The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-06-23

mune with that's uplifting like the words
OF patriarch and prophet. 1t was a new
view to look from the west at Fillmore
street wharf, whose lines of lamps have
been familiar among harbor lights, long
dear companions on what Miss Ina Cool
BIRTH calls my ''perch" on Clay street hill
Friends who are shut in Philistia scoffed
at my project; those who have any spirit
of Bohemia approved. When l went again
to my friend she proposed that we should
try to enter the mill. Dainty and fine,
from her house with electric bells and tele-
phone, she stood looking at the forsaken
garden and gray structure and exclaimed,
Wouldn't it bequaint?" Then she point
ed out an artists studio in the upper part
OF fanciful stable across the way.
The house has been moved to another
lot. We asked the care-taker for leave to
go into the mill. She said, ''It is not to let,
it is all rough" said, II do not care how
rough" So a procession of the woman,
two small children, a big dog and ourselves
was better inside than had thought it
would be, though only a wooden shell.
The machinery was all outside at the back.
The stairs went up on one side of four
large rooms, one above another, with
windows On the north, east and south
sides. Ny great desire had been to look
from the upper windows. but | forgot it.
Neither my friend nor spoke of going
beyond one fight of stairs. Some
pictures were lacked on the sides.
felt an unreasonable objection to
the unknown tenant. 1t was hard to
believe that nothing dreadful had
ever happened there. Then it was yet to
come and might be the central figure. 1
should live there as Stevenson did at Bur-
ford Bridge and Queens Ferry in perpet-
ual tutter, on the heels as it would seem of
some adventure that should Justify the
place, feeling that would call me to bed
at mis- hit and call me again in the morning.
Even in the presence of sunshine the chill
dren and dog, the care-taker, even while
making idle remarks though we said
little, we seemed to be thrust out. It was
much like when 1 could not bring myself
to go up the stairs of a building where a
man had Just been killed though | did not
know that until next day.
We paused in the old garden with long
walk under tall palms, but grass grown
everywhere. The care-taker gave me a
moss rose, but in the melancholy quiet it
should have. been poppy. They were
the reverberationss were far worse than in
town. but they seemed rather to jar the
silence than to break it. We came away
with as few words as if from funeral.
at is impossible" said my friend.
'There is no door but the entrance"
1t would be too cold, L said, thinking
OF winter storms, the FOSTERING winds
roaring round before 'going off to sea to
meet other winds and make night of it.
The trees would groan and beat against
the wall. The tower might rock. How
would / like to feel that its extended arm
was reckoning to the lightning? 1t was
the very place to muse over lives dreamed
and dreams lived, but it would be like that
sculptured bedstead of Daumpt's at the
Ehar n ~, -
Dreams of Love and Wealth and Glory on
one side, counterbalanced by the awful
mysterious figures on the other side, the
Hours of night. Earthquake and eclipse
might come when, like the criminal led
out of court in India, the whole of me
would be seen no more together.
l gave up the project, to the great relief
of an acquaintance who has the gift OF
clairvoyance. at would not do for you to
be alone there" she said. Il should be
afraid in such lonely place, not of people
but of spirits. They cannot come SO neal