It was reception night at the Palace Hotel. As usual the floating
population of San Francisco had drifted into the huge court of that
luxurious caravansary, and was ebbing and eddying among the multitudes
of white and shining columns that support the six galleries under the
crystal roof. The band reveled in the last popular waltz, the hum of the
spectators was hushed, but among the galleries might be seen pairs of
adolescent youths and maidens swaying to the rhythmical melody. We were
taking wine and cigarettes with the Colonel. He was always at home to us
on Monday nights, and even our boisterous chat was suspended while the
blustering trumpeters in the court below blew out their delirious music.
It was at this moment that Bartholomew beckoned me to follow him from
the apartment. We quietly repaired to the gallery among the huge vases
of palms and creepers, and there, bluntly and without a moment's
warning, the dear fellow blurted out this startling revelation: "I have
made an engagement for you; be ready on Thursday next at 4 p.m.; meet me
here; all arrangements are effected; say not a word, but come; and I
promise you one of the jolliest experiences of the season." All this
was delivered in a high voice, to the accompaniment of drums and
cymbals; he concluded with the last flourish of the bandmaster's baton,
and the applause of the public followed. Certainly dramatic effect could
go no further. I was more than half persuaded, and yet, when the
applause had ceased, the dancers unwound themselves, and the low rumble
of a thousand restless feet rang on the marble pavement below, I found
voice sufficient to ask the all-important question, "But what is the
nature of this engagement?" To which he answered, "Oh, we're going down
the coast for a few days, you and I, and Alf and Croesus. A charming
bungalow by the sea; capital bathing, shooting, fishing; nice quiet time
generally; back Monday morning in season for biz!" This was certainly
satisfactory as far as it went, but I added, by way of parenthesis, "and
who else will be present?" knowing well enough that one uncongenial
spirit might be the undoing of us all. To this Bartholomew responded,
"No one but ourselves, old fellow; now don't be queer." He knew well
enough my aversion to certain elements unavoidable even in the best
society, and how I kept very much to myself, except on Monday nights
when we all smoked and laughed with the Colonel--whose uncommonly
charming wife was abroad for the summer; and on Tuesday and Saturday
nights, when I was at the club, and on Wednesdays, when I did the
theatricals of the town, and on Thursdays and Fridays--but never mind!
girls were out of the question in my case, and he knew that the bachelor
hall where I preside was as difficult of access as a cloister. I might
not have given my word without further deliberation, had not the
impetuous Colonel seized us bodily and borne us back into his
smoking-room, where he was about to shatter the wax on a flagon of wine,
a brand of fabulous age and excellence. Bartholomew nodded to Alf, Alf
passed the good news to Croesus, for we were all at the Colonel's by
common consent, and so it happened that the compact was made for
Thursday.
That Thursday, at 4 p.m. we were on our way to the station at 4:30; the
town-houses were growing few and far between, as the wheels of the
coaches spun over the iron road. At five o'clock the green fields of the
departed spring, already grown bare and brown, rolled up between us and
the horizon. California is a naked land and no mistake, but how
beautiful in her nakedness! An hour later we descended at School-house
station; such is the matter-of-fact pet-name given to a cluster of dull
houses, once known by some melodious but forgotten Spanish appellation.
The ranch wagon awaited us; a huge springless affair, or if it had
springs they were of that aggravating stiffness that adds insult to
injury. Excellent beasts dragged us along a winding, dusty road, over
hill, down dale, into a land that grew more and more lonely; not exactly
"a land where it was always afternoon," but apparently always a little
later in the day, say 7 p.m. or thereabouts. We were rapidly wending our
way towards the coast, and on the breezy hill-top a white fold of
sea-fog swept over and swathed us in its impalpable snow. Oh! the chill,
the rapturous agony of that chill. Do you know what sea-fog is? It is
the bodily, spiritual and temporal life of California; it is the
immaculate mantle of the unclad coast; it feeds the hungry soil, gives
drink unto the thirsting corn, and clothes the nakedness of nature. It
is the ghost of unshed showers--atomized dew, precipitated in
life-bestowing avalanches upon a dewless and parched shore; it is the
good angel that stands between a careless people and contagion; it is
heaven-sent nourishment. It makes strong the weak; makes wise the
foolish--you don't go out a second time in midsummer without your
wraps--and it is altogether the freshest, purest, sweetest, most
picturesque, and most precious element in the physical geography of the
Pacific Slope. It is worth more to California than all her gold, and
silver, and copper, than all her corn and wine--in short, it is simply
indispensable.
This is the fog that dashed under our hubs like noiseless surf, filled
up the valleys in our lee, shut the sea-view out entirely, and finally
left us on a mountaintop--our last ascension, thank Heaven!--with
nothing but clouds below us and about us, and we sky-high and drenched
to the very bone.
The fog broke suddenly and rolled away, wrapped in pale and splendid
mystery; it broke for us as we were upon the edge of a bluff. For some
moments we had been listening to the ever-recurring sob of the sea.
There at our feet curled the huge breakers, shouldering the cliff as if
they would hurl it from its foundation. A little further on in the
gloaming was the last hill of all; from its smooth, short summit we
could look into the Delectable Land by candle light, and mark how
invitingly stands a bungalow by the sea's margin at the close of a dusty
day.
On the summit we paused; certain unregistered packages under the wagon,
which had preyed at intervals upon the minds of Alf, Croesus, and
Bartholomew, were now drawn forth. Life is a series of surprises;
surprise No. 1, a brace of long, tapering javelins having
villainous-looking heads, i.e., two marine rockets, with which to rend
the heavens, and notify the vassals at the bungalow of our approach. One
of these rockets we planted with such care that having touched it off,
it could not free itself, but stood stock still and with vicious fury
blew off in a cloud of dazzling sparks. The dry grass flamed in a
circle about us; never before had we fought fire with wildly-waving
ulsters, but they prove excellent weapons in engagements of this
character, I assure you. Profiting by fatiguing experience, we poised
the second rocket so deftly that it could not fail to rise. On it we
hung our hopes, light enough burdens if they were all as faint as mine.
With the spurt of a match we touched it, a stream of flaky gold rushed
forth and then, as if waiting to gather strength, _biff_! and away she
went. Never before soared rocket so beautifully; it raked the very
stars; its awful voice died out in the dim distance; with infinite grace
it waved its trail of fire, and then spat forth such constellations of
variegated stars--you would have thought a rainbow had burst into a
million fragments--that shamed the very planets, and made us think
mighty well of ourselves and our achievement. There was still a long
dark mile between us and the bungalow; on this mile were strung a
fordable stream, a ragged village of Italian gardeners, some monstrous
looking hay-stacks, and troops of dogs that mouthed horribly as we
ploughed through the velvety dust.
The bungalow at last! at the top of an avenue of trees--and such a
bungalow! A peaked roof that sheltered everything, even the deepest
verandas imaginable; the rooms few, but large and airy; everything wide
open and one glorious blaze of light. A table spread with the luxuries
of the season, which in California means four seasons massed in one.
Flowers on all sides; among these flowers Japanese lanterns of
inconceivable forms and colors. These hung two or three deep--without,
within, above, below; nothing but light and fragrance, and mirth and
song. We were howling a chorus as we drove up, and were received with a
musical welcome, bubbling over with laughter from the lips of three
pretty girls, dressed in white and pink--probably the whitest and
pinkest girls in all California; and this was surprise No. 2.
Perfect strangers to me were these young ladies; but, like most
confirmed bachelors, I rather like being with the adorable sex, when I
find myself translated as if by magic.
We were formed of the dust of the earth--there was no denying the fact,
and we speedily withdrew; but before our dinner toilets were completed,
such a collection of appetizers was sent in to us as must distinguish
forever the charming hostess who concocted them. I need not recall the
dinner. Have you ever observed that there is no real pleasure in
reviving the memory of something good to eat? Suffice it to state that
the dinner was such a one as was most likely to be laid for us under the
special supervision of three blooming maidens, who had come hither four
and twenty hours in advance of us for this special purpose. That night
we played for moderate stakes until the hours were too small to be
mentioned. I forget who won; but it was probably the girls, who were as
clever at cards as they were at everything else. We ultimately retired,
for the angel of sleep visits even a Californian bungalow, though his
hours are a trifle irregular. Our rooms, two large chambers, with
folding doors thrown back, making the two as one, contained four double
beds; in one of the rooms was a small altar, upon which stood a statue
of the Madonna, veiled in ample folds of lace and crowned with a coronet
of natural flowers; vases of flowers were at her feet, and lighted
tapers flickered on either hand. The apartment occupied by the young
ladies was at the other corner of the bungalow; the servants, a good old
couple, retainers in Alf's family, slept in a cottage adjoining. We
retired manfully; we had smoked our last smoke, and were not a little
fatigued; hence this readiness on our part to lay down the burdens and
cares of the day. When the lights were extinguished the moon, streaming
in at the seaward windows, flooded the long rooms. It was a glorious
night; no sound disturbed its exquisite serenity save the subdued murmur
of the waves, softened by an intervening hillock on which the cypress
trees stood like black and solemn sentinels of the night.
[Illustration: "The Huge Court of that Luxurious Caravansary."]
I think I must have dozed, for it first seemed like a dream--the
crouching figures that stole in Indian file along the carpet from bed to
bed; but soon enough I wakened to a reality, for the Phillistines were
upon us, and the pillows fell like aerolites out of space. The air was
dense with flying bed-clothes; the assailants, Bartholomew and Alf, his
right-hand man, fell upon us with school-boy fury; they made mad leaps,
and landed upon our stomachs. We grappled in deadly combat; not an
article of furniture was left unturned; not one mattress remained upon
another. We made night hideous for some moments. We roused the ladies
from their virgin sleep, but paid little heed to their piteous
pleadings. The treaty of peace, which followed none too soon--the
pillow-cases were like fringes and the sheets were linen
shreds--culminated in a round of night-caps which for potency and flavor
have, perhaps, never been equalled in the history of the vine.
Then we _did_ sleep--the sleep of the just, who have earned their right
to it; the sleep of the horny-handed son of the soil, whose muscles
relax with a jerk that awakens the sleeper to a realizing sense that he
has been sleeping and is going to sleep again at his earliest
convenience: the sweet, intense, and gracious sleep of innocence--out of
which we were awakened just before breakfast time by the most
considerate of hostesses and her ladies of honor, who sent into us the
reviving cup, without which, I fear, we could not have begun the new day
in a spirit appropriate to the occasion.
The first day at the bungalow was Friday and, of course, a fast day; we
observed the rule with a willingness which, I trust, the recording angel
made a note of. There was a bath at the beach toward mid-day, followed
by a cold collation in the shelter of a rude chalet, which served the
ladies in the absence of the customary bathing-machine. Lying upon rugs
spread over the sand we chatted until a drowsy mood persuaded us to
return to the bungalow and indulge in a _siesta_. It being summer, and a
California summer by the sea, a huge log fire blazed upon the evening
hearth; cards and the jingle of golden counters again kept us at the
table till the night was far spent. Need I add that the ladies presented
a petition with the customary night-cap, praying that the gentlemen in
the double-chamber would omit the midnight gymnastics upon retiring, and
go to sleep like "good boys." It had been our intention to do so; we
were not wholly restored, for the festivities of the night previous had
been prolonged and fatiguing.
We began our preparations by wheeling the four bedsteads into one room.
It seemed to us cosier to be sleeping thus together; indeed, it was
quite a distance from the extremity of one room to the extremity of the
other. Resigning ourselves to the pillows, each desired his neighbor to
extinguish the lights; no one moved to perform this necessary duty. We
slept, or pretended to sleep, and for some moments the bungalow was
quiet as the grave. In the midst of this refreshing silence a panic
seized us; with one accord we sprang to arms; the pillows, stripped of
their cases on the night previous, again darkened the air. We leaped
gaily from bed to bed, and in turn, took every corner of the room by
storm; the shout of victory mingled with the cry for mercy. There was
one solitary voice for peace; it was the voice of the vexed hostess, and
it was followed by the suspension of hostilities and the instant
quenching of the four tapers, each blown by an individual mouth, after
which we groped back to our several couches in a state of charming
uncertainty as to which was which.
Saturday followed, and, of all Saturdays in the year, it chanced to be
the vigil of a feast, and therefore a day of abstinence. The ladies held
the key of the larder, and held it, permit me to add, with a clenched
hand. It may be that all boys are not like our boys; that there are
those who, having ceased to elongate and increase in the extremities out
of all proportion, are willing to fast from day to day; who no longer
lust after the flesh-pots, and whose appetites are governable--but ours
were not. The accustomed fish of a Friday was welcome, but Saturday was
out of the question. "Something too much of this," said Croesus the
Sybarite. "Amen!" cried the affable Alf. There was an unwonted fire in
the eye of Bartholomew when he asked for a dispensation at the hands of
the hostess, and was refused.
All day the maidens sought to lighten our burden of gloom; the sports in
the bath were more brilliant than usual. We adjourned to the hay-loft
and told stories till our very tongues were tired. It is true that
egg-nogg at intervals consoled us; but when we had awakened from a
refreshing sleep among the hay, and fought a battle that ended in
victory for the Amazons and our ignominious flight, we bore the scars of
burr and hay-seed for hours afterwards. Cold turkey and cranberry sauce
at midnight had been promised to us, yet how very distant that seemed.
Hunger cried loudly for beef and bouillon, and a strategic movement was
planned upon the spot.
The gaming, which followed a slim supper, was not so interesting as
usual. At intervals we consulted the clock; how the hours lagged!
Croesus poured his gold upon the table in utter distraction. The
maidens, who sat in sack-cloth and ashes, sorrowing for our sins, left
the room at intervals to assure themselves that the larder was intact.
We, also, quietly withdrew from time to time. Once, all three of the
girls fled in consternation--the footsteps of Bartholomew had been heard
in the vicinity of the cupboard; but it was a false alarm, and the game
was at once resumed. Now, indeed, the hours seemed to fly. To our
surprise, upon referring to the clock, the hands stood at ten minutes to
twelve. So swiftly speed the moments when the light hearts of youth beat
joyously in the knowledge that it is almost time to eat!
Twelve o'clock! Cold turkey, cranberry sauce, champagne, etc., and no
more fasting till the sixth day. Having devastated the board, we must
needs betray our folly by comparing the several timepieces. Alf stood at
five minutes to eleven; Bartholomew some minutes behind him; Croesus,
with his infallible repeater, was but 10:45; as for me, I had discreetly
run down. The secret was out. The clock had been tampered with, and the
trusting maids betrayed. At first they laughed with us; then they
sneered, and then they grew wroth, and went apart in deep dismay. The
dining-hall resounded with our hollow mirth; like the scriptural fool,
we were laughing at our own folly. The ladies solemnly re-entered; our
hostess, the spokeswoman, said, with the voice of an oracle, "You will
regret this before morning." Still feigning to be merry, we went
speedily to bed, but there was no night-cap sent to soothe us; and the
lights went out noiselessly and simultaneously.
After the heavy and regular breathing had set in--I think all slept save
myself--light footsteps were heard without. Why should one turn a key in
a bungalow whose hospitality is only limited by the boundary line of the
county surveyor? Our keys were not turned, in fact,--too late--we
discovered there were no keys to turn. In the dim darkness--the moon
lent us little aid at the moment--our door was softly thrown open, and
the splash of fountains could be heard; it was the sound of many waters.
As I listened to it in a half dream, it fell upon my ear most musically,
and then it fell upon my nose, and eyes, and mouth; it seemed as if the
windows of heaven were opened, as if the dreadful deluge had come again.
I soon discovered what it was. I threw the damp bed clothes over my head
and awaited further developments. I began to think they never would
come--I mean the developments. Meanwhile the garden hose, in the hands
of the irate maidens, played briskly upon the four quarters of the
room--not a bed escaped the furious stream. Nothing was left that was
not saturated and soaked, sponge-full. The floor ran torrents; our boots
floated away upon the mimic tide. We lay like inundated mummies, but
spake never a word. Possibly the girls thought we were drowned; at all
events, they withdrew in consternation, leaving the hose so that it
still belched its unwelcome waters into the very centre of our drenched
apartment.
Rising at last from our clammy shrouds, we gave chase; but the
water-nymphs had fled. Then we barricaded the bungalow, and held a
council of war. Sitting in moist conclave, we were again assailed and
driven back to our rooms, which might now be likened to a swimming bath
at low-tide. We shrieked for stimulants, but were stoutly denied, and
then we took to the woods in a fit of indignation, bordering closely
upon a state of nature.
I thought to bury myself in the trackless wild; to end my days in the
depths of the primeval forest. But I remembered how a tiger-cat had been
lately seen emerging from these otherwise alluring haunts, and returned
at once to the open, where I glistened in the moonlight, now radiant,
and shivered at the thought of the possible snakes coiling about my
feet. My disgust of life was full; yet in the midst of it I saw the
reviving flames dancing upon the hearth-stone, and the click of glasses
recalled me to my senses.
We returned in a body, a defeated brotherhood, accepting as a
peace-offering such life-giving draughts as compelled us, almost against
our will, to drink to the very dregs in token of full surrender. Then
rheumatism and I lay down together, and a little child might have
played with any two of us. I assured my miserable companions that "I was
not accustomed to such treatment." Alf added that "it was more than he
had bargained for." Bartholomew had neither speech nor language
wherewith to vent his spleen. As for the bland and blooming Croesus--he
who had been lapped in luxury and cradled in delight--it was his private
opinion, publicly expressed, that "the like of it was unknown in the
annals of social history."
[Illustration: "The Gallery Among the Huge Vases of Palms and
Creepers."]
Yet on the Sunday--our final day at the bungalow--you would have thought
that the gods had assembled together to hold sweet converse; and, when
we lounged in the shadow of the invisible Ida, never looked the earth
more fair to us. The whole land was in blossom from the summit to the
sea; the gardeners, as they walked among their vines, prated of Sicily
and sang songs of their Sun-land. There was no chapel at hand, and no
mass for the repose of souls that had been sorely troubled; but the
charm of those young women--they were salving our wounds as women know
how to do--and the voluptuous feast that was laid for us, when we
emptied the fatal larder; the music, and the thousand arts employed to
restore beauty and order out of the last night's chaos, made us better
than new men, and it taught us a lesson we never shall forget--though
from that hour to this, neither one nor the other of us, in any way,
shape, or fashion whatever, has referred in the remotest degree to that
eventful night in a Californian bungalow.