When I was a little boy, how I did love to go to school (Saturday afternoon), and how well do I remember my first sum in arithmetic; and I was very proud of it, for it was some sum, I thought. I can see it now as plainly as if it were but twenty-five or thirty years ago. I set it down, then I added it up. It was ought and ought is ought, and ought is ought to ought. I cut off the top line; and it proved correctly. I took it to the teacher, and I thought he would get me a situation in the corner grocery, I was so quick at figures. He looked at the sum and passed back the slate, and said he: "You have figured up just about all you will ever amount to." I didn't know, at that time, what he meant, so I thanked him and asked him if I couldn't stand up and see who whispered. He said no, but that I might go home and tell my mother to put a nail in my forehead to hang my hat on, as it was a pity to wear out good hats on such a head. We all loved that teacher (when he moved away). He was very pious, and always opened school with prayer, or a long stick, and we used to think he didn't care which, for he told us once that he was bound to have the school opened on time if he had to open it with an oyster knife. He was so pious that he used to repeat Scripture to us, but he was very forgetful, and once he tried to tell us of what is said of "Suffer little children," but he forgot the rest, and so the little children had to suffer.

Now, I want to show you the importance of improving your time. I once knew a little boy in San Jose who loved to go to school and loved his books, and he grew up to be great and wise and good, and when he had learned all there was in San Jose he went to Milpitas, and there he was made postmaster, and when the other two men moved away he set up a hotel and had no opposition. So, you see, you must love your books if you want to be postmaster at Milpitas, and then, again, if you

ever get to know enough to make a speech at a school festival, you will know how easy it is to begin and how hard it is to leave off, for I have been trying about five minutes to stop this one of mine, and can only do so now by abruptly bidding you good night.

My excuse for reproducing this speech here is the cordial manner in which it was received at the time, and also on a later occasion, when I embodied it in an address given at the Temple Emanu-El in this city.

Another hotel experience of mine was in 1878. I went down to Santa Barbara and for a few weeks managed the Arlington. But the proprietor of the hotel was a Spiritualist, and he was told by some one in the other world that I was not the right man to run his hotel. The spirit pointed out the right man and he took my job, while I returned to San Francisco.

CHAPTER VII

RAILROAD BUILDING. THE SMALL-POX EPIDEMIC.TRAIN ROBBERY.-AN UP-TO-DATE ROPEWALK.STREET SWEEPING.-A UNIVERSITY ALUMNE BANQUET.-I MEET PRESIDENT GILMAN.-ANGEL ISLAND THIRTY YEARS AGO.-MCCULLOUGH AND THE MILK PUNCH.-INDIA RUBBER PAINT EPISODE.MINING IN WHITE PINE.-MY S. P. ENGAGEMENT. -I CHRISTEN A FREIGHT BOAT.-A SURE THING IN LIGHTING APPARATUS.

IN 1868 I was interested in a contract for grading and laying the tracks on that portion of the "Western Pacific Railroad" lying between Alameda and Stockton. The length of that section was about forty-two miles, and the work involved an estimated outlay of about a million dollars. If we had been permitted to go on and finish the work as we had commenced and at the rate at which we were paid for the first month we would have cleared at least a hundred thousand dollars on the contract, and we could have completed it in about eighteen months. We took the contract from the Central Pacific Railroad Company, as it was a portion of the road which was to connect the great transcontinental road with San Francisco. But the company had so worded our contract as to give them the privilege of classifying

the work after it was opened and they could form some idea of the kind of material we had to move, so, after the first month, they went over the work and made a difference of six thousand dollars in our estimate on the second month's work. Then, with a verbal understanding, we went to work on the third month and when the engineer's estimate was sent in they cut us down five thousand dollars on that, after which we saw that it was no use to try to bring them to any kind of a written agreement by which we could hold them, so we threw up the contract and bent our endeavors towards getting a settlement which would enable us to recover what we had invested in the work, if nothing more. The trouble was that although the company had built a great many miles of railroad themselves and had crossed the Sierra Nevadas, yet they had never known what the cost should have been, as it was the only railroading they had ever done, and in that they all had been for going ahead regardless of expense. So it appeared, they wanted to experiment with us and find out the cost, and then build the road themselves.

In 1868 the first epidemic of small-pox visited San Francisco, and it was surprising to see how unconcerned the people were about it. At the first outbreak the victims were removed immediately to the pest house, but when it became known how miserably they were treated many who were afflicted with the disease had such an unconquerable horror of the place that their friends preferred to take the risk of concealing the state of the case

and nursing the patients at home. An ordinance was passed by the Board of Supervisors requiring that a yellow flag should be displayed from all houses where small-pox existed, and it was made a penal offence to refuse to neglect to comply with the requirement. Consequently, the little yellow flags were to be seen in all parts of the city, and it was nothing unusual to see one displayed at the same entrance with a sign, "Rooms to Rent." I could not help thinking how differently such things were regarded in my native town, where a single case of small-pox would be enough to cause the blockading of a whole street.

This small-pox was a curious affair. People were scared enough but they found precautions were no safeguard. It seemed to be sporadic, and in the end they just trusted to luck to escape it. Old country folks said it was not like the disease they knew. It left worse scars, and vaccination was no protection. There wasn't any use in getting scared or anything else. We have had epidemics since, but nothing to compare with that one, either in the extent or the virulence. Old and young, rich and poor, clean and filthy got it alike and it was a sort of "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may have the small-pox."

I have several of the letters I wrote home about this time, but few of the events recorded are of general interest. In contrast to my father's ropewalk was the one I visited in 1868 at the Potrero. Of all the ropewalks I have ever seen this one was way ahead. It was about