He's a sermon. They won't like him as a sermon so
much as a garbage man but he's a sermon just the same. The text is that
back of most things that are dainty and beautiful is the drudgery
worker. Tell her that there isn't an immaculate kitchen in San Francisco
that doesn't depend upon her father.
Nor a feast at the Palace or the St. Francis. Tomato skins and the nests
that cauliflowers come in, and gnawed "T" bones. What would become of
them if she had no father. And coffee grounds and the nameless things
that have been forgotten and burned by the absent-minded. Tell the
little girl about Omar Khayyam and how he might have said - .
Oh, many a charred secret into the garbage can goes
That from the kitchen range in blackened cloud once rose.
Tell her that there is a professor at Yale whose father was a junk man.
All this and more tell the garbage man's little girl.
The Palace
Someone was telling me of an old couple who lost everything they owned
at the time of the fire, and that they were very brave about it and
never broke down, and even helped others, but that when someone came
running up and said: "The Palace is on fire," they both sat down on the
curb and gave way completely to grief.
And they say that after the fire the first piece of publicity which was
given to the world as a proof that San Francisco would come back, was
that the Palace would be rebuilt immediately.
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