During my sisters’ visit I said to Alice, “Can it be possible that the entire wicked awfulnesses of the world are stuffed into San Francisco?”
“Why do you think that?”
“Mrs. Piddington said . . .” but I did not tell Alice what Mrs. Piddington said. She was a contented person, did not nose round into odd corners. This and that did not interest Alice, only the things right in the beaten path. The things she had always been accustomed to—those she clung to.
Before leaving Victoria various friends had asked of her, “Look up my cousin, look up my aunt.” Alice good naturedly always said, “Certainly,” and accepted a long list of miscellaneous look-ups. People could just as well have sent a letter to ask how their friends did, or if they liked the New World. They all seemed to have come from the Old. When I said so, Alice replied that I was selfish and that people liked hearing from the mouth of an eye-witness how their relatives were. Alice was rather shy and made me go along though I was not amiable about these visits.
First we went to see the cousin of a friend. She was eighty and had an epileptic son of sixty. He had stopped development at the age of seven or eight; mind and body were dwarfed. He had an immense head, a nondescript body, foolish little-boy legs that dangled from the chair edge as he sat in the parlour opposite to us, nursing his straw hat as if he were the visitor.
His Mother said, “Shake hands with the ladies, Jumble.” (Jumble was the name he had given himself and it was very appropriate.)
Jumble leapt from his chair as if he were leaping from a housetop, skipped to the far side of the room and laid his hat down on the floor. He came running back and held out two wide short-fingered paws. We each took one and he gave us each a separate little hop which was supposed to be a bow.
“The ladies come from Canada, Jumble.”
He clapped his hands. “I like Canada. She sends pretty stamps on her letter; Jumble has a stamp book! Jumble likes stamps, he likes plum cake too! Jumble wants his tea, quick! quick!” He pattered in to the adjoining room where tea was laid, climbed into his chair and began to beat on his plate with a spoon.
“He is all I have,” sighed the woman and motioned us to follow, whispering, “I hope, my dears, you are not nervous? Jumble may have a fit during tea.”
We had never seen anything but a cat in a fit but we lied and said we were not nervous.
Jumble consumed vast wedges of plum cake but he did not have a fit.
After tea they saw us to our tram—eight-year hobble and trot, trot of a halfwit, escorting us. Once aboard, I groaned, “Who next?”
Alice produced her list.
“Mable’s Aunt; now don’t be mean, Millie. People naturally want to hear from an eye-witness.”
“Pleasanter for them than seeing for themselves.”
Mable’s Aunt was gaunt. She lived in a drab district. She kissed us before ever we got the chance to say why we had come, but, when we said we came from Mable she fell on us again and kissed and kissed. She had never seen Mable but she had known Mable’s mother years before Mable was born. Every time we mentioned Mable’s name she jumped up and kissed us again. Needless to say she was English. In time we learned to avoid mention of Mable. That restricted conversation to the weather and Mable’s Aunt’s cat, a fine tabby. While we were grappling for fresh talk material, the Aunt said:
“Oh my dears, such a drive! Such lovely, lovely flowers!”
“Where? When?” We were eager at the turn the conversation had taken,—flowers seemed a safe pleasant topic.
“My son took me this morning. It is a long way. There were marvellous carpets of flowers, every colour, every kind. Oh my dears, such flowers!”
“My son is a doctor, visiting doctor for the ‘Last Chance’. He takes me with him for the drive. Flowers all the way! I don’t mind waiting while he is inside. I look at the flowers.”
“What is the ‘Last Chance’?” I asked.
“Terrible, terrible, oh my dears! Thank God that you are normal, usual.” She sprang to kiss us again because we were complete, ordinary girls.
Again I asked, “What is the ‘Last Chance’?”
“A place behind bars where they put monstrosities, abnormalities while doctors decide if anything can be done for them.” She began describing cases. “Of course I’ve only seen a little through the bars.”
The little she had seen was enough to send Alice and me greenish white. We tried to lead her back to the flowers. It was no use, we took our leave.
We walked along in silence for some time. “Let’s forget it,” I said. “All the people on your list seem to have some queerness, be the same type. Suppose we lose the list!”
Alice said, “For shame, Millie. People at home want to hear about their relatives. It is selfish of you to grouse over their peculiarities!”
“Relatives’ peculiarities would do just as well in letters and only cost three cents. I’d willingly pay the stamp. They are not even relatives of our own friends. For them we might endure but for these nearly strangers why should we?”
Again Alice’s, “For shame, selfish girl!”
It happened that Mrs. Piddington had arranged a flower-picking picnic for the very next Saturday. Someone had told her of a marvellous place. You walked through Golden Gate Park and then on and on. There were fields and fields of flowers, all wild and to be had for the picking.
At last we got there only to be confronted by a great strong gate on which hung a notice “Keep Out”! The flowers were beautiful all right. Just outside the gate was a powerhouse and a reservoir. We asked permission at the office and were told we might go through the gate and gather.
“What is the big building just inside the enclosure?” asked Mrs. Piddington but just then the man was summoned back into the office.
“Last Chance,” he called over his shoulder. Alice and I looked at each other. We felt sick. “Know-it-all” old Piddington explained. “Windows all barred! Um, doubtless it is a reformatory of some sort.”
We scuttled under the barred windows, Alice and I trying to draw our party over toward a little hill away from the building. The hill was lightly wooded and a sunny little path ran through the wood. Flowers were everywhere—also snakes! They lay in the path sunning themselves and slowly wriggled out of our way quivering the grass at the path side. You had to watch your feet for fear of treading on one. Alice and I could not help throwing scared glances behind at the brick, bar-windowed building. Shadowy forms moved on the other side of the bars. We clothed them in Mable’s Aunt’s describings.
There were not many big trees in the wood. It was all low scrub bush. You could see over the top of it. I was leading on the path. I had been giving one of my backward, fearful glances at “Last Chance” and turned front suddenly. I was at the brink of a great hole several yards around. My foot hung over the hole. With a fearful scream I backed onto the rest of the party. They scolded and were furious with me.
“Look for yourselves, then!”
They did and screamed as hard as I.
The hole was several feet deep. It was filled with a slithering moil of snakes, coiling and uncoiling. Had my lifted foot taken one more step, I should have plunged headlong among the snakes and I should have gone mad! Mrs. Piddington was too horrified even to faint. She yelled out, “I’ve been told there are ‘raiders’ this side of the park too!” Turning aside, we broke into mad running, helter-skelter through the thicket heading for the open.
Snakes writhed over and under the scrub to get out of our way. The flowers of our garnering were thrown far and wide. Horrible, horrible! Our nerves prickled and we sobbed with hurrying. We passed the “Last Chance” with scarcely one glance and rushed through the gate, coming back empty-handed. We did not even see the flowers along the way, our minds were too full of snakes.
“Girls,” I cried, “I want to go back to Canada. California can have her flowers, her sunshine and her snakes. I don’t like San Francisco. I want to go home.”
But when my sisters did go back to Victoria I was not with them. I was stuck to the Art School.
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