hward, they scattered
seeds of yellow mustard and in the spring a golden chain connected the
missions from San Francisco to San Diego. Over there nearer the bay," I
nodded toward the east where a heavy cloud of black smoke proclaimed the
manufacturing section of the city, "lay the Potrero--the pasture-land
of the padres--and the name still clings to the district. Beyond was
Mission Cove, now filled in and covered with store-houses, but formerly
a convenient landing place for the goods of Yankee skippers who,
contrary to Spanish law, surreptitiously traded with the padres."

We turned to the massive facade of the old church, where hung the three
bells, of which Bret Harte wrote.

"Bells of the past, whose long forgotten music
Still fills the wide expanse;
Tingeing the sober twilight of the present,
With the color of romance."

As we entered the low arched doorway, we seemed to step from the hurry
of the twentieth century into the peace of a by-gone era. Outside, the
modern structures crowd upon the low adobe building, staring down upon
it with unsympathetic eyes and begrudging it the very land it stands on,
while inside, hand-hewn rafters, massive grey walls, and a red tiled
floor slightly depressed in places by years of service, point mutely to
the past, to the days when padres and neophytes knelt at the sound of
the Angelus. Within still stand the elaborate altars brought a century
ago from Mexico, before which Junipero Serra held mass during his last
visit to San Francisco. On the massive archway spanning the building,
can be seen the dull red scroll pattern, a relic of Indian work.

"Sing something," my companion suggested. "It needs music to make the
spell complete."

"It does," I assented, "but you must stay where you are," and climbing
to a balcony at the end of the building, I concealed myself in the
shadow.

He glanced up at the first notes, then sat with bowed head. I filled the
old church with an Ave Maria, then another. As I sang, the candles
seemed to have been lighted on the gilded altars, and the brown friars
and dusky Indians took form in the dim enclosure.

"More," he urged, but I would not, for I feared that the spell might be
broken. So he came up to see why I lingered, and found me mounted on a
ladder peering up at the old mission bells and the hand-hewn rafters
tied with ropes of plaited rawhide.

My song must have attracted a passer-by, for a voice greeted us as we
desce