Golden Dreams and Leaden Realities 54

Golden Dreams and Leaden Realities 54

At one of the best or worst of these we secured board and lodgings for

one dollar a day, until the steamer, which was now expected, should

arrive, and again get ready to sail. Our impatience grew greater every

hour. Home was now so near that we murmured at the least delay. We

even turned our thoughts regretfully backward to the cool and quiet

tent we had left standing among the breezy hills of Natoma, and to the

comparatively luxurious life we had led there in our hermit solitude.

Here we were in positive danger of famine. Provisions became every

day more scarce, and every meal was worse than the one before it. To

make matters worse, the Prometheus arrived on Wednesday, and a large

proportion of her passengers, who had gone up the river intending to

cross over to the Pacific, were obliged to return, after reaching the

upper rapids, for want of provisions; so that the whole number of

Americans now in town was at least four hundred, which was apparently

quite equal to the permanent population.

 

There were plenty of liquors, however, for even a much larger

increase; and drinking and card-playing filled up every hour. The

Sunday after our arrival, a party were called from their game to

attend a dying comrade. His death was extremely sudden, owing, as was

supposed, to an excessive dose of morphine. But nobody cared, not

even, so far as I could perceive, the party to which he belonged;

indeed, Ohio, with his mechanical tenderness, manifested more pity

than all besides. But, as I had often had occasion to observe, a

nomadic life is not favourable to the gentler virtues, and, of all

virtues, the rarest is an abstract humanity. What often goes under

that name is nothing but decency, and a selfish regard to the opinion

of others, and both these motives lose almost their entire force when

all are strangers, and expect soon to be separated forever.

 

At length it was announced that the Independence, the Pacific steamer,

had arrived; and, her passengers being first provided for, a certain

number of tickets were to be disposed of. Long before the appointed

hour, an eager crowd had assembled round the office. The agent took

his station at an open window about eight feet from the ground, with

some rude steps placed against the building, so that a man standing at

the top could rest his chin conveniently on the window-sill. Having

been fortunate enough to obtain our own tickets early in the day, we

had nothing to do but to watch, from our post of observation, the

progress of the fight. Fifty aspirants were gathered round the little

window, which they seemed about to enter in a body. They advanced

against it in three different directions--from the right--from the

left--and from the front. Each man pasted himself to the one before

him, fearful lest any rival should dispossess him. They fitted

together as closely as a bundle of spoons. But all these forces met at

the centre, as in a focus. The man who at length succeeded in reaching

the top was directly squeezed as flat as a pancake. He inserted both

his arms into the window, not to maintain his position, but because

there was no room for them anywhere else. He could by no possibility

get his hand into his pocket, and must have his money all ready in his

fist before he started on his perilous adventure. When at last the

ticket was secured, the crowd was rent violently as by an earthquake,

or the pains of travail. He came out, nobody could tell how nor where.

He almost always lost his hat, and was fortunate if he met with no

greater calamity.

 

A fierce struggle then succeeded to see who should obtain the post of

honour. There were three next best men, the heads of their respective

columns. But I noticed that it so happened that the one in front

almost invariably gained the advantage. Whether it was that the other

two parties neutralized each other, or that a straightforward course

is always the best, the most the sidelings could do was to maintain

their ground.

 

I was especially interested in the fate of one promising individual

who made his approaches from the left. He had been for a long time

the head of his party, and once or twice seemed on the very point of

reaching the window. He even got one foot on to the topmost step, and

with one hand grasped the window frame. His hat was gone--his face,

by the violence of his exertions, had become nearly as red as his

hair--his arm visibly lengthened, and I expected every instant to see

his fingers starting from their sockets.

 

Still he clung to his hold with a tenacity that nothing could

overcome. Once or twice, indeed, some one would get before him, and on

such occasions it seemed absolutely impossible that any fingers, but

of iron, should endure the strain. His head was pinned up flat against

the side of the house, and he turned his face to the crowd with a look

of mingled defiance and supplication, and a lurking consciousness of

the ludicrousness of his situation, that were perfectly irresistible.

 

For nearly an hour he remained in this position, sometimes gaining an

inch, and sometimes losing, till it seemed really dangerous to laugh

any longer, and we were about to leave, when a sudden revolution

brought him at last face to face with the agent.

 

"I'll take a ticket, if you please," he gasped, nervously holding out

his money.

 

"No more tickets are to be sold to-day," returned the awful

functionary, as if he had been the Iron Duke himself. "No more

tickets."

 

This was the climax--the ridiculous had fairly reached the

sublime--there was a completeness, a proportion in all its parts, that

was beyond laughter--the mind could not sufficiently recover from its

surprise and admiration to feel such a genial emotion. It was like

a picture of Hogarth's, where our wonder at the painter's ingenuity

interferes with our enjoyment of the scene itself--if it were not done

so well, the first effect, at least, would be more striking.

 

But lest the tender-hearted reader should feel too lively a concern

for the fate of this unfortunate Phoebus, and perhaps accuse me

of hard-heartedness in the premises, I would hasten to inform her

that all who wished, finally succeeded in obtaining tickets. Our

apprehensions were, indeed, utterly groundless, for it is well known

that there is no limit to the capacity of a California steamer.

 

Sunday morning, a week after our arrival, we went to sea. Nothing

occurred during our voyage worthy of mention--we spent one day in

Havana--had the usual proportion of storms and calms, and on the 9th

of November entered the harbour of New York, nearly three years after

my leaving home. Every object was greeted as warmly as if it had been

an old acquaintance. There was Castle Garden where Jenny Lind won her

earlier triumphs; and beyond lay the imperial city, every one of whose

swarming thousands seemed to me like a brother. As we drew near the

wharves, I felt that we were the great object of attraction, and my

heart swelled within me with conscious vanity, as I thought how one

would point me out to another, and say, "There goes a Californian!"

 

I had no fears lest I should remain undetected and unnoticed among the

great crowd of ragamuffins that thronged the streets. There was an

unmistakable stamp of vagabondism about me that defied all rivalry and

all imitation. It would be strange, indeed, if, with the advantages

of three years' travel, I had not acquired a decided superiority over

those who had had no such opportunity of improving their natural

capacity. I exulted at the thought of the despairing envy with which I

should be regarded by all the tatterdemalions of the metropolis, and

the futility of all their efforts to catch the secret of a shabbiness

matured and perfected by a long course of severe and untiring study

by land and sea. I should be the leader of the fashions for the Five

Points, the Beau Brummel of beggars, the D'Orsay of the kennel.

 

But as the Broadway fop, though drest in the height of the fashion

from top to toe, yet prides himself especially on his spotless beaver,

so I, though it was hard to say that one part of my attire was less

worthy of admiration than another, yet rested my claims to distinction

principally on my hat. It had belonged originally to that species

denominated the Californian, and bearing a strong resemblance to

that patronized, under the cognomen of Kossuth, by the blacklegs of

the metropolis and the shop-boys of our smaller cities; but when I

landed in New York, it was a simple individual--the only one of its

kind--and no longer susceptible of classification. For six weeks it

had been my faithful companion. Through all that time it had been in

constant use either as a drinking cup, a night-cap, a sun-shade, or an

umbrella. But its spirit and vitality had forsaken it, and the glory

of its brim had departed. It flapped over my ears, it flapped over my

neck, it flapped, worst of all, over my eyes. Yet if a curve is the

line of beauty, my hat must have been the most beautiful object in

existence. It had as many curves as a ram's horn or a grape-vine, or

any other, the most curvedest thing in nature.

 

"Where do you wish to go?" inquired the hack driver, with even more

than characteristic politeness, and surveying us from head to foot

with undisguised admiration.

 

"No. ----, Avenue ----."

 

The driver stared again, harder than ever, and a crowd of ragged

boys--those observing beings--standing by, repeated the words in a

tone of incredulous wonder. But away we went--the hack drew up before

the house, and we walked up the steps with an air intended to show

the driver that we were somebody. A servant answered our ring, but

started back at sight of two such desperate villains, and was about

to close the door in our faces, when, feeling that it was necessary

to make a determined effort, we pushed past her into the house, and

requested to see the lady. At that moment she appeared, summoned by

the sound of voices, but stopt half way down the stairs, while two

little children, half hidden in the folds of her dress, peeped timidly

forth at the ugly strangers. After enjoying the scene a moment in

silence, we pronounced the familiar name, and claimed the rights of

our relationship.

 

"Why, Mrs. ----!" whispered Bridget involuntarily, and holding up her

hands, "are those awful looking men your brothers!!"

 

I was glad to hear the answer, for I had begun to doubt my own

identity. But twenty-four hours wrought a wondrous revolution not

only with us, but with the greater part of our fellow passengers. At

the end of that time it was no longer possible to find in the streets

of New York a solitary survivor of the three hundred scarecrows that

had landed from the Prometheus the day before. There was a sudden

accession of trade to the dealers in ready-made clothing. The rag

merchants grew rich with unexampled rapidity, and began to think

of enlarging their operations. Our long life of entire freedom and

independence was at length over, and we hastened to resume the

shackles of civilization. A single day sufficed to convert us from

the careless, slouching Californian, into the precise and angular

citizen. Our romance is ended--our little episode is complete--and we sink, like a drop of water in the ocean, into the flat monotony of our commonplace existence. Ah loque es el mundo.