The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana)

by Robert Lewis Taylor

  Then, out of a clear sky, we made $13.50 working on the streets and returned Mr. Bryant the five dollars we owed him. My father said this was important, because it always paid to keep your credit alive, so we bought two comforts for four dollars, had two cups of coffee apiece at twelve and a half cents a cup, bought some cooking utensils for $3.10, bought some meal and sugar for $1.20, got a cloth cap for me for twenty-five cents and bought two razors for my father for fifty cents. Then we borrowed back the five dollars from Mr. Bryant. I began to see how finance, as my father called it, worked, and when he explained it, he got carried away so far he began to talk about opening a bank. But they already had a bank here.

  Sleeping and cooking in the shed, picking up work on the streets, but not enough, and making the rounds the rest of the time, we hung on, but I still failed to see any signs of Opportunity turning up.

  One evening down by Pacific Wharf, we ran across this man William Ebersohl, who was a street preacher. He was standing on some unloaded cargo, to be exact a brandy keg, and we stopped to listen. He was a large-framed man, whose clothes, minister’s black, hung loosely on his large body, and had a whity-gray mane of long hair, a moustache and beard, a string tie, bushy black eyebrows, the bluest and clearest eyes I ever saw, a ruddy, outdoors complexion, strong, hawklike nose, and a wide mouth with a look of great determination. In spite of his gray hair, you didn’t get the feeling he was particularly old. He just grew that way.

  Well, he had a fair-sized crowd, mostly hecklers, and he said, just as I find it in the Journals, “Gentlemen, I’m no croaker. I’m not here to bind and chafe, or make injudicious attacks on Romanism. I’ve been preaching regularly in the streets for more than ten years, seven of them among California gamblers and rum-sellers. Now I’d like to call your attention to the difference between a decent, well-behaved sinner and a violent, outbreaking sinner. Gentlemen, I stand on what I suppose to be a cask of brandy. Keep it bunged and spiled, and it is entirely harmless; nay, it answers some very good purposes; it even makes a good pulpit. But draw that spile and fifty men will be down here to drink up its spirit and wallow in the gutter, and before ten o’clock tonight will carry sorrow and desolation to the hearts of fifty families. A case in point is a congregation man we had at the Powell Street Methodist Church, a previous sinner, black as tar, with a history to shame a cutthroat criminal. But he’d heard the sweet word of Jesus, through your humble servant, and he straightened up like a sergeant, though his tripes burned for rum as a wolf ravens after gore—”

  There was an interruption here when one of the hecklers sung out, “You ort to be ashamed, pinching off his mother’s milk like that.”

  “—for six months he held up, a model of virtue, happy in his situation, dry as chalk, blaspheming not, stiff-backed and tail high, whilst the angels caroled in heaven—”

  “Reverend,” cried a man, “could you slip a fellow a dram? I just loaned my last drop to your bishop.”

  The preacher waited for the laughter to quiet, then he said, calmly, “And what happened? A ring-tailed misled hyena like our friend here”—pointing at the last heckler—“drew him off and led him astray. Lured him to a gambling hell and spooned Spiritus frumenti into his sarsaparilla, solely on the Devil’s mission. You ask what happened? Within two months, that man was the dregs of San Francisco! And he died reviling his Saviour’s name. Gentlemen,” cried the preacher in a lion’s voice, “somebody pulled out his spile!”

  Of a sudden, so that it dratted near scared everybody to death, he laid back his head and burst into song so loud the watch hands commenced flocking to the ship rails out in the harbor. I never heard anything like it for sheer, outright volume. No matter what else you might claim, this Reverend Ebersohl was a champion musician. They used to say that when the wind lay right, they could hear him in Sacramento, but I reckon that was an exaggeration.

  With a melodious bray, like that of a full-grown jackass, he now tucked into a very nice hymn—some of them are nice, you know, and tend to cool down what’s bothering you—but a bunch of drunks behind began to sing, “Old Uncle Ned, with the Hair off His Head,” some of them hitting the tune now and then, and others not even trying, but soaring way up over everything in a kind of woman’s voice, and one fellow, taking turns singing and doubling up to laugh, stepped on a wooden boat roller and fell off into the Bay. They fished him out, still singing, and soon after that the meeting broke up.

  My father pushed forward, angry about the drunks, and introduced himself, along with me. “I enjoyed your sermon, sir. A very delicate parallel. As for the rest of those vill—”

  “It did go off well, did it not?” He rearranged the cargo he’d been using as a pulpit, carefully brushed his coat, and gazed at us earnestly, his eyes so deep, steady, and innocent that I realized, with a shock, that nothing would ever seriously disturb him, not on this earth, at least. When he came near, we saw his clothes were frayed and shiny, and I had a feeling that the white shirt collar was only a collar, and nothing more.

  “Yes,” he said, “I feel that I held them safe in the clasp of Jesus tonight. I’ll tell you something, sir—Doctor McPheeters?—you would hardly credit it, but there are times when an unseemly levity, or boisterousness, has made it downright difficult for me to proceed.”

  Was he joking? I saw my father start then, looking at him, recover and fall into the same vein.

  “You surprise me, Reverend.”

  “As you remarked, sir, tonight’s was a meeting to remember. It would not astonish me for a moment if some of this selfsame audience—I trust you noted the ardor of their singing—if some of this selfsame audience appeared at the Powell Street Church and put in a letter for membership tomorrow.”

  “Doubtless, and I shouldn’t hesitate for a second to reject it,” said my father, who was going to make a joke or bust. “Tell me, Reverend Ebersohl, do you preach at the church as well as here on the street? And why don’t you take up a collection, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Not at all,” he replied, gathering together his traps, which included three signs—actually they were no more than scrolls of cotton cloth with runny block letters painted on them: “Reverend William Ebersohl, Disciple of Jesus”; “Repent—at Methodist Church (Powell St.)”; and “Jesus of Nazareth was a Toteetaler.” “I never plate-pass on the streets, the people resent it. In addition, Satan puts mischief in their heads. When I first tried, I collected up three rocks, a broken padlock, a shoehorn, a discarded opium pipe, and a very small but active rattlesnake, some five inches in length. As to preaching, I deliver three bully sermons in church on Sunday, but have plenty of strength left over, praise God, for a minimum of two each evening on the street.”

  Noticing his signs, my father said, “Did you fashion the displays yourself, Reverend?”

  “You mean the misspelling, of course. I’ve been planning to correct it. A convert, a half-cast native from the Sandwich Islands—our Lord’s color-blind, sir, did you realize that?—wrought them for me, and do you know, some people at the church contend he misspelled teetotaler on purpose, as a prank. They will never make me believe it, never!”

  We walked up the street together. It was the only time in my life I ever saw my father cordial to a preacher. But he had a kind of animal’s sense about people—you’ve likely observed that a dog’s uncommonly selective about who it bites?—and he recognized this Reverend William Ebersohl as an authentic saint. He was, too. Getting to know him, we realized that there wasn’t any way on earth he could be made to believe that a person was outright bad. At the worst, they were “misled.” The tougher a case a man was, the harder Reverend Ebersohl worked to save him. And when he was let down the worst, he only stuck his chin out farther and said that he himself was at fault, because he’d slacked on the job—“the Devil had got hold of his coattails.”

  When we reached our shed, having given a quick account of our adventures, Reverend Ebersohl looked around sadly. “I wish I could offer you better accommodations,
I really do. It grieves me. But my own, being a grass mattress in the loft of the church, are far from elegant.” He straightened up. “I prefer them that way, of course. I doubt if Jesus, himself so patient on the Cross, also born in a manger, would expect me to live like a nabob and sleep amidst silks and downs.”

  Then, seeing an untidy pile in the corner, he said, “What’s that yonder, doctor?”

  My father looked shamefaced, and I was astonished to hear him tell the unvarnished truth for a change, without ornating it up any. “Well, I guess that’s our laundry. What with one thing and another we haven’t had time to do it.”

  Reverend Ebersohl gathered it up and tucked it under his arm. “Thanks be to Jesus, there’s one problem solved. I’ll do it myself in the morning.”

  “You’ll what?” cried my father, horrified.

  “Back in the evening, if it’s good drying weather. And now I’m off; the day’s only begun.”

  “But where are you going? Surely not back again at this hour!”

  The Reverend Ebersohl looked grave. “The Devil’s work is going forward on all sides of Portsmouth Square. As long as I’m here, Jesus is unrepresented. Good night. Never fear for your laundry. I’m able with both board and iron.”

  We couldn’t help it; we crept out later and snuck up to the Square, and there standing on a box before the El Dorado, with the lights and the shouts and a merry old turmoil going on inside, and a few men gathered around outside, happily heckling, the Reverend Ebersohl roared out his thunders.

  When we arrived, he had a firm toe-hold on the devil, and as he told the crowd, meant to chase him right on out of California and over the Canadian border. “The population’s scarcer there,” he said. “There aren’t so many opportunities.” He was downer on the devil than anybody I ever met. Then he started off with something about “the carnal gas of enmity toward God,” and we left.

  Right on schedule the next evening, while we were eating bread and molasses and two cups of chocolate we’d bought off a ship, Reverend Ebersohl appeared with our laundry. It was done up in a neat bundle and tied with a string. My father paid him elaborate thanks and persuaded him to share the chocolate, then take a piece of bread. But he said he’d consumed a very hearty meal around one o’clock, of “forest greens,” meaning grass, I reckon, and goat’s milk, but would try to choke down a bite to be courteous. Then he took a snap, though perfectly mannerly, at that bread and it disappeared from the public view forever. Watching him carefully, my father said, “Reverend, what happens to the money you take up in collecting?”

  “Spent on the church and the everlasting glory of God.”

  “Take last Sunday, specifically.”

  “Bought a wood-burning stove, six-foot section of stovepipe, with elbow, two pieces of fireproof paper, and a clamp.”

  “Sounds interesting,” said my father, “but there isn’t much nourishment in it.” Then he added, “See here, Reverend, you’ll have to buy yourself some proper food now and then if you wish to keep up your strength. The devil’s in tiptop condition. Look at you, the clothes hang from your frame like a scarecrow’s.”

  “It’s true I often forget to eat, but my parishioners, though poor, are exceedingly thoughtful and generous. It may tax your credulity, but it was a genuine Irishman, a reformed Romanist, who brought me the pail of goat’s milk only this morning.”

  “Goat milk’s fine,” said my father. “It has proved especially efficacious for goats. But a man doing your kind of work needs a square meal.”

  Reverend Ebersohl said, “Last year, I attempted to augment my collections by operating a small stand in the streets. It was a means of sustenance, but it was time stolen from our Lord.”

  “Where is it? The physical property, I mean.”

  “Out behind the Powell Street Church, forty dollars’ worth altogether—lumber, nails and paint.”

  “Reverend,” said my father, “I suggest a partnership. We’ll go halves—you furnish the stand, we’ll run the business, share and share alike.”

  At noon that day we got a drayman to cart the stand down to the Square, and my father made a sign: “McPheeters and Ebersohl, Sundries.” We only had about a dollar, but we sunk this in tea, also bought off a boat, and for two days I tended stand while my father harrowed for pay on the streets, so as to buy stock.

  Sunday came and went, and Reverend Ebersohl put in $3.40 from his collection. He would have laid out more, he stated, but he had to buy twelve new hymnals. Also he’d given two dollars to a backslid convert named Turnipseed. (This last was money wasted; I took the trouble to check up. As soon as he got the cash, Turnip-seed had a very beneficial prayer session on his knees with Reverend Ebersohl, then cried and signed a pledge. And after he’d got up, he headed for the Parker House, hurrying pretty fast, because he’d been delayed longer than he intended, tossed down two snorts to warm up, won twelve dollars playing faro, had seven or eight more snorts, then went back and lost every cent on the wheels. When morning came, they found him drunk in a ditch, but he was on fire to be converted again, because he said his luck couldn’t run bad like that all the time.)

  For the stand, we bought coffee and chocolate and sugar, and more tea, and had a very good run selling it for twelve and a half cents a cup. People around there liked my father, and they often asked questions of me—what we were doing there, and all. We bought a quart of molasses for fifty cents, and ten pounds of biscuits at $1.50. And the next week, we got a barrel of pickled pork, costing thirty-five dollars. So we were very well off for edibles, and before long we began to lay in some real sundries, just anything these busted miners and gamblers were trying to get rid of cheap. We acquired a very fine set of chessmen, carved from ivory and beautiful woods from the Orient, for five dollars, and sold them the same day to a Catholic priest for ten. We got a case of expert mathematical instruments for $3.25 and turned it over for five dollars even before the week was out. A Chinaman sold us a quart of sperm oil, but we kept this and used it for a lamp. To protect the stand, we had to buy a tent, to be pitched alongside, and in the same transaction we got some more cooking utensils, meal, sugar, and chocolate, all for sixteen dollars.

  The business was going very well. My father said this was the identical same way all big merchants got started and he aimed to build a two-storey building the next year and maybe buy a schooner. He hadn’t hopped around with so much importance for months. His experience as clerk for Brother Thomas, back in Deseret, stood him useful now, because whenever the opportunity arose to practically steal something, or to sell at a sharp bargain, he just gritted his teeth and went ahead, same as Brother Thomas did, only the latter didn’t have to grit his teeth, not that skinflint.

  We were eating regular now, of course, and felt stronger. And the Reverend Ebersohl, striking by early from his church, would lay into a handsome breakfast along with us, but he always apologized for it, noting that the dear beloved Jesus would have fasted, instead of gorged, to put His appetite down in its place, and would have been “nourished on spiritual fodder” instead. By now, I’m morally convinced that every dime Reverend Ebersohl took out of the stand was frittered right away on those worthless humbugs that came whining around, begging for salvation.

  He probably never knew it, but many of the petty gamblers at the casinos were kept rolling by Reverend Ebersohl, with the money he intended for just the opposite use. There was no way to tell him. What good would it do? He’d only find some way to excuse them, and predict that the next time up, they’d win the Battle against Temptation. He did all our laundry, did most of the lugging of stock up from the ships, often pitched in at the stand, and took far less than his share at the end of each week. And how he bullied and badgered the devil! He hardly gave him any rest at all.

  They said he preached a sermon one night from the deck of the steamship Union (it was on a day when he’d knuckled under to his appetite to eat a pound of pickled pork) that resulted in a kind of mass convulsion. There wasn’t a soul on board that d
idn’t come forward at the end and give himself to Jesus, and this included the captain, who’d already given himself to Jesus only the trip before, as well as several times before that, along with the Chinese cook, who didn’t understand a word that was said. What fetched him was the singing, they found out later. But the odd thing was, that the cook carried right on through, joined up, through an interpreter, swore off opium, though he turned a kind of turkey-skin purple for a while, became a respected member of the Powell Street congregation, passing the plate on Sundays, and remains so to this day. He was the only hundred per cent Chinese Methodist in San Francisco.

  People around the Square knew my father was a doctor; they called him “Doc,” but they never took it very seriously. They figured him for some kind of horse doctor, or a doctor that had got in a jam somewhere. This was the only condition they fully understood. It required a shipwreck to get him started off in medicine in San Francisco. The steamship traffic was very brisk now, with big boats like the Independence and the Panama coming in every few days, carrying several hundred passengers. We were at the stand on a morning in mid-December, a bright, sunny day after a rain the previous evening, selling off ten purses that my father had fashioned out of buckskin, when a man dashed across the Plaza, waving his hat wildly, and cried, “Shipwreck! Shipwreck! The Liberty’s run aground on Santa Rosa Island!”