The Lure of San Francisco | Page 5

spirit has not left a lasting impression. Indeed civilization whether dealt out with friendly hands or thrust upon the natives at the point of the bayonet seems to have been equally poisonous on both sides of the continent."
"True, philosopher, but would you call the work of these padres impressionless, when it has permeated all California? The open-hearted hospitality of the Spaniards is a canonical law throughout the West, and their exuberant spirit of festivity still remains, impelling us to celebrate every possible event, present and commemorative."
We had reached Dolores Street, a broad parked avenue where automobiles rushed by one another, shrieking a warning to the pedestrian. Suddenly I found myself alone. My companion had darted across the crowded street to a little oasis of grass where a mission bell hung suspended on an iron standard.
"It marks 'El Camino Real,'" he reported as he rejoined me.
"The King's Highway," I translated. "It must have been wonderful at this season of the year, for as the padres traveled northward, they scattered seeds of yellow mustard and in the spring a golden chain connected the missions from San Francisco to San Diego. Over there nearer the bay," I nodded toward the east where a heavy cloud of black smoke proclaimed the manufacturing section of the city, "lay the Potrero--the pasture-land of the padres--and the name still clings to the district. Beyond was Mission Cove, now filled in and covered with store-houses, but formerly a convenient landing place for the goods of Yankee skippers who, contrary to Spanish law, surreptitiously traded with the padres."
We turned to the massive fa?ade of the old church, where hung the three bells, of which Bret Harte wrote.
"Bells of the past, whose long forgotten music Still fills the wide expanse; Tingeing the sober twilight of the present, With the color of romance."
As we entered the low arched doorway, we seemed to step from the hurry of the twentieth century into the peace of a by-gone era. Outside, the modern structures crowd upon the low adobe building, staring down upon it with unsympathetic eyes and begrudging it the very land it stands on, while inside, hand-hewn rafters, massive grey walls, and a red tiled floor slightly depressed in places by years of service, point mutely to the past, to the days when padres and neophytes knelt at the sound of the Angelus. Within still stand the elaborate altars brought a century ago from Mexico, before which Junipero Serra held mass during his last visit to San Francisco. On the massive archway spanning the building, can be seen the dull red scroll pattern, a relic of Indian work.
"Sing something," my companion suggested. "It needs music to make the spell complete."
"It does," I assented, "but you must stay where you are," and climbing to a balcony at the end of the building, I concealed myself in the shadow.
He glanced up at the first notes, then sat with bowed head. I filled the old church with an Ave Maria, then another. As I sang, the candles seemed to have been lighted on the gilded altars, and the brown friars and dusky Indians took form in the dim enclosure.
"More," he urged, but I would not, for I feared that the spell might be broken. So he came up to see why I lingered, and found me mounted on a ladder peering up at the old mission bells and the hand-hewn rafters tied with ropes of plaited rawhide.
My song must have attracted a passer-by, for a voice greeted us as we descended.
"Did you see the bells?" he asked eagerly. "They're a good deal like some of us old folks, out of commission because of age and disuse, but nevertheless they have their value. One has lost its tongue, another is cracked and the third sags against the side wall, so they're useless as church bells, but still they seem to speak of the days of the padres and the Indians."
"Were there many Indians here?" questioned the Bostonian.
"Often more than a thousand. I was born in the shadow of this building, in the year when the Mission was secularized, but my father knew it in its glory and used to tell me many stories about the good old padres."
Seeing the interest in our faces, the dark eyes brightened and he patted the thick adobe wall affectionately. "This church was only a small part of the Mission in those days. The buildings formed an inner quadrangle and two sides of an outer one, all a beehive of industry. There were the work rooms of the Indians, where blankets and cloth were woven; great vats for trying out tallow and curing hides, and also huge storehouses for grain and other foodstuffs, all built and cared for by the Indians."
"Quite a change from their lazy roving life," suggested the Easterner.
"Still