The Braxtons of Miracle Springs (4 page)

The train ride from Sacramento was certainly faster than the steamer Almeda and I had taken the first time I came to the city at sixteen in 1853, ferrying across the bay in the fog.

As the line of the Central Pacific was being built eastward through the Sierra Nevada mountains, short lines were being extended in other directions too, like the one that ran north through Miracle Springs. Tracks of the California Pacific now followed the Sacramento River southwest to Vallejo at the northernmost tip of San Francisco Bay, so we were able to make most of the journey by rail. From Vallejo, as before, we ferried across to the city. We arrived in San Francisco early in the afternoon.

We hired a buggy to take us straight to a boardinghouse whose advertisement we had seen in the
Alta
. The two rooms we had written to reserve were waiting for us. It was nice to be able to wash our faces and get some of the travel dust off. As soon as we were all settled—Laughing Waters, Becky, and I all shared one room, Christopher, Zack, and Tad another—everyone was itching to get out and see the city.

Zack and I were the only ones who had even been to San Francisco before, and Zack only once with Pa. By the time we got back out to the street, I had been elected tour guide!

“Come on, Corrie—lead the way!” exclaimed Tad. “Show us the city!”

“Where do you want to go?”

“How should we know?” said Christopher. “I'm just an eastern boy.
You're
the one who knows what to see!”

“Should we walk or hire the buggy again?” The cabdriver who had brought us from the train station was still waiting to see if we might need his services again.

“You decide—whatever you think is best.”

Everyone stood looking at me, waiting for me to tell them what we would do next. I thought a few minutes.

“All right,” I said, “we'll take a buggy out to the Gate where ships come and go from the Pacific. You've got to see that. It's one of my favorite sights in all the city. Maybe we'll even see one come in! Then we'll come back to the wharf and walk along the harbor and back to downtown.”

“Wonderful—let's go!” said Christopher, leading the way to the buggy. We all piled into the two wide seats—it was more comfortable now without all our bags—and I told the driver where to go.

As we went, I asked the man to drive us, as much as I could remember, the same way as when Almeda had first shown me the city fourteen years earlier—first up Telegraph Hill, then up and down the hills all across to the beautiful overlook where the Pacific meets the narrow mouth of the bay.

Pa was right, the city
had
grown. There were new houses and buildings everywhere, and more being built wherever you looked. The number of people had increased some four or five times since the first time I had come here.

When we reached the overlook of the Gate, we stopped and got out. Everyone grew quiet at the magnificence of the sight, which no one but me had seen before. It was so awe-inspiring that it took your breath away. Even though we could hear the wind, it produced an eerie silence that blew right through us.

Down below us the blue waves of the ocean crashed against the rugged shoreline, sending white, frothy spray into the air. Stretching away to our left, rocky cliffs were all we could see, just like those across the opening of the bay opposite us. There were wild-looking cliffs over on the other side, with green trees and shrubbery on top of them. We could hear the barking of seals and the shrill cries of white gulls floating so effortlessly on the winds.

What's over there?
I found myself wondering as I gazed across the bay toward the land that lay north of San Francisco.
What is that part of California like?

“This place is truly stunning,” said Christopher, interrupting my thoughts. He put his arm over my shoulder. “I never imagined I'd lay eyes on the Pacific, and now here I am standing on the very western edge of the continent.”

A few stray bits of fog swirled in and out amongst the cliffs, briefly obstructing our view of portions of the water, then breaking apart again.
What would this part of the coastline be without fog constantly coming and going?
I thought. It was one of the many things that made San Francisco so unique and beautiful.

Along with the ships! We could see two out in the mouth of the bay not far from us—one entering, the other heading out to sea, both trailing a wake of white water behind them. I could especially see in Tad's eyes that he was enthralled with them. The mere sight could not help but give you a sense of adventure and faraway places, and I was sure that's exactly what my youngest brother was thinking.

Zack stooped down, picked up a rock, and gave it a heave over the edge. It fell short of the water, bouncing off the rocks below. Another soon followed, then a third, and before long the competition began between Zack and Tad and Christopher to see who could throw a stone all the way into the ocean.

Becky and Laughing Waters and I walked slowly along the edge of the promontory, talking quietly and enjoying the sights, while behind us the whoops of the men continued. It was going to be good for Becky and me to have this time with Laughing Waters. She had been very shy about meeting us all. Now it would be just us “young people” for a couple of days, and I could already sense that she was starting to relax. She and Becky already seemed to share a quiet, knowing look between them. They were both quiet observers.

The wind was slightly chilly, but I didn't mind. It felt good to have my hair blowing about.

Fifteen or twenty minutes later we all loaded back up into the cab for the ride to the wharf and harbor.

We got out there, Christopher paid the driver, and then we began our long, leisurely climb back toward the center of the city. All varieties of boats and ships, both for fishing and for passengers, were tied up along the wharf, and Tad wanted to look at every one. Christopher, too, was very interested. Becky and Laughing Waters hardly said a word, but they gazed at everything with wide eyes. None of them had ever seen anything like that place.

Seamen and yachtsmen and sailors of many nationalities walked about. We heard several different languages. Suddenly it felt like we were at the very center of the whole world, and that it was all right here in San Francisco.

“Where's the Barbary Coast, Corrie?” asked Zack.

“Up there ahead, along the waterfront,” I answered. “Why?”

“I want to see it.”

“Oh, Zack, it's a dreadful place. It's shorter to walk around behind it and miss it altogether.”

“I just want to see it, that's all.”

I glanced at Christopher.

“All right,” he said, “but just keep walking.”

“And don't talk to any of the people,” I added. “I remember being afraid just to be there.”

“You were a girl, and younger besides. Nothing will happen.”

I didn't say anything more, remembering back to the fright I'd felt at unexpectedly seeing Buck Krebbs come out of one of the saloons near this very place.

We walked quietly past the saloons and run-down hotels of the famous San Francisco waterfront. It didn't seem so fearsome today as when I'd been here with Almeda. Whether it had changed since the early gold-rush days or whether my growing older made it look different, I don't know. Probably it was both. But the people we did see milling about looked none too nice, and I still wouldn't want to walk alone here at night.

Slowly we continued to move back toward the business district. Christopher was especially interested in the architecture of the city's buildings.

“It's so different from what you see back in the East,” he remarked as we walked along. “Look at all the protruding windows and the ornate moldings.”

The closer to the heart of the city we got, the more Chinese people we saw, many of them dressed in native clothing and wearing their hair in queues. I could tell Laughing Waters was especially intrigued. I wondered if their presence made her feel more like one of us.

It was almost the dinner hour by the time we arrived back at the boardinghouse, and we were all pretty tired. We didn't go anywhere that evening, but instead we visited with several other of the guests in the sitting room in front of a cheery fire. Most were full-time residents, and we asked them lots of questions about the city.

It had been a long day, and by nine we were ready for a good sound night's sleep.

Most of the following day we spent downtown, walking and touring again. I showed everyone the Oriental Hotel where Almeda and I had stayed. We also walked through the Montgomery Building, which had been so new back then.

Since this would be our last night in the city, we determined to make the best of it, so we planned to go out to a fancy restaurant instead of eating at the boardinghouse.

And no trip to San Francisco would be complete without a visit to the
Alta
to see Mr. Kemble, a visit which we made late that morning.

“Well if it isn't my old friend Corrie Hollister!” boomed Mr. Kemble, jumping up from behind his desk as we entered his office.

“Hello, Mr. Kemble,” I said, shaking the editor's hand. “And it's Corrie Braxton now—I would like you to meet my husband, Christopher Braxton from Virginia.”

“Your husband! That's right—of course! I remember the invitation several months back. Sorry I couldn't make it. Pleased to meet you, Braxton.”

“And I you, Mr. Kemble,” replied Christopher. “I've heard quite a lot about you.”

“I'm not sure I ought to ask you to explain further!” said Mr. Kemble, with a glance and grin in my direction.

“Mr. Kemble,” I said, “I'd like you to meet some of my family that are here as well. You may remember them from when you were out in Miracle Springs. This is my sister Becky.”

“I'm happy to meet you, young lady. Are you planning to follow your sister's footsteps into journalism?”

“No, sir, I don't think so,” answered Becky.

“My brothers, Tad and Zack,” I went on.

“You're the young fellow who had some adventures out Nevada way with the Pony Express and the Paiutes, as I recall,” said Mr. Kemble as he shook Zack's hand.

I glanced unconsciously at Laughing Waters and saw a look of nervousness on her face. But the conversation went quickly on.

“That's me.”

“MacPherson tells me your writing's almost as good as your sister's.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Zack, more embarrassed I think than he would otherwise have been because of Laughing Waters being there. “But my sister helped me out some.”

“And this,” I said finally, “is our friend Laughing Waters, whom Zack met when he was in the Utah-Nevada territory. She is the daughter of a Paiute chief.”

“Charmed, young lady,” said Mr. Kemble, showing no surprise. “Welcome to San Francisco.”

“Thank you,” said Laughing Waters shyly as she took the hand he offered.

“Well . . . sit down, all of you. I hope your visit is to tell me you've decided to get back in to journalism, Corrie.”

“I'm afraid not. I've only been married about a month.”

“What do you do, Braxton?”

“I used to be a minister,” replied Christopher. “At present I'm working the mine with Corrie's father and brothers.”

“Still trying to coax a few more ounces out of those hills, eh?”

“There's still a big vein there,” said Tad. “Pa's sure of it. We just have to find it, that's all.”

Everybody laughed.

“That's what they all say!” chided Mr. Kemble.

We chatted a while longer, then Christopher asked Mr. Kemble where would be a good place to go for dinner that evening.

“That depends,” he said, “on what you want. If you want the best food in San Francisco, in my opinion it's found at Mary Pleasant's place, but then you'd never get in.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“It's a boardinghouse. Once her guests are taken care of, she only has two or three tables available for reservations, and they are hard to come by.”

“A boardinghouse has the best food in San Francisco?” said Christopher in surprise.

“Not just any boardinghouse. Mammy Pleasant's a well-enough known lady—a colored lady with more spunk than any ten white women, with what you might call a checkered and not altogether savory past. She was housekeeper and cook for Milton Latham, and that's where she made her mark on this city. You know Latham, don't you, Corrie?”

“I know
of
him,” I answered. “I've never met him.”

“Well, he knows about you, too. I make sure important people read my newspaper. And so does Mammy Pleasant if I know her. She's as feisty a woman as you are yourself, Corrie Hollister.”

“Corrie
Braxton
,” I corrected him with a smile. “And what do you mean feisty?” I added.

“I mean just that,” rejoined Mr. Kemble with a laugh. “Trying to pass yourself off as a man so I'd give you a job, thinking you were worth a man's pay, running off to cover the war right in the middle of the worst fighting this country's ever seen—if that's not feisty, I don't know what you'd call it. You always set out to do what no one would figure you could.”

“That's my Corrie!” chimed in Christopher.

“Now stop that, both of you!” I laughed. “I just do what I feel I ought to do, that's all.”

“No matter what the odds are against you, and no matter that you're a woman.”

“I still don't know what that's got to do with it.”

“I know you don't,” replied Mr. Kemble, somewhere about halfway between being serious and still trying to kid me in front of my new husband. “And that's what you never understood—things are different between women and men. I'm not arguing with you, understand, Corrie. I've learned to respect you for what you've done, and there's certainly no doubt that you've been an asset to this paper. All I'm saying is that you never let tradition or custom or the practices of the rest of society stand in your way. Mammy Pleasant is just the same way. You and she'd get along pretty well, I think.”

“What did she do like Corrie?” asked Becky, following the conversation with keen interest.

“She took Abraham Lincoln seriously, that's what,” replied the editor.

At the sound of the dead president's name, a pang went through my heart. I hadn't thought of him in a while, and suddenly I was remembering all the heart-wrenching events of that April of two years before.

“What did she do?” asked Tad.

“Last year, just a year after the war was over, she flaunted her Negro blood by suing the San Francisco streetcar company. They wouldn't let her on the car because she was colored, so she sued them.”

“I don't see anything wrong with that,” I said.

“Lincoln may have freed the slaves, but there's still a difference between white and black,” he replied, “just like there's a difference between men and women.”

Before I could reply further, Zack piped up with what had got us started talking about Mrs. Pleasant in the first place.

“What's all this got to do with us finding a place to eat?” he said.

We all laughed.

“I suppose we did diverge a little from the original question, did we not?” said Mr. Kemble. “I was telling you how Mammy Pleasant started her boardinghouse. Like I said, she went to work for Milton Latham. He was a Virginian like you, Braxton—of Mayflower descent, and one of San Francisco's leading bankers. So when he entertained, everyone in the city came. He often gave lavish dinners on Sundays where all the prominent men could be seen. I was even invited myself a time or two.”

“I wish I could have seen it,” I said.

“Once Mammy Pleasant was in charge,” the editor went on, “she served up the guests a remarkable assortment of jellied meats and stuffed birds and all manner of seafoods and pastries. She was instantly hailed as San Francisco's preeminent cook and only several months later opened her own boardinghouse. The place has been so popular that Mrs. Pleasant can pick and choose her boarders from among hundreds clamoring for rooms under her roof.”

“And you say she takes in diners in addition to her own boarders?” asked Christopher. I could tell that his, Tad's, and Zack's mouths were watering at everything Mr. Kemble was saying.

“Only a few. I've only been there once myself.”

“Don't you know her?” asked Zack. I could tell he liked the sound of Mammy Pleasant's cooking.

“I've met her. I don't think that qualifies me as a close enough friend to ask a favor.”

“You said you thought she read your newspaper,” I said.

“Yes?” said the editor, drawing out the word questioningly.

“Maybe you could write something about her, or place an advertisement for her boardinghouse in exchange for her allowing you to bring some guests for dinner with her boarders,” I suggested.

Suddenly Mr. Kemble's face lit up.

“I've got an even better idea!” he exclaimed. “If everything I've heard about Mammy Pleasant is true, it is sure to work.”

“What?” I asked excitedly.

“You all just be back here at five o'clock. If I've been able to arrange it as I'm hopeful of, we'll all go to dinner together—that is, if you don't mind having a crusty old newspaper editor accompany all you young folks.”

“We'd be honored to dine with you, Mr. Kemble,” said Christopher, shaking the editor's hand. “We'll be back later this afternoon.”