The best football player of Texas Christian unexpectedly caught the ball and raced to the goal of Santa Clara. He had to cross the entire field. Men ran to intercept him. Men chased after him. They tried to tackle him. The most desperate defendants of Santa Clara flung them selves headlong under his feet. But the little football player, pressing the ball to his stomach, kept running and running and running. It was a remarkable miracle. At first he ran along the edge of the field. Then he turned sharply into the middle, leaving behind those who ran to meet him on the side. He jumped over a Santa Claraite who flung himself under his legs and cleverly skipped away from a score of other arms stretched out toward him. It is difficult to convey the excitement of the public. Finally, this player ran across the last line and stopped. That was all. Texas Christian had won. Our grandstand was disgraced. The grandstand opposite exulted stormily.

33 Russian Hill

WE RETURNED from the football game in excellent spirits and, interrupting each other, began to tell the Adamses our football impressions. The Adamses did not go with us to the football game; they went instead to the post office.

"Don't talk to me about football," Mr. Adams said to us, "it is a horribly barbarous game. Seriously, it hurts me to hear you talk about football. Instead of studying, these young men do the devil only knows what. No, let's not talk about that nonsense."

Mr. Adams was worried about something. Before him lay a long piece of paper covered all over with figures and with all kinds of other markings, and a small parcel.

"In other words, Becky, the hat has not arrived in San Francisco. And yet, we sent directions to Santa Fe for them to send the hat directly to San Francisco."

"Are you sure that it was San Francisco?" asked Mrs. Adams. "For some reason, it seems to me that the last time you asked that the hat be sent to Los Angeles."

"No, no, Becky, don't talk like that. I have it all written down." Mr. Adams took off his spectacles and, bringing the paper close to his eyes, began to decipher his notations.

"Yes, yes," he muttered, "there! According to the last notations the hat was sent from Detroit to Chicago. Then to St. Louis. But since we didn't go to St. Louis, I wrote them to send the hat to Kansas City. When we were in Kansas City the hat had not yet come there . . ."

"Very well," said Mrs. Adams. "That I remember. In Santa Fe we forgot to go to the post office for some reason and you wrote them a letter from Las Vegas. Remember? At the same time you sent the key to the Grand Canyon. Didn't you get the addresses mixed up?"

"Oh, Becky, how could you think anything like that?" Mr. Adams moaned.

"Then what is this package?" exclaimed Becky. "It is so small that there cannot possibly be a hat in it."

The Adamses had come from the post office a little while ago and had not yet had time to open the parcel. It took them a long time to open it. They opened it very carefully, talking at the same time about what it could contain.

"But suppose it is my watch from Grand Canyon?" Mr. Adams suggested.

"How can it be your watch from Grand Canyon when the box was mailed in Santa Fe?"

Finally, they opened the parcel. In it lay a key with a round brass disk on which was hammered out the figure "82." "Just as I thought!" exclaimed Mrs. Adams.

"What do you mean: 'just as I thought,' Becky?" Mr. Adams asked ingratiatingly.

"Just as I thought! This is the key of our room in Grand Canyon which you sent by mistake to the Santa Fe post office, while the directions for shipping the hat you evidently sent to the Grand Canyon, to the camp. I think that the request to return your gold watch, which is I gift from me, instead of going to Grand Canyon went to Santa Fe."

"But, Becky, don't talk so rashly," Mr. Adams muttered. "Am I to blame for everything? Becky, I appeal to your sense of justice. Especially, since it is so easy to correct it all. We shall write ... Yes ... Where shall we write ? "

"First of all, we will have to return this key and this plaid blanket, which you took by mistake in Fresno."

"But, Becky, I left my binoculars in Fresno, and I should think they're more expensive than the blanket."

"All right, that means that the key goes to the Grand Canyon, the blanket goes to Fresno, and we write to Santa Fe for the watch. That is, no, we write to Grand Canyon for the watch, but before all, we write an apology to Santa Fe. Then ..."

"But what about the hat, Becky ?" Mr. Adams asked sweetly.

"Now, wait a minute, you! Yes, the hat. This is what we'll do with the hat..."

At that moment there was a knocking at the door, and into the room came a man of immense proportions—with broad thick shoulders and a large round head on which sat a small cap with a little button.

This man, evidently sensing the hugeness of his body, tried to take very short steps and to walk as quietly as possible. Nevertheless, the hardwood floor creaked under him, as if suddenly a grand piano had been rolled into the room. Having stopped, the stranger, speaking in a thin voice, said in excellent Russian:

"Good day! I have come to you from the Molokan community. Forgive my intrusion. It is a custom of ours, when anyone comes from Russia ... We extend our welcome to you and ask you to come and have tea with us. I have an automobile here, so don't worry about that."

We had heard a lot about Russian Molokans in San Francisco, torn away from their homeland, who, like the Indians, preserved their lan-guage, their habits and customs.

In five minutes Mr. Adams and the messenger of the Molokan community were friends. Mr. Adams showed good knowledge of the subject, and not once did he get the Molokans confused with the Dukhobors or the Subbotniks.

On the way to "Russian Hill," where the San Francisco Molokans live, our guide told us the history of their migration.

Long, long ago the Molokans lived on the Volga. They were oppressed by the Tsar's government, which sent priests and missionaries to them. The Molokans would not yield. Then they were moved to the Caucasus, somewhere in the region of Kars. There, too, in the new place they did exactly what they had done for ages. They raised grain. But it became more and more difficult to live. The persecutions became increasingly cruel. So the Molokans decided to forsake their native land, which had become a stepmother to them. Where could they go ? People went to America. So they, too, went to America—five hundred families of them. That was in the year 1902. How did they come to San Francisco? In one way or another. People were going to San Francisco. So they, too, went to San Francisco. Our giant who guided us seemed to be about forty years old. That meant that he had come to America as a six year-old boy. Yet, he was so decidedly Russian that it was impossible to believe that he could talk English. In America the Molokans wanted to raise grain, as was their custom. But they did not have enough money to buy the land. Thus they began to work in the port. From that time on the San Francisco Molokans have been stevedores, the purest kind of proletarians. In the city the Molokans settled apart, on a hill, gradually built small houses, built a small prayer-house which they solemnly called the "Molokan Church," built a Russian school, and the hill began to be called "Russian Hill." The October Revolution the Molokans greeted not as Molokans but as proletarians. In the first place it awakened the stevedores in them, and only after that the Molokans. For the first time in life, these people felt that they have a homeland, that it stopped being a stepmother to them. At the time of collectivization, one of the respected Molokan elders received from his nephews in the U.S.S.R. a letter in which his advice was asked about the advisability of joining a collective farm. They wrote that another Molokan elder in the U.S.S.R. tried to tell them not to enter a collective farm. And the old man, who had become less of a Molokan preacher and more of a San Francisco stevedore, in replying, advised them to join the collective. This old man told us with pride that now he frequently receives grateful letters from his nephews. When Troyanovsky came to San Francisco, and later Schmidt, the Molokans met them with flowers.