Imperial Valley press., 1916-12-27

night. When the river waters crept
up to that notch, it was time to rouse
the children and climb to the roof.
She climbed to the roof with the chill
dren when my grandfather was late
in returning from town, too, because
the noises of wolves and coyotes
them She saw the gold
,devour men far more cruelty than the
wolves, and not ten years ago her
granddaughter talked to the white
headed man who was laughed at, in
the first rough state legislature at
Menicia, because he said that wheat
and fruit orchards should be planted
and would some day make the new
state far more famous than did the
gold. She saw the railways come, and
the cities spread over the hills, and
the harbor flung open as q gateway
to the Orient.
San Francisco was mere group
Of wooden shanties. But there must
have been a glamour over it even then.
The new world was so bright, said my
grandmother, the sky so blue and high,
the air so gloriously intoxicating. 1t
was wonderful to have the whole long
summer go by without a single day
of heavy and smothering heat it was
wonderful to have the winter mild and
soft, to pick sweet peas in Novem-
her and peoples in February. Her hus-
band farmed, mined and became rich.
She rejoiced with him when the rail-
road came she took the days Of the
Ivigilante committee calmly for grant
ed. Los Angeles was not, Sacramen-
to was a mining camp; but there was
the tiny beginning of social set in
San Francisco, and there was con-
vent school for girls in Marysville.
She drove in her own open carriage,
and entertained in her old bay-winz
dowed house in Geary street the home
sick wives of miners when they came
tc the city,.
After a while there were "cable
cars" with dummies" rattling up and
down the hills, and the Indians van
ished, and for years and years men
and dusty pumps were filling in the
"made land'' below Montgomery
street. Prophets said that the made
land would slide into the sea if there
was ever another big earthquake; but
the big earthquake duly came, in 1865
and the land stood firm. Other things
rooted themselves, the sane and whole
scme things. Apple orchards, orange
groves, wheat fields-these things
came to stay. There was year wher
the output of wheat was more valuable
than that OF gold.
But gold was a first love with the
early Californians, and they followed
the gold. Wherever the fevcrish ri.
NOR flew, they hurried after They
left homes and wives and children tC
flock into the mountains, and many
OF them never found anything but
thirst and hunger and left only theil
bones to tell the story. Meanwhile the
city property that in itself was worth
a gold mine, or the untitled fields that
were some day to feed half the world
lay neglected. Even afer this time
gold played an important part in the
history of the state. In 1870 every
.Eody in San Francisco was buying sill
yer stock in the Nevada mines. One
Of these mines produced $300,000,OO(
worth of ore in eighteen years! The
mere figures were enough to drive
sober reason from ones head! Can
conductors, sober young wives, little
seamstresses, rich and poor, wise and
urwise, they flung whatever they had
madly into the game. Indeed, they
flung more than they had.
Nothing else interested the city
while this mad fever burned it. Stran-
gers talked eagerly and nervously in
the streets, today's beggar was to-
nlorrow's millionaire. The terrible
question of holding or selling turned
mems hair white, and broke them on
the wheel. This one, hitherto re-