The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1892-08-07


Prentice milford,
ing away in his canoe on Long Island Sound
last year. pad in his lap, pencil in his
hand and 80 cents in his pocket
1.-The world is round as you have heard.
no doubt; the wheel has run a full circle,
and / am here"
This is from one Of his last letters to me,
written at Sagg HaTbor, Long Island.
where he was born and raised. 1t is pleas
ant to know the gentle wanderer had gotten
back home, and that he started almost
from the old family fireside on what the
French call the grand excursion" The
grandfather of Prentice Milford served
with Washington through the Revolution as
a surgeon, and about tile only thing | ever
knew him &c care for in the way Of ancestry
or family traditions WAS the yellow and
stained old Continental discharge of his
grandfather and most tiatteTing and laud-
atory letter from his ommandeT-in-chief,
attn Ough the MulfOTds were IF a proud old
English stock. / once went with Prentice
Milford from London TO the old family estate
and castle" He asked and obtained per-
mission for the day TO roam the grounds
and haunt the ruins and do entirely as he
pleased. lie was very happy for this
privilege. And when the stiff but kindly
furty-secOnd cousin turned back TO the
modern residence and left Prentice to medi-
tate amid the messy ruins that lay stTewn
knees there beside noble ancestral tree,
struck match. made fire, nnrolled a little
pack and broiled beefsteak.
People fancied Aiuiford Impractical, help
less. Not so. He simply had no ambition
for fortune or fame. II is he who defined
ambition as only form OF seIfishness. But
If you fancy him helpless or weak in any
way. 90 through his White Cross Magazine.
As an instance Of his unseifish contempt
for distinction, | may say that he edited and
ftn hna4 f.fr hact -
Life Among the Modocs," while with me
In London, ana would take no part OF the
renOwn and but little of the money, AL
though IL was brought out by Bentley, pub
Usher TO the Queen. aud made great stir.
You see-by way Of briefest explanation
the London fog aud hard work had
brought back an old attack of Idaho snow
blindness and | lay there sick, blind, heir
less and without money. 30 he came and
took an old novel which | had written ana
Ina ID. Coolbrith had copied and corrected,
aud tried in vain to sell, and be wrote it ali
over again and called it my Life Among
the Modocs," depending or my facts for his
fiction and on the newspaper accounts Of
my life in tile mountains for bis facts. The
last thoughts in the book we're his. 1t made
a pot of money. Years later as it refused
to die, cut it up, and to-day it is loafng
around the bookstalls under the name of
any Own Story"
But to get back to California. His family
a
goods store, where he was placed on COM
pleting his education. OF all places, a dry
goods store!
OF course he ran away; went TO sea, in q
small way, for a time. And then he en-
gagged as cook to come around the Horn on
sailer loaded with iron. Hard. hardl
Read his grim account of this gruesoma
voyage in tie Atlantic Monthly and you
will know something of the painful SEN
sibillty OF the boy. who, born and bred
81 a 4.
a bulldog at that, for master. One funny
thing l must tell They put in at some
Bahama port for rice, rum and 10 GLASSES 10
cheer and feed the hard crew aud cruel
master around the Horn.
All. the mOlasses and rum and the rum
ana m0lasses which they were 10 have as
they neaTed the Horn. at last they were 10
tap the two hog heads. An apple duff"
and big tin pan of rice-glOri0usi And
the skipper sent Milford down, as they sat
there at the end of the feast, for more mo-
lasses and little more rum.
But the next m0rning-ripl rapl snapl
The old skipper came struggling up the
steps, streaming from his knees to his heels
with rum and moasses. both fists in the air,
and his face blue with rage and ironcad
oaths.
Poor Prentice! in his haste 10 please the
cruel master be had forgotten TO stop the
cocks, and the belly of the ship was knee
deep with the precious stuffs.
A pleasant whaling voyage or so from
San Francisco toward the North Pole, but
no profit. and milford took to the mines,
With the usual luck, or rather the want of
luck; and then, like Bret Harte, took to
school-teaching.
And here, for a time at least, he found
sunshine and calm, sweet weather. The
camp or cabin life, the sweet solitude Of IL.
aud the opportunity for thought, medita-
ton, the liberty to be yourself entirely.
suited his viii. Both as man and school
teacher he lived alone as a rule, all the time
doing his own cooking and what pertains TO
cabin llie aud here, reckon, was formed
or at least solidly crystallizpd that DISPOSE
ton to solitude which so possessed him all
his later years.
Now don't imagine that the hermit, so
called, is a sad or morose man always. A
man who is a complete man is sufficient
unto himself, as rule. Milford, so far
from being SAD or morose, was the sweetest
tempered and Rentest gentleman | ever
saw in his line of employment. He was, in
fact, just what his writings indicated a
m0st genial man, a humorst of the finest
type; not loud or lurid, but gentle, fine, re-
fined; 10 fact, not Joe Miller but Charles
Lamb.
He took to solitude TO avoid friction; the
wear and tear OF contact with coarse hard
natures that raSp us and rasp us day after
day TIL the skin Is too sensitive to bear
more of it. Let me set down one single in
eldent in his mining and school teaching
experience, ana then we VIII get forward to
his wanderings and literary work.
Young, handsome, of good family, with a
bright literary day just dawning, for he had
begun to teach with pen and tongue at the
same time. he became engaged TO a charm
ing young girl, and they were to have been
married soon. How often he used to revert
to the pleasant walks and talks with her
under the oaks on the Sierra foothills, In
those dear old days. Prentice lived with
me for years in London. and hardly amOnth
passed that he did not turn TO those gentle
days OF loveland and of dreams. You can
see the Doppies. the Mariposa lilies, the
wide-boughed oaks, the brown. tawny hills
OF that time and place in all his early writ
ings.
She Gied? No, not at all. She has
large and happy family; visited me here
lately and talked enjessiy, along with her
stout and jolly husband, about Prentice
Milford. And what broke it of ? / am
IN doubt whether / should say more. For
md her iufi hua hap