. . . after they’ve seen San Francisco?

It didn’t take long for San Francisco to work her magic on Jennie Megquier. She wrote about the folks at home in Maine, “I have seen so much of things a little more exciting that I fear I shall never feel perfectly satisfied with their quiet ways again.” Then she drew this word-picture for her daughter:

Here you can step out of your house and see the whole world spread out before you in every shape and form. Your ears are filled with the most delightful music, your eyes are dazzled with everything that is beautiful, the streets are crowded the whole city are in the street. We have near us a splendid ice cream saloon which surpasses anything I have seen in the states, very large windows with magnificent buff silk damask curtains with lace like those that Newhall Sturtevant boasts so much of, two large rooms are connected by an arch hung with the same material, marble tables, floors and counters and as light as day at all hours of the night. The homeliest man in the city treated me to an ice cream there a few nights since at one dollar a glass.

Winthrop Maine had nothing to compare with the ice cream parlors of San Francisco!