Joe's Luck

JOE ARRIVES IN SAN FRANCISCO

At the isthmus they exchanged steamers, crossing the narrow neck of land on the backs of mules.  To-day the journey is more rapidly and comfortably made in a railroad-car.  Of the voyage on the Pacific nothing need be said.  The weather was fair, and it was uneventful.

It was a beautiful morning in early September when they came in sight of the Golden Gate, and, entering the more placid waters of San Francisco Bay, moored at a short distance from the town.

“What do you think of it, Joe?” asked Charles Folsom.

“I don’t know,” said Joe slowly.  “Is this really San Francisco?”

“It is really San Francisco.”

“It doesn’t seem to be much built up yet,” said Joe.

In fact, the appearance of the town would hardly suggest the stately capital of to-day, which looks out like a queen on the bay and the ocean, and on either side opens her arms to the Eastern and Western continents.  It was a town of tents and one-story cabins, irregularly and picturesquely scattered over the hillside, with here and there a sawmill, where now stand some of the most prominent buildings of the modern city.  For years later there was a large mound of sand where now the stately Palace Hotel covers two and a half acres.  Where now stand substantial business blocks, a quarter of a century since there appeared only sandy beaches or mud-flats, with here and there a wooden pier reaching out into the bay.  Only five years before the town contained but seventy-nine buildings—­thirty-one frame, twenty-six adobe, and the rest shanties.  It had grown largely since then, but even now was only a straggling village, with the air of recent settlement.

“You expected something more, Joe, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” admitted Joe.

“You must remember how new it is.  Ten years, nay, five, will work a great change in this straggling village.  We shall probably live to see it a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants.”

The passengers were eager to land.  They were tired of the long voyage and anxious to get on shore.  They wanted to begin making their fortunes.

“What are your plans, Joe?” asked Charles Folsom.

“I shall accept the first job that offers,” said Joe.  “I can’t afford to remain idle long with my small capital.”

“Joe,” said the young man seriously, “let me increase your capital for you.  You can pay me back, you know, when it is convenient.  Here, take this gold piece.”

Our young hero shook his head.

“Thank you, Mr. Folsom,” he said, “you are very kind, but I think it will be better for me to shift on what I have.  Then I shall have to go to work at once, and shall get started in my new career.”

“Suppose you can’t find work?” suggested Folsom.

“I will find it,” said Joe resolutely.

“Perhaps we might take lodgings together, Joe.”

“I can’t afford it,” said Joe.  “You’re a gentleman of property, and I’m a poor boy who has his fortune to make.  For the present I must expect to rough it.”

“Well, Joe, perhaps you are right.  At any rate, I admire your pluck and independent spirit.”

There was a motley crowd collected on the pier and on the beach when Joe and his friend landed.  Rough, bearded men, in Mexican sombreros and coarse attire—­many in shirt-sleeves and with their pantaloons tucked in their boots—­watched the new arrivals with interest.

“You needn’t feel ashamed of your clothes, Joe,” said Folsom, with a smile.  “You are better dressed than the majority of those we see.”

Joe looked puzzled.

“They don’t look as if they had made their fortunes,” he said.

“Don’t judge by appearances.  In a new country people are careless of appearances.  Some of these rough fellows, no doubt, have their pockets full of gold.”

At this moment a rough-looking fellow stepped forward and said heartily: 

“Isn’t this Charles Folsom?”

“Yes,” answered Folsom, puzzled.

“You don’t remember me?” said the other, laughing.

“Not I.”

“Not remember Harry Carter, your old chum?”

“Good Heaven!” exclaimed Folsom, surveying anew the rough figure before him.  “You don’t mean to say you are Harry Carter?”

“The same, at your service.”

“What a transformation!  Why, you used to be rather a swell and now——­”

“Now I look like a barbarian.”

“Well, rather,” said Folsom, laughing.

“You want me to explain?  Such toggery as I used to wear would be the height of folly at the mines.”

“I hope you have had good luck,” said Folsom.

“Pretty fair,” said Carter, in a tone of satisfaction.  “My pile has reached five thousand dollars.”

“And how long have you been at work?”

“A year.  I was a bookkeeper in New York on a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year.  I used to spend all my income—­the more fool I—­till the last six months, when I laid by enough to bring me out here.”

“Then you have really bettered yourself?”

“I should say so.  I could only save up five hundred dollars a year at the best in New York.  Here I have crowded ten years into one.”

“In spite of your large outlay for clothes?”

“I see you will have your joke.  Now, what brings you out here?  Are you going to the mines?”

“Presently, but not to dig.  I came to survey the country.”

“Let me do what I can for you.”

“I will.  First, what hotel shall I go to?”

“There is the Leidesdorff House, on California Street.  I’ll lead you there.”

“Thank you.  Will you come, Joe?”

“Yes, I will go to find out where it is.”

The three bent their steps to the hotel referred to.  It was a shanty compared with the magnificent hotels which now open their portals to strangers, but the charge was ten dollars a day and the fare was of the plainest.

“I guess I won’t stop here,” said Joe, “My money wouldn’t keep me here more than an hour or two.”

“At any rate, Joe, you must dine with me,” said Folsom.  “Then you may start out for yourself.”

“You must dine with me, both of you,” said Carter.

Folsom saw that he was in earnest, and accepted.

The dinner was plain but abundant, and all three did justice to it.  Joe did not know till afterward that the dinner cost five dollars apiece.

After dinner the two friends sat down to talk over old times and mutual friends, but Joe felt that there was no time for him to lose.  He had his fortune to make.  Still more important, he had his living to make, and in a place where dollars were held as cheap as dimes in New York or Boston.

So, emerging into the street, with his small bundle under his arm, he bent his steps as chance directed.