The San Francisco call., 1910-08-14

about ths convent was the vacation
that took us away from it. back, out
of the burning summer valley to the
bay, the rows of gray faced houses,
the shipping and the wind. Each
time came back it was with the
rapture one must feel returning to
some long felt. beloved place and fin.-
ing it unchanged.
The palm. the cypress hedge, the
sunny conservatory, the low long
rooms beyond it, the dark hall. and
narrow, precipitous stair were al.
ways adorably the same. But
around them the city was grow
time I returned I had to learn to know
1t afresh Already there were several
b ocks Of houses beyond ours, and
the second year | came home from
tie convent Halle Ferguson told me
her father was going to move because
there was gambling house going up
across the street from them. and
build Halle expressed it, ''in a more
fashionable neighborhood."
It was at the foot of Chestnut street
hill their new house was building, and
that vacation we used often to walk
over with Abby-Estrella, Halle and
across the city and across the North
beach district-to play in the building
house. Il was going up with the same
furious speed that was accomplishing
the whole city. 1t seemed that we
had hardly stopped looking through
the skeleton supports at the bay be-
fore the plaster was drying on the
solid walls; that we had hardly ceased
walking on the great naked flooring
beams before the smooth floor itself
was palpitating under the feet of the
dancers at the housewarming
1 remember sitting up with Halle
through the earlier part of that even
ing, and, with a sort of worship, look
ing for the first time at women with
uncovered necks and arms emerging
white as wax from their diaphanous or
glittering gowns TO me they were
radiant, transported 10 a sphere of eX-
istence beyond my own. something I
never would attain To. 1 recall them
as a vague, dreamlike spectacle. In
all of it there is but one incident that
l remember clearly, and that is when,
whirling out of the crowd and into an
empty space that the dancers had left
clear for moment, came a cohple-a
large blonde girl and a young man, a
boy, hardly as old as she. but so hand
some, so dark. SO full OF life. and
sparkling sort Of mischief, that it
made one feel quite gay just to look
al him. As they danced past the place
where Halle and l were sitting he
was holding his partners gauzy train
by us laughing.
who is that?" l whispered.
That's Johnny Montgomery" Halle
whispered back.
who's he?"
why, don't you know?' Halle cried.
She dearly loved to give information.
The Montgomerys were one of the very
best families here; and he's the last of
them. Old lady Montgomery died the
year we went away to school, and he
had heaps of money-but he lost it."
My sole performance in this line had
been the dropping of a two bit piece
down a crack in the boardwalk, and
before L had time to ask how Johnny
Montgomery had mana ged to lose sight
of heaps" Mr.. Ferguson came up and
asked: Don't you little girls want
some ice cream?" SO l forgot to say
any more about it.
That same season there was another
notable occasion, when Halle led me
to the bedroom of her grownup sister
and exhibited to me with awestruck
pride the dress her sister was to wear
to the Sumner Light Guards ball that
night. It was a blue tulle with fine
frost Of spangles over the bodice, and
it seemed too dazzling to belong to
creature less wonderful than a fairy.
But when Halle went on, in a cautious
whisper lest we be discovered, to con-
fide to me that when she was grown
up and out of school her mother had
promised TO give her party, and that,
since / was her best friend, of course
she was going to invite me first of all,
1 began to realize that /, too, might
some day grow up into a young lady
and be LACED into a gown perhaps as
beautiful as the one spread out on the
bed before us
Such a dazzling idea gave me an en-
Of md
pleasant book companion and bedfellow
to take back to the convent. Halle,
who was a year older and half a head
taller than ], had already begun to
lengthen her dresses and do UP
her hair, and / found it humiliat-
ing to be so small that at 16 I had
still to wear mine down my back in
long curls, and my skirts above my
ankles. The only thing that COM
forted me was that whenever father
came to see me he always said:
Child, how tall you are! You're al
most woman and though he was
the one person who seemed to think so
it was quite sufficient for me. When
my graduation day came 1 was much
excited to think how absolutely
grownup / would appear to him in
my first long frock, but when 1 came
TO him after the exercises were over
he looked at me as if he were sad, and
said, Child, how little you arei
That was dreadful disappointment
to me, but when I reminded him how.
he had always told me / was tall, he
laughed. and said: You were tall for
a schoolgirl, but you're very little to
be the mistress of house
That puzzled me; but on the way
home. driving up through the valley
he told me what he meant. He said
NOW that you have stopped being a
child. you are going TO BE- a very. gay
young lady; going to have fine gowns
and dance about like a butterfly; and
you're going to keep on being my little
girl; but at the same time I am afraid
you viii have to BE- a little lady of
the house, too. and take care of me-
and Abby-now that Abby's rheuma-
tism is so baG-and go to call on the
ladies who were your mothers friends
and are going to be yours. Do you
think you are tall enough to do all
that?"
was so surprised and so happy
that I hugged him right there in the
buggy. and said DO you really
mean it?'
Father laughed. just as he does to
cover up being rather serious. and
said: You are your mothers daugh-
ter, for she was a little, fair woman
but there was never1 anything too big