of ours in a letter to Mr. Sidney Colvin as "the play which the sister and I are just beating through with two bad dictionaries and an insane grammar." Nevertheless, we made some headway, and I remember that he marvelled greatly at the farfetched, high-flown similes and figures of speech of the writers of the "Golden Age" of Spain. In spite of his confessed dislike for the cold-blooded study of the grammar, we did not altogether neglect it, and a day comes to my mind when he was assisting me in the homely task of washing the dishes in the pleasant, sunny kitchen where the Banksia rose hung its yellow curtain over the windows. We recited Spanish conjugations while we worked, and he held up a glass for my inspection, saying: "See how beautifully I have polished it! There is no doubt that I have missed my vocation. I was born to be a butler!" "No, Louis," I replied, "some day you are to be a famous writer, and who knows but that I shall write about you, as the humble Boswell wrote about Johnson, and tell the world how you once wiped dishes for me in this old kitchen!" quietude of our lives in the little Oakland house was reading aloud. We obtained many books from the Mercantile Library of San Francisco, among which I especially remember the historical works of Francis Parkman, who was a great favorite with Mr. Stevenson. He had a theory that the not uncommon distaste among the people for that branch of literature was largely the fault of the dull style adopted by many historians, and saw no good reason why the thrilling story of the great events of the world should not be presented in a manner that would hold the interest of readers. Yet he had no patience with the sort of writer that subordinates truth to fine writing. As an instance, certainly of rare occurrence in Parkman, he noticed a paragraph in "The Conspiracy of Pontiac," in which the author refers to the shining of the moon on a certain night when a party was endeavoring to make a secret passage down a river through hostile Indian country. He thought it unlikely that Parkman could have known that the moon shone on that particular night, though it is possible that he did the historian an injustice, for it sometimes For the long evenings of winter we had happened that just such trivial circum- a game which he invented expressly for stances were mentioned in the documents our amusement. Lloyd Osbourne, then of the early explorers. Sometimes he a boy of twelve, had rather more than the read aloud to us from some French writer, usual boy's fondness for stories of the sea. translating it into English as he read for It will be remembered that it was to please our benefit. "Les Étrangleurs" was one this boy that Mr. Stevenson afterward of the books that he read to us in this way wrote "Treasure Island." Our game was while we sat and sewed our seams. He to tell a continued story, each person being seemed to get a good deal of rest as well limited to two minutes, taking up the tale as amusement from the reading of such at the point where the one before him left books of mystery and adventure. His off. We older ones had a secret undertaste was always for the decent in litera- standing that we were to keep Lloyd away ture, and he was much offended by the from the sea, but strive as we might, even works of the writers of the materialistic though we left the hero safely stranded in school who were just then gaining a vogue. the middle of the Desert of Sahara, Lloyd Among these was Émile Zola, and he ex- never failed to have him sailing the boundacted a promise from one of the younger ing main again before his allotted two members of our party never to read that minutes expired. writer a promise that has been faithfully kept to this day. His stay at Monterey had given him a fancy to study the Spanish language, so we obtained books and began it together. He had a theory that a language could be best acquired by plunging directly into it, but I have a suspicion that our choice of one of the dramas of the sixteenth century—one of Lope de Vega's, I think-was scarcely a wise one for beginners. He refers to this venture In these dark days, when the world resounds with the noise of war, and all Europe is being drenched with blood in the sacred name of patriotism, it is interesting to remember that he did not place that sentiment at the top in the list of human virtues, for he believed that to concentrate one's affections and interest too closely upon one small section of the earth's surface, simply on account of the accident of birth, had a narrowing effect upon a man's mental outlook and his human sympathies. He was a citizen of the world in his capacity to understand the point of view of other men, of whatsoever race, color, or creed, and it was this catholicity of spirit that made it possible for him to sit upon the benches of Portsmouth Square in San Francisco and learn something of real life from the human flotsam and jetsam cast up there by the Pacific. Of all the popular songs of America, he liked "Marching Through Georgia" and "Dixie" best. For "Home, Sweet Home" he had no liking-perhaps from having heard it during some moment of poignant homesickness. He said that such a song made too brutal an assault upon a man's tenderest feelings, and believed it to be a much greater triumph for a writer to bring a smile to his readers than a tear-partly, perhaps, because it is a more difficult achievement. Here the scene changes again-this time to San Francisco, the city of many hills, of drifting summer fogs and sparkling winter sunshine, the old city that now lives only in the memories of those who knew it in the days when Stevenson climbed the steep ways of its streets. Although he had about him something of the ennui of the much-travelled man, and complained that "There's nothing under heaven so blue, That's fairly worth the travelling to," yet no attraction was lost upon him, and the Far Western flavor of San Francisco, with its added tang of the Orient, and the feeling of adventure blowing in on its salt sea-breezes, was much to his liking. My especial memory here is of many walks taken with him up Telegraph Hill, where the streets were grass-grown because no horse could climb them, and the sidewalks were provided with steps or cleats for the assistance of foot-passengers. This hill, formerly called "Signal Hill," was used in earlier days, on account of its commanding outlook over the sea, as a signal station to indicate the approach of vessels and give their class and possibly their names as they neared the city. How many a lonely soul, in the days of fortynine, must have turned longing eyes toward the "Hill" in search of the signal that would mean letters from home! When we took our laborious walks up its precipitous paths it was, as now, the especial home of Italians and other Latin people, who dwelt happily upon their chosen height and mourned not for sunny Italy, for were not the skies here as blue, the flowers as sweet, and the sea as generous in its yield of fish to the lateen-sailed boats that skimmed across its rippling surface as in the home of their birth? Mr. Stevenson wondered much at the happygo-lucky confidence, or perhaps it was the naïve trust in God, with which these people had built their houses in the most alarmingly insecure places, sometimes hanging upon the very edge of a sheer precipice, sometimes with the several stories built on different levels, climbing the hill like steps. About them there was a pleasant air of foreign quaintness-little railed balconies across the fronts, outside stairways leading up to the second stories, and green blinds to give a look of Latin seclusion. In stories of his San Francisco days there is much talk of the restaurants where he took his meals. The one that I particularly remember was a place kept by Frank Garcia, familiarly known as "Frank's." This place, being moderately expensive, was probably only frequented by him upon special occasions, when Fortune was in one of her smiling moods. Food was good and cheap and in large variety in San Francisco in those days, and venison steak was as often served up to us at Frank's as beef, while canvasbacks had not yet flown out of the poor man's sight; so we had many a savory meal there, generally served by a waiter named Monroe, between whom and Mr. Stevenson a friendship founded on mutual respect existed. They now and then exchanged a friendly jest, and I remember one day when Monroe, remarking upon the depression of spirits from which Louis suffered during a temporary absence of the women of his family, said: “I had half a mind to take him in a piece of calico on a plate." Once more the picture changes-now to the town of Calistoga, with its hybrid name made up of syllables from Saratoga and California, where we stayed for a few days at the old Springs Hotel while on our way to Mount Saint Helena, to which of burning summer heat and much dust. At the Springs Hotel we lived in one of the separate palm-shaded cottages most agreeably maintained for guests who liked their privacy. On the premises were tiny sheds built over the steaming holes in the ground which constituted the Calistoga Hot Springs. It gave one a sensation like walking about on a sieve over a boiling subterranean caldron. Determined not to miss any experience, we each took a turn at a steam bath in these sheds, but the sense of imminent suffocation was too strong to be altogether pleasant. Then came the wild ride up the side of the mountain, in a six-horse stage driven at a reckless rate of speed by its indifferent spurt. And if the ride up the hill was terrifying, the return, with the added momentum of going down-hill, was vastly more so. Dashing up at full speed in front of the Springs Hotel, in order to arrive with éclat, the driver made a slight miscalculation, and the horses plunged headlong into one of the pillars of the piazza and fell in a heap. From this tangle all were miraculously extricated without injury, but the memory of this mad ride down the mountain still remains as a "high light" in the picture. At the Toll House, half-way up the mountain, which still exists in much the same condition as in those days, we arrived as mere walking pillars of fine white dust, all individuality as completely lost as though we had been shrouded in masks and dominoes. The Toll House was a place of somnolent peace and deep stillness, broken only by a pleasant dripping from the wooden flume that brought down the cold waters of some spring hidden in the thick green growth far up on the mountainside. And such water! He who has once tasted of the nectar of a California mountain spring "will not ask for wine"! At the Toll House we had liberal country meals, with venison steaks, somewhat spoiled in the cooking, served to us nearly every day. Bear were still killed on the mountain, but I do not remember having any to eat. From this place we climbed, by way of a toilsome and stiflingly hot foot-path running through a tangle of thick undergrowth, to the old Silverado mine bunkhouse, where the Stevenson family took up their quarters. People said there were many rattlesnakes about, and we now and then saw indubitable evidence of their presence in a long, spotted body lying in the road where some passer-by had killed it, but fear of them never troubled our footsteps. In "The Silverado Squatters" Mr. Stevenson says, "The place abounded with rattlesnakes, . . . and the rattles whizzed on every side like spinningwheels," but I am inclined to think that he often mistook the buzzing noise made by locusts, which abounded thereabout, for the rattle of the snakes. The old bunkhouse seemed to me an incredibly uncomfortable place of residence. Its situation, on top of the mine-dump piled against the precipitous mountainside, permitted no chance to take a step except upon the treacherous rolling stones of the dump; but we bore with its manifest disadvantages for the sake of its one high redeeming virtue, its entire freedom from the chilling fog which we dreaded for the sick man. It was excessively hot there during the day, but there was always one place where coolness held sway-the mouth of the old tunnel, from whose dark, mysterious depths, which we never dared explore for fear of stepping off into some forgotten shaft, a cold, damp wind blew continuously. Just inside its entrance we established a cold-storage plant, for there all articles kept delightfully fresh in the hottest weather. When the freshness of the evening fell, "it was good to gather stones and send them crashing down the chute," and |