Page:The Country Boy.djvu/193

Rh were more drummers. Peanut butchers were now selling oranges that had taken the place of apples, and already you could notice quite a California air. With the assurance of how well they thought I’d do there and the sunshine that had taken the place of rain in Oregon, I was being a better fellow than I should, spending money more freely than I really needed to.

There was a gaiety in the smoking-car that I wasn’t used to. The through passengers were all thoroughly acquainted with one another, and the second night I couldn’t really sleep in upper eight. So I was thinking how great San Francisco would look, of what artists I would see there, and whether the general body of people on the streets would look so different from what they did in Portland. I got up before daylight, and, as the gray dawn came, I could see great streaks of yellow flowers out in the fields we were running through. The atmosphere was different, and I actually felt like an artist, if I could only draw.

Finally the train ran on to a ponderous ferry boat and was ferried across a river or