The Lure of San Francisco | Page 6

the padres were not hard taskmasters," insisted the stranger. "The work lasted only from four to six hours a day and the evenings were devoted to games and dancing. All were required to attend religious services, however, and at the sound of the Angelus, they gathered within these walls. There was no sleeping through long prayers in those days," he added with an amused smile, "for a swarthy disciple paced the aisles and with a long pointed stick aroused the nodding ones, or quieted the too hilarious spirits of the small boys."
"A good example for some of our modern churches," remarked my companion, as we followed our guide to the altar at the end of the chapel. The light streaming through the mullioned window fell full upon the carved figure of a tonsured monk clad in a loose robe girdled with a cord. "It is our father, St. Francis," explained the old man. "It was in accordance with his direct wish that this Mission was founded."
"Yes?" questioned the skeptic.
"When Father Junípero Serra received orders from Galvez for the establishment of the missions in Alta California, and found that there was none for St. Francis, he ex-claimed: 'And is the founder of our order, St. Francis, to have no mission?' Thereupon the Visitador replied: 'If St. Francis desires a mission, let him show us his port,' and the Saint did!" the old face with its fringe of soft white hair was transformed with religious enthusiasm. "He blinded the eyes of Portolá and his men so that they did not recognize Monterey and led them on to his own undiscovered bay. And in spite of the fact that the Mission has been stripped of its lands, we know that it is still under the special protection of St. Francis, for it was not ten years ago that the second miracle was performed."
"The second miracle!" we wonderingly repeated.
"Yes, it was at the time of the fire of 1906. The heart of San Francisco was a raging furnace. The fireproof buildings melted under the tremendous heat and collapsed as if they had been constructed of lead; the devouring flames swept over the Potrero; they fell upon the brick building next door and crept close to the walls of this old adobe, when suddenly, as if in the presence of a sacred relic, the fire crouched and died at its very doors."
We passed the altar and the old man crossed himself, while in our hearts we, too, gave thanks for the preservation of this monument of the past.
"You must not go until you have seen the cemetery," said our guide as we moved toward the entrance, and throwing open a door to the right he admitted us to the neglected graveyard. Here and there a rude cross marked the resting place of an early Indian convert and an almost obliterated inscription on a broken headstone revealed the name of a Spanish grandee. Shattered columns, loosened by the hand of time and overthrown in recent years, lay upon the ground, while great willow and pepper trees spread out protecting arms, as if to shield the silent company from the inroads of modern enterprise. We picked our way along vine-latticed paths, past graves over which myrtle and roses wandered in untrimmed beauty, to where a white shaft marked the resting place of Don Luis Argüello, comandante of the San Francisco Presidio for twenty-three years and the first Mexican governor of California.
"How splendidly strong he looms out of the past," I said. "His keen insight into the needs of this western outpost and his determined efforts for the best interests of California will forever place him in the front rank of its rulers. I wonder if his young wife, Rafaela, is buried here also?" I drew aside the tangled vines from the near-by headstones. "She was always a little dearer to me than his second wife, the proud Dona Maria Ortega, perhaps because Rafaela belonged pre-eminently to San Francisco. Her father, Ensign Sal, was acting comandante of the Presidio when Vancouver visited the Coast, and Rafaela and Luis Argüello grew up together in the little adobe settlement."
"Go on," said the skeptic, leaning comfortably against a tree trunk. "This old Mexican governor seems to have had an interesting romance."
"He wasn't old," I protested, "only forty-six when he died. He was a splendid type of a young Spanish grandee, tall and lithe of form, with the dark skin and hair of his race. He combined the freedom born of an out-of-door life with the courtly manners inherited from generations of Spanish ancestry. To Rafaela Sal, watching the soldiers file out of the mud-walled Presidio, it seemed that none sat his horse so straight nor so bravely as did Don Luis Argüello. And at night to the young soldier dozing before