The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez [english novels for students txt] 📗

and of how barren and desolate it was the more Mrs. Stevenson was fascinated with it, and when he finally invited them, in true Western fashion, to accompany him thither, she joyfully accepted. In the early part of January she took passage with her little party, consisting of herself, Mr. Field, and her maid, on the small steamer St. Denis , which was sailing from San Diego and making port at Ensenada and San Quintin on the way to Cedros Island.

At the island the Stevenson party was offered the large company house of ten rooms by Mr. Brown, but preferred to live in a little whitewashed cottage that stood on the beach. Except for the Mexican families of the mine workmen there were no women on the island besides Mrs. Stevenson and her maid. The small circle of Americans soon became intimately acquainted, for the lack of other society and interests naturally drew them close together. Besides George Brown, Clarence Beall, and Doctor Chamberlain, the company doctor, there was only a queer old character known as "Chips," a stranded sea carpenter who was employed to build lighters on the beach.

Mrs. Stevenson had all of Kipling's fondness for mining men, engineers--all that great class of workers, in fact, who harness the elements of earth and air and bend them to man's will--and she was very happy on this lonely island with no society outside of her own party but that of the few employed at the mine. Between her and Mr. Beall, a young mining engineer employed on the island, a strong and lasting bond of friendship was established from the moment of their first meeting, when she saw him wet and cold from a hard day of loading ship through the surf and insisted on "mothering" him to the extent of seeing that he had dry clothing and other comforts. And, although the difference between the green tropic isle beyond the sunset which lay enshrined in her memory and this barren cactus-grown pile of volcanic rocks was immeasurable, yet the one, in its peace, its soft sweet air, and the near presence of the murmuring sea, called back the other.

When, after three pleasant, peaceful months, the time came for her departure, there was general sorrow on the island, where it may well be imagined that her presence had greatly lightened the tedium of existence for its lonely dwellers. "To this day," writes Doctor Chamberlain, "whenever I pick up one of Mr. Stevenson's novels, my first thoughts are always of his wife and our days at Cedros Island."

While in Ensenada on the return trip Mrs. Stevenson heard of a ranch for sale there, and after looking at it decided to purchase it. The place, known as El Sausal,[72] lies on the very edge of the great Pacific, and has a magnificent beach. The climate is as nearly perfect as a climate can be, and Mrs. Stevenson often said that if the world ever learned of the magic healing in that country there would be a great rush to the peninsula, so long despised as a hopeless desert.

[Footnote 72: Sausal (pronounced sowsál) is a Spanish
word meaning willow grove.]

There was only a little cottage of a very humble sort on the ranch and supplies were hard to get, but she loved it and was never better in health than when she was at Sausal. At this time she returned to San Francisco, but the following winter she went back to take possession and spent some time there. Writing to Mr. Charles Scribner, she says: "I am living in a sweet lost spot known as the Rancho El Sausal, some six miles from Ensenada in Lower California. If I had no family I should stop here forever; except for the birds, and the sea, and the wind, it is so heavenly quiet, and I so love peace." Running through the place was a little stream, the banks of which were thick with the scarlet "Christmas berry," so well known in the woods of Upper California; multitudes of birds--canaries, linnets, larks, mocking-birds--all sang together outside the door in an amazing chorus; and on the beach near by the sea beat its soft rhythmic measure.

They were very close to nature at Sausal, but though its situation was so isolated they had no fear, for the penalties for any sort of crime were terrific. Burglary, or even house-breaking, were punished with death, and one could hardly frown at another without going to prison for it. Sometimes they were surprised by the sudden appearance of a man, tired and dusty, dashing up on a foam-covered horse and asking for food. To such an unfortunate they always gave meat and drink, and when the rurales [73] presently galloped up and demanded to know whether they had seen an escaped prisoner they swallowed their conscientious scruples and answered "No!" Personally they met with nothing but the most punctilious courtesy from the Mexican officials. When Mrs. Stevenson received a Christmas box from her daughter, the chivalric comandante at Ensenada, in order to make sure that she should have it in time, sent it out to Sausal magnificently conducted by three mounted policemen.

[Footnote 73: Mexican mounted police.]

When she left this peaceful spot in the spring of 1906 to return to San Francisco she little thought that she was moving towards one of the most dramatic incidents in her eventful life. All went as usual on the journey until they had passed Santa Barbara on the morning of the fateful day, April 18, when vague rumours of some great disaster began to circulate in a confused way among the passengers. Soon they knew the dreadful truth, though in the swift running of the train they themselves had not felt the earthquake, and it was not long before concrete evidence confirmed the reports, for at Salinas they were halted by the broken Pajaro bridge. At that place Mrs. Stevenson slept the night on the train, and the next day she hired a team and drove by a roundabout way to Gilroy, near which, it will be remembered, her ranch, Vanumanutagi, was situated. There they learned that San Francisco was burning, and while Mr. Field made his way as best he could to the doomed city, she camped in a little hotel in Gilroy waiting for news--a prey meanwhile to the most intense fears for the safety of various members of her family, from whom she was entirely cut off.

While she waited as patiently as might be in the little country town, there were strenuous times in the burning city, but, as telegraph wires were all down and no mails were going out, she was compelled to remain in suspense until three days later, when the fire was subdued and Mr. Field was able to get back to her with the news that her family were all safe and her house unharmed. The story of the rescue of her house from the flames has been curiously contorted by persons who have attempted to write about it without knowing the facts. The real saviors of Mrs. Stevenson's house were her nephews and Mr. Field, and even they might have lost the day had it not been for a providential wind that blew in strongly from the sea against the advancing wall of flame. For three days and nights they looked down from their high post upon the raging furnace below and anxiously watched the progress of the fire as it leaped from street to street in its mad race up the hill, and when at last the two houses and a large wooden reservoir immediately opposite went roaring up all hope seemed gone. In the end it was through a mere trifle that the tide of fortune was turned in their favour. In the garden there was a small cement pool, the home of a tiny fish answering to the name of Jack. When the water in the pool was slopped over by the earthquake poor Jack was tossed some yards away upon the grass, whence he was rescued, alive and wriggling, and restored to his own element, only to be killed later by some thoughtless refugee who washed his hands in the water with soap. The half bucket or so of water remaining in the pool helped to save the day, for the fire fighters dipped rugs and sacks in it, and, climbing to the flat roof, took turns in dashing through the scorching heat to beat the cornices when they began to smoke. Even so, the escape was so narrow that at times it seemed hopeless, and the rescuers took the precaution to dig a hole in the garden and bury the silverware, the St. Gaudens plaque, and other valuables.

When the three days' conflagration had finally worn itself out and the tired and smoke-begrimed fighters could take account, they found the house and its contents safe, except for a huge hole in the roof where the earthquake had thrown down a large heavy chimney, piling up the bricks on the bed in the guest-chamber, fortunately not occupied at the time. But the outlook was ghastly, for the house stood high on its clean-swept hill like a lonely outpost in a great waste of cinders, half-fallen chimneys, and sagging walls. In two weeks' time, while they still smoked, the ruins took on a strangely old look, and it was like standing in the midst of the excavations of an ancient city. Around the solitary house on the hill the wind howled, making a mournful moaning sound through the broken network of wires that hung everywhere in the streets.

Homeless refugees, running through the streets like wild creatures driven before a prairie fire, came pouring past, and some stopped to build their lean-to shacks of pieces of board and sacking against the sheltering wall of the house. Blankets and other things were passed out to keep them warm, and when they finally went their way the blankets went with them, but Mrs. Stevenson was glad that they should have them and said she would have done the same had she been in their case.

All this while her son and daughter--the son in New York and the daughter in Italy--were in a state of anguished suspense as to their mother's fate. By a strange coincidence the daughter had herself been in some danger from the great eruption of Vesuvius, and had but just escaped from that when she heard newsboys crying in the streets of Rome, "San Francisco tutta distrutta !" Several days passed in intense anxiety before she received the telegram with the blessed words "Mother safe!"

As it was quite impossible to live in the destroyed city until some sort of order should be established, even water being unprocurable on the Hyde Street hill, Mrs. Stevenson decided to take refuge for the time at Vanumanutagi Ranch near Gilroy. Even there she found a sorry confusion, for the house chimneys were all wrecked and the stone wall around the enclosure had been thrown down and scattered. There was plenty of good water, however, and the possibility of getting provisions and living after a fashion, so she settled down to stay there until conditions should improve in the city. It was an eerie place to stay in, too, for that section lies close to the main earthquake fault, and the quivering earth was a long time settling down from its great upheaval. For as long as a year afterwards small quakes came at frequent intervals, and in the stillness of the