A Little Girl in Old San Francisco. Douglas Amanda M.
I don't want any one but you for all time," she admitted, a little jealously.
He laughed. He was fond of this confession.
Miss Holmes' supper was satisfactory to the hungry man as well. Afterward they went out and sat on the flat stone step. That always made him think of his boyhood.
"Little one," he began, "how would you like to move? Or are the Estenegas too dear to give up?"
"Move!" in a tone of surprise.
"Yes. We haven't much worldly goods, as these traps do not belong to us. But we can take ourselves, Bruno, and Pelajo."
"Where would we go?"
"Quite far from here. Up on Telegraph Hill."
"Oh, that would be splendid! We could always see the bay, and over the strait to all the mountains beyond. Yes, I should like to go."
"Well, I am glad. It will be more convenient for me, but we would have to go, anyhow. This place has been sold."
"Is there a stable? And I think I would like a garden. And at least one tree."
He laughed.
"They have been taking down part of the hill. No doubt some day they will take it all down. That is the fashion of cities. But our end not being so high will not be disturbed for some time to come."
"This has been nice," she said retrospectively. "But I shall like the new place, and the bay, and – and – "
"And the change," he laughed. Then he called Miss Holmes, who had put away the last of her dishes.
He had talked this over with her before, but he had not made his bargain until to-day. Then they settled a few of the most important points. There were to be some repairs made, but they could go the next week. And to-morrow he would take them up to see it.
"Will you like to go?" Laverne asked of Miss Holmes as they were preparing for bed.
"Yes, I think I shall. We shall be so much nearer everything. We can often walk down among the stores. And we shall be nearer Miss Gaines. You will miss the Estenega girls."
"But there may be other girls. I'd like to know some new ones," and there was a sound of delightful expectation in her voice.
CHAPTER VI
A DIFFERENT OUTLOOK
It was almost being in a new town, Laverne thought. They had trotted all over this bluff, to be sure; they had looked over to Sausalito, up and down the bay, and to the wonderful ocean that reached to China. But before they had been rather hidden away in a valley between the ridges, and from the windows you could see very little. She was quite wild at first, running from window to window, and calling on Miss Holmes to see this or that.
Then they had a Chinaman to come in and help them settle, and that amused her very much. He understood, but could not speak much English, and she did wonder why he should tack another syllable to the short words by adding the double e. But he was very handy and obedient, quick to see, and the soft shoes that made no clatter allowed him to go about so quietly that he often surprised one. His name was Ah Ling.
"I think I like Pablo better," she said gravely. "Then he knows so many things about the country and the missions and the priests, and the races of the Spaniards, and they did have bull fights, you know, they have some now. Uncle Jason said he must not tell me about them, they were too cruel. Do you suppose Pablo will come?"
Jason Chadsey had made the old Mexican an offer to come and live with them, but he was loath to leave his little hut and his independence. He knew Pablo could be trusted anywhere with the little girl, and that he was a good gardener. He had even offered him a new hut, and Pablo was taking matters into consideration as he lolled in the sun and smoked his pipe. He did not want to be too hard worked, what good did so much money do these Americanos; they went on working and working and hustling the life out of one.
Here was the old Franciscan Mission where the first settlement was made by the Fathers. It might have had the semi-solitude in those early years, for all about was poetic enough. When it became a Mexican province early in the century it had been stripped of its treasures, and was even now a poor unsightly ruin with its few padres eking out their subsistence and saying prayers for the living and the dead in the little Campo Santo. Presently a modern cathedral was to overshadow it, but that had not come yet, with the shops and dwellings that were to crowd it still closer. But now there were outlying fields, tangles of shrubbery and vines run wild. Not so many trees as farther down, but still some that withstood the ocean blasts. And there was Alcatras and Buena Yerba; almost within a stone's throw, it seemed, in the clear air that often foreshortened space. Laverne never wearied studying the marvellous pictures, and when her thoughts went back to the dreary little Maine village she always gave a shiver.
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