The Lure of San Francisco | Page 9

made
our feet lag. We watched the people purchasing flowers at the corner,
and the little newsboys drinking from Lotta's fountain.
"A tablet," he exclaimed delightedly, examining the bronze plate
fastened to the fountain. "I didn't know you Westerners ever indulged
in such things. 'Presented to San Francisco by Lotta, 1875,'" he read.
"Little Lotta Crabtree," I explained, "the sweet singer who bewitched
the city at a time when gold was still more plentiful than flowers, and
her song was greeted by a shower of the glittering metal flung to her
feet by enthusiastic miners. But read the second tablet," I suggested. "It
was placed there with the permission of Lotta."
"Tetrazzini!" his voice rang with surprise.
"Can you picture this place surging with people as it was on Christmas
night five years ago, when Tetrazzini sang to San Francisco?" I asked.

"The crowd began to gather long before the appointed time--the
wealthy banker from his spacious home on Pacific Heights, the grimy
laborer from the Potrero and the little newsboy with the badge of his
profession slung over his shoulder. Flushed with excitement, the
courted debutante drew back to give her place to a tired factory girl and
close to the platform an old Italian, who had tramped all the way from
Telegraph Hill, patiently waited to hear the sweet voice of his country
woman. 'Tetrazzini is here,' they said to one another; Tetrazzini, who
had been discovered and adored by the people of San Francisco when,
as an unknown singer, she appeared in the old Tivoli opera house. At
last she came, wrapped in a rose-colored opera coat, and was greeted
with shouts of joy from a quarter of a million throats. She was radiant;
smiling and dimpling she waved her handkerchief with the
abandonment of a child. The storm of applause increased, rolling up the
street to the very summit of Twin Peaks. Suddenly the soft liquid notes
of a clear soprano fell upon the air, and instantly the great multitude
was wrapped in silence. Out over the heads of the people the exquisite
tones floated, mounting upward to the stars. It was the 'Last Rose of
Summer,' and as she sang her opera coat slipped from her, leaving her
bare shoulders and white filmy gown silhouetted against the sombre
background. She sang again and again, while the vast throng seemed
scarcely to breathe. Then she began the familiar strains of 'Old Lang
Syne,' and at a sign, two hundred and fifty thousand people joined in
the refrain."
"There is not a city in all the world except San Francisco which could
have done such a thing," enthusiastically rejoined my companion, but
the next instant the eccentricities of the place struck him afresh.
"Furs and apple blossoms!" he exclaimed, observing a woman opposite.
"What a ridiculous combination!" Then, turning, he scrutinized me
from the top of my flower-trimmed hat to the bottom of my full skirt
until my cheeks burned with embarrassment. "Why, you have on a thin
summer silk, while that woman is dressed for mid-winter!"
"Of course," I assented. "She's on the shady side of the street."
But still his face did not lighten. "We've been in the sun all morning," I
continued to explain. "People talk about San Francisco being an
expensive place to live in, but really it is the cheapest in the world. If a
woman has a handsome set of furs, she wears them and keeps in the

shadow, or if her new spring suit has just come home, she puts that on
and walks on the sunny side of the street, being comfortably and
appropriately, dressed in either."
"Great heavens!" he cried, "what a city!"
We passed through the shopping district and lingered for a moment at
the edge of Portsmouth Square. My eyes rested affectionately on the
clean-cut lawns and blossoming shrubs. Then I turned to the skeptic,
but before I could speak, he had dismissed it with a nod.
"Too modern," he commented. "Looks as if it had been planted
yesterday. Now the Boston Common--"
A rasping discordant sound burst from a near-by store and the Easterner
sent me a questioning glance.
"A Chinese orchestra," I replied. "We are in Oriental San Francisco."
"That park was doubtless made as a breathing place for this congested
Chinese quarter," he glanced back at the green square. "A good civic
improvement."
"That park is a relic of old Spanish days and one of the most historic
spots in San Francisco," I said severely.
He stopped short. "You don't mean--I didn't suppose there was anything
old in commercial San Francisco."
"Portsmouth Square was once the Plaza of the little Spanish town of
Yerba Buena, and the public meeting place of the community when
there were not half a dozen houses in San Francisco."
"Let's