just a little of what she would have had as
the wife of Rezánov--not in himself; he was as ugly as my whiskers; but
enough of the great world to satisfy many women, and no one could deny
that he was good and very clever. But to Concha he was a brother--no
more. Perhaps she did not even take the trouble to refuse him. It was a
way she had. After a while he went home to Boston and died of the
climate. I was very sorry. He was one of us.
"And her intellect? Concha put it to sleep forever. She never read
another book of travel, of history, biography, memoirs, essays,
poetry--romance she had never read, and although some novels came to
California in time she never opened them. It was peace she wanted, not
the growing mind and the roving imagination. She brought her
conversation down to the level of the humblest, and perhaps--who
knows?--her thoughts. At all events, although the time came when she
smiled again, and was often gay when we were all together in the
family--particularly with the children, who came very fast, of
course--well, she was then another Concha, not that brilliant
dissatisfied ambitious girl we had all known, who had thought the
greatest gentleman from the Viceroy's court not good enough to throw
gold at her feet when she danced El Son.
"There were changes in her life. In 1814 Don José was made Gobernador
Propietario of Lower California. He took all of his unmarried children
with him, and Concha thought it her duty to go. They lived in Loreto
until 1821. But Concha never ceased to pray that she might return to
California--we never looked upon that withered tongue of Mexico as
California; and when Don José died soon after his resignation, and her
mother went to live with her married daughters, Concha returned with the
greatest happiness she had known, I think, since Rezánov went. Was not
California all that was left her?
"She lived in Santa Barbara for many years, in the house of Don José de
la Guerra--in that end room of the east wing. She had many relations, it
is true, but Concha was always human and liked relations better when she
was not surrounded by them. Although she never joined in any of the
festivities of that gay time she was often with the Guerra family and
seemed happy enough to take up her old position as Beata among the
Indians and children, until they built a school for her in Monterey. How
we used to wonder if she ever thought of Rezánov any more. From the day
the two years were over she never mentioned his name, and everybody
respected her reserve, even her parents. And she grew more and more
reserved with the years, never speaking of herself at all, except just
after her return from Mexico. But somehow we knew. And did not the very
life she had chosen express it? Even the Church may not reach the secret
places of the soul, and who knows what heaven she may have found in
hers? And now? I think purgatory is not for Concha, and he was not bad
as men go, and has had time to do his penance. It is true the Church
tells us there is no marrying in heaven--but, well, perhaps there is a
union for mated spirits of which the Church knows nothing. You saw her
expression in her coffin.
"Well! The time arrived when we had a convent. Bishop Alemany came in
1850, and in the first sermon he preached in Santa Barbara--I think it
was his first in California--he announced that he wished to found a
convent. He was a Dominican, but one order was as another to Concha; she
had never been narrow in anything. As soon as the service was over,
before he had time to leave the church, she went to him and asked to be
the first to join. He was glad enough, for he knew of her and that no
one could fill his convent as rapidly as she. Therefore was she the
first nun, the first to take holy vows, in our California. For a
little, the convent was in the old Hartnell house in Monterey, but Don
Manuel Ximéno had built a great hotel while believing, with all the
rest, that Monterey would be the capital of the new California as of the
old, and he was glad to sell it to the Bishop. We were delighted--of
course I followed when Concha told me it was my vocation--that the
Americans preferred Yerba Buena.
"Concha took her first vows in April, soon after the Bishop's arrival,
choosing the name Sister María, Dominica. On the 13th of April 1852 she
took the black veil and perpetual vows. Of course the convent had a
school at once. Concha's school had been a convent of a sort and the
Bishop merely took it over. All the flower of California have been
educated by Concha Argüello, including Chonita Estenega who is so great
a lady in Mexico today. Two years later we came here, and here we shall
stay, no doubt. I think Concha loved Benicia better than any part of
California she had known, for it was still California without too
piercing reminders of the past: life at the other Presidios and Missions
was but the counterpart of our San Francisco, and here the priests and
military had never come. In this beautiful wild spot where the elk and
the antelope and the deer run about like rabbits, and you meet a bear if
you go too far--Holy Mary!--where she went sometimes in a boat among the
tules on the river, and where one may believe the moon lives in a silver
lake in the old crater of Monte Diablo--Ay, it was different enough and
might bring peace to any heart. What she must have suffered for years
in those familiar scenes! But she never told. And now she lies here
under her little cross and he in Krasnoiarsk--under a stone shaped like
an altar, they say. Well! who knows? That is all. I go in now; my old
bones ache with the night damp. But my mind is lighter, although never I
shall speak of this again. And do you not think of it any more.
Curiosity and the world and such nonsense as love and romance are not
for us. Go to bed at once and tie a stocking round your throat that you
have not a frog in it tomorrow morning when you sing 'Glory be to God on
High.' _Buen Dias!_"
THE FORD OF CRÈVECOEUR
BY
MARY AUSTIN
Reprinted from _Out West_ by permission.
YES. I understand; you are M'siu the Notary, M'siu the Sheriff has told
me. You are come to hear how by the help of God I have killed Filon
Geraud at the ford of Crèvecoeur. By the help of God, yes. Think you if
the devil had a hand in it, he would not have helped Filon? For he was
the devil's own, was Filon. He was big, he was beautiful, he had a
way--but always there was the devil's mark. I see that the first time
ever I knew him at Agua Caliente. The devil sit in Filon's eyes and
laugh--laugh--some time he go away like a man at a window, but he come
again. M'siu, he _live_ there! And Filon, he know that I see, so he make
like he not care; but I think he care a little, else why he make for
torment me all the time? Ever since I see him at that shearing at Agua
Caliente eight, ten year gone, he not like for let me be. I have been
the best shearer in that shed, snip--snip--quick, clean. Ah, it is
beautiful! All the sheepmen like for have me shear their sheep. Filon is
new man at that shearing, Lebecque is just hire him then; but yes,
M'siu, to see him walk about that Agua Caliente you think he own all
those sheep, all that range. Ah--he had a way! Pretty soon that day
Filon is hearing all sheepmen say that Raoul is the best shearer; then
he come lean on the rail by my shed and laugh softly like he talk with
himself, and say, "See the little man; see him shear." But me, I can no
more. The shears turn in my hand so I make my sheep all bleed same like
one butcher. Then I look up and see the devil in Filon Geraud's eye. It
is always so after that, all those years until I kill Filon. If I make a
little game of poker with other shepherds then he walks along and say:
"Ah, you, Raoul, you is one sharp fellow. I not like for play with you."
Then is my play all gone bad.
But if Filon play, then he say, "Come, you little man, and bring me the
good luck."
It is so, M'siu! If I go stand by that game, Filon is win, win all the
time. That is because of the devil. And if there are women--no, M'siu,
there was never _one_ woman. What would a shepherd, whose work is always
toward the hills, do with a woman? Is it to plant a vineyard that others
may drink wine? Ah, non! But me, at shearings and at Tres Piños where we
pay the tax, there I like to talk to pretty girl same as other
shepherds, then Filon come make like he one gran' friend. All the time
he make say the compliments, he make me one mock. His eyes they laugh
always, that make women like to do what he say. But me, I have no
chance.
It is so, M'siu, when I go out with my sheep. This is my trail--I go out
after the shearing through the Cañada de las Viñas, then across the
Little Antelope, while the grass is quick. After that I go up toward the
hills of Olancho, where I keep one month; there is much good feed and
no man comes. Also then I wait at Tres Piños for the sheriff that I pay
the tax. _Sacre_! it is a hard one, that tax! After that I am free of
the Sierras, what you call _Nieve_--snowy. Well I know that country. I
go about with my sheep and seek my meadows--_mine_, M'siu, that I have
climbed the great mountains to spy out among the pines, that I have
found by the grace of God, and my own wit: La Crevasse, Moultrie,
Bighorn, Angostura. Also, I go by other meadows where other shepherds
feed one month with another; but these _these_ are all _mine_. I go
about and come again when the feed is grown.
M'siu, it is hard to believe, but it is so--Filon finds my meadows one
by one. One year I come by La Crevasse--there is nothing there; I go on
to Moultrie--here is the grass eaten to the roots, and the little pines
have no tops; at Bighorn is the fresh litter of a flock. I think maybe
my sheep go hungry that summer. So I come to Angostura. There is Filon.
He laugh. Then it come into my mind that one day I goin' kill that Filon
Geraud. By the help of God. Yes. For he is big that Filon, he is strong;
and me, M'siu, I am as God made me.
So always, where I go on the range there is Filon; if I think to change
my trail, he change also his. If I have good luck, Filon has better. If
to him is the misfortune--ah--you shall hear.
One year Gabriel Lausanne tell me that Filon is lose all his lambs in
the Santa Ana. You know that Santa Ana, M'siu? It is one mighty wind. It
comes up small, very far away, one little dust like the clouds, creep,
creep close by the land. It lies down along the sand; you think it is
done? Eh, it is one liar, that Santa Ana. It rise up again, it is pale
gold, it seek the sky. That sky is all wide, clean, no speck. Ah, it
knows, that sky; it will have nothing lying about when the Santa Ana
comes. It is hot then, you have the smell of the earth in your nostrils.
_That_, M'siu, is the Santa Ana. It is pale dust and the great push of
the wind. The sand bites, there is no seeing the flock's length. They
huddle, and the lambs are smothered; they scatter, and the dogs can
nothing make. If it blow one day, you thank God; if it blow two days,
then is sheepman goin' to lose his sheep. When Gabriel tell me that
about Filon, I think he deserve all that. What you think, M'siu? That
same night the water of Tinpah rise in his banks afar off by the hills
where there is rain. It comes roaring down the wash where I make my
camp, for you understand at that time of year there should be no water
in the wash of Tinpah, but it come in the night and carry away one-half
of my sheep. Eh, how you make that, M'siu; is it the devil or no?
Well, it go like this eight, ten year; then it come last summer, and I
meet Filon at the ford of Crèvecoeur. That is the water that comes down
eastward from Mineral Mountain between Olancho and Sentinel Rock. It is
what you call Mineral Creek, but the French shepherds call it
Crèvecoeur. For why; it is a most swift and wide water; it goes darkly
between earthy banks upon which it gnaws. It has hot springs which come
up in it without reason, so that there is no safe crossing at any time.
Its sands are quick; what they take, they take wholly with the life in
it, and after a little they spew it out again. And, look you, it makes
no singing, this water of Crèvecoeur. Twenty years have I kept sheep
between Red Butte and the Temblor Hills, and I say this. Make no fear of
singing water, for it goes not too deeply but securely on a rocky
bottom; such a one you may trust. But this silent one, that is hot or
cold, deep or shallow, and has never its banks the same one season with
another, this you may not trust, M'siu. And to get sheep across
it--ah--it breaks the heart, this Crèvecoeur.