PRENTICE MULFORD: Autobiographical Works (Life by Land and Sea, The Californian's Return & More). Prentice Mulford Mulford

crowd assembled on the wharf to witness the departure of those “going East” and a lively orange bombardment from wharf to boat and vice versa was an inevitable feature of these occasions.

      The Plaza was a bare, barren, unfenced spot. They fired salutes there on Independence Day, and occasionally Chief Burke exhibited on its area gangs of sneak thieves, tied two and two by their wrists to a rope—like a string of onions.

      There was a long low garret in my Commercial street lodgings. It was filled with dust-covered sea-chests, trunks, valises, boxes, packages, and bundles, many of which had been there unclaimed for years and whose owners were quite forgotten. They were the belongings of lost and strayed Long Islanders, ex-whaling captains, mates and others. For the “Market” was the chief rendezvous. Every Long Islander coming from the “States” made first for the “Market.” Storage then was very expensive. It would soon “eat a trunk’s head off.” So on the score of old acquaintance all this baggage accumulated in the Market loft and the owners wandered off to the mines, to Oregon, to Arizona, to Nevada—to all parts of the great territory lying east, north and south, both in and out of California, and many never came back and some were never heard of more. This baggage had been accumulating for years.

      I used occasionally to go and wander about that garret alone. It was like groping around your family vault. The shades of the forgotten dead came there in the evening twilight and sat each one on his chest, his trunk, his valise, his roll of blankets. In those dusty packages were some of the closest ties, binding them to earth, Bibles, mother’s gifts, tiny baby shoes, bits of blue ribbon, which years by-gone fluttered in the tresses of some Long Island girl.

      It was a sad, yet not a gloomy place. I could feel that the presence of one, whose soul in sad memory met theirs, one who then and there recalled familiar scenes, events and faces, one who again in memory lived over their busy preparations for departure, their last adieux and their bright anticipations of fortune, I could feel that even my presence in that lone, seldom visited garret, was for them a solace, a comfort. Imagination? Yes, if you will. Even imagination, dreamy, unprofitable imagination, may be a tangible and valuable something to those who dwell in a world of thought.

      One night—or, rather, one morning—I came home very late—or, rather, very early. The doors of the Long Island House were locked. I wanted rest. One of the window-panes in front, and a large window-pane at that, was broken out. All the belated Long Islanders stopping at the place, when locked out at night, used to crawl through that window-pane. So, I crawled through it. Now, the sentinel on the ramparts of Fort Gunnybags, having nothing better to do, had been watching me, and putting me up as a suspicious midnight loiterer. And so, as he looked, he saw me by degrees lose my physical identity, and vanish into the front of that building; first, head, then shoulders, then chest, then diaphragm, then leg’s, until naught but a pair of boot-soles were for a moment upturned to his gaze, and they vanished, and darkness reigned supreme. The sentinel deemed that the time for action had come. I had just got into bed, congratulating myself on having thus entered that house without disturbing the inmates, when there came loud and peremptory rappings at the lower door. Luther and John, the proprietors, put their heads out of the chamber windows. There was a squad of armed Vigilantes on the sidewalk below; and, cried out one of them, “There’s a man just entered your house!” Now I heard this, and said to myself, “Thou art the man!” but it was so annoying to have to announce myself as the cause of all this disturbance, that I concluded to wait and see how things would turn out. John and Luther jumped from their beds, lit each a candle and seized each a pistol; down-stairs they went and let the Vigilantes in. All the Long Island captains, mates, coopers, cooks, and stewards then resident in the house also turned out, lit each his candle, seized each a pistol or a butcher-knife, of which there were plenty on the meat-blocks below. John came rushing into my room where I lay, pretending to be asleep. He shook me and exclaimed, “Get up! get up! there’s a robber in the house secreted somewhere!” Then I arose, lit a candle, seized a butcher-knife, and so all the Vigilantes with muskets, and all the Long Island butchers, captains, mates, cooks, coopers, and stewards went poking around, without any trousers on, and thrusting their candles and knives and pistols into dark corners, and under beds and behind beef barrels, after the robber. So did I; for the disturbance had now assumed such immense proportions that I would not have revealed myself for a hundred dollars. I never hunted for myself so long before, and I did wish they would give up the search. I saw no use in it; and besides, the night air felt raw and chill in our slim attire. They kept it up for two hours.

      Fort Gunnybags was on Sacramento Street; I slept directly opposite under the deserted baggage referred to. The block between us and the fort was vacant. About every fourth night a report would be circulated through that house that an attack on Fort Gunnybags would be made by the Law and Order men. Now, the guns of Fort Gunnybags bore directly on us, and as they were loaded with hard iron balls, and as these balls, notwithstanding whatever human Law and Order impediments they might meet with while crossing the vacant block in front, were ultimately certain to smash into our house, as well as into whatever stray Long Island captains, mates, boat-steerers, cooks, and coopers might be lying in there path, these reports resulted in great uneasiness to us, and both watches used frequently to remain up all night, playing seven-up and drinking rum and gum in Jo. Holland’s saloon below.

      I became tired at last of assisting in this hunt for myself. I gave myself up. I said, “I am the man, I am the bogus burglar, I did it.” Then the crowd put up their knives and pistols, blew out their candles, drew their tongues and fired reproaches at me. I felt that I deserved them; I replied to none of their taunts, conducted myself like a Christian, and went to bed weighted down with their reproof and invective. The sentinel went back to his post and possibly slept. So did I.

CHAPTER VI.

      AS A SEA COOK.

       Table of Contents

       I drifted around San Francisco for several months and finally shipped as cook and steward of the schooner Henry, bound from San Francisco for a whaling, sealing, abalone curing, and general “pick up” voyage along the Lower Californian coast. My acceptance as cook was based on the production of an Irish stew which I cooked for the captain and mate while the Henry was “hove down” on the beach at North point and undergoing the process of cleaning her bottom of barnacles. I can’t recollect at this lapse of time where I learned to cook an Irish stew. I will add that it was all I could cook—positively all, and with this astounding capital of culinary ignorance I ventured down upon the great deep to do the maritime housework for twenty men.

      When we were fairly afloat and the Farallones were out of sight my fearful incapacity for the duties of the position became apparent. Besides, I was dreadfully seasick, and so remained for two weeks. Yet I cooked. It was purgatory, not only for myself but all hands. There was a general howl of execration forward and aft at my bread, my lobscouse, my tea, my coffee, my beef, my beans, my cake, my pies. Why the captain continued me in the position, why they didn’t throw me overboard, why I was not beaten to a jelly for my continued culinary failures, is for me to this day one of the great mysteries of my existence. We were away nearly ten-months. I was three months learning my trade. The sufferings of the crew during those three months were fearful. They had to eat my failures or starve. Several times it was intimated to me by the under officers that I had better resign and go “for’ard” as one of the crew. I would not. I persevered at the expense of many a pound of good flour. I conquered and returned a second-class sea cook.

      The Henry was a small vessel—the deck was a clutter of whaling gear. Where my galley or sea-kitchen should have been, stood the try-works for boiling blubber. They shoved me around anywhere. Sometimes I was moved to the starboard side, sometimes to the larboard, sometimes when cutting-in a whale way astern. I expected eventually to be hoisted into one of the tops and cook aloft. Any well regulated galley is placed amidships, where there is the least motion. This is an important consideration for a sea cook. At best he is often obliged to make his soup like an acrobat, half on his head and half on his heels and with the roof of his unsteady kitchen trying to become the floor. My stove was not a marine stove. It had no rail around the edges to guard the pots and kettles from