Vignettes Of San Francisco | Page 6

swear at me,
not because they are cross, but scared-more scared than I.
Next time I am more careful. I look to the traffic cop for attention but,
being a handsome man, he thinks I'm trying to flirt. Policemen should
be homely. So I wait until the street is entirely empty. I wait a long
time - it is empty - I run like a steer - and suddenly out of nowhere a
machine is yelling at me individually and I know no more until,
breathless and red, I reach the haven of the sidewalk.
Once I heard a horrible story of a man who lost control of his machine
and ran up on to the sidewalk.

Port O'Missing Men

They say that San Francisco is known all over as the Port o' Missing
Men. That it is a city where a man may lose himself if he chooses, and
that by the same token it is a good place to look for "my wandering boy
tonight." I can believe all this especially on Third street. Third street
should be called by some other name or it should have a nickname. If it
were in Seattle it would be known as "skid row." Third street doesn't
describe it at all.
When I see a lot of men like that, wanderers, family men out of work,

vagabonds, nobodies, somebodies, "rich man, poor man, beggar man,
thief; doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief," I always get to thinking how
once each one was a tiny baby in a thin white dress, and how before
that each one of them was born of a woman. If I could ever forget that,
I could perhaps sometimes call men "a lot of cattle." Come to think of it,
it is men who call other men "cattle." At any rate, I like to think that no
woman would ever see men as less than the sons of mothers.
The Port o' Missing Men is like the Port of San Francisco, and these
men are like boats in from a foreign port, tramp steamers some of them,
out of nowhere, going nowhere, no baggage, no traditions, men who'll
never get lost because they are on their way to Nowhere.
Yet, the majority of these men are going to some place, but where I do
not know. What do they talk about in groups down there, tall, young
fellows and strong middle-aged men and reminiscent, old ones down in
the Port o' Missing Men? If they're out of work where do they sleep at
night, and what do they have to eat? And have they any women folks?
Not all kinds of men are down there, but many kinds. There are
Mexicans, Sinn Feiners, old American stock, and once in awhile a
venturesome Yankee. There are lumberjacks in from the North, and
Chinamen in shuffling slippers, and philosophers and Swedes,
half-breeds and just plain men. Some are Vagabonds who can't help
their roving, and others are very tired and would like to lie over in port
for or a long spell. There are Italians, and Portuguese, and many Greeks,
and turbaned Hindus, tall and skinny, always traveling in pairs like
nuns. Sometimes the Port is fairly crowded.
New England is a section of the country where men leave home, and I
have heard mothers sing with tears in their voices: "Oh, where is my
wandering boy tonight?" On Third street down at the Port o' Missing
Men, I have a fancy that I would like to write back to all those mothers
that here are their boys. But, after all, what good would that do, for who
can tell which is which?

Market St. Scintillations

Oh, the things our eyes discover as we walk along on Market street.
Such a medley - infinite, incongruous, comical, pathetic, motley and
sublime.
Harding in a window with "pure buttermilk." He'll be in more difficult
situations before he is done, I'm thinking. An electric fan above him
that keeps the buttermilk "pure" and flies the American flag in crepe
paper.
"Crabs to take home." They are freshly cooked, very large and forty
cents apiece. I decide that some I shall really buy one and take it home
when I confronted with the fact that "All Hair Goods Must Be Sold."
Why, I wonder. Why must they be sold? And here are "Eggs any style,"
so close to the hair goods that I immediately visualize them as
marcelled "style" and pompadoured.
"Shoes Drastically Reduced." It is the truth. The Oxfords I wear are
reduced by a drastic five dollars. Well, I couldn't go barefooted, I
comfort myself and hurry on.
A shooting gallery and a man standing there trying to make up his mind
to try it. A second's glimpse of him and all