18913 A Visitor from Los Gatos 



Be that as it may, the Matadero tract was later 

 bought for Stanford by his agent in London from 

 Mademoiselle Eugenie, and as already implied, be- 

 came part of the university Campus. 



One of our early callers at Escondite was a mining 

 man from Nevada, a mineralogist of some ability, 

 who walked the twenty miles from Los Gatos where 

 he had been taking the "gold cure" to try to get 

 rid of the snakes, "jack rabbits with ribbons on Akohoik 

 their ears," and other peculiar fauna which were ■^''""'' 

 beginning to haunt him. The so-called cure was 

 apparently some salt of arsenic which exerts a 

 powerful influence on the nervous system but is 

 reputed too dangerous for ordinary use by physicians. 

 Not finding his condition improved, my acquaintance 

 had come over on a very hot day, hoping to borrow 

 money enough to reach his home in Nevada, where 

 he said he should kill himself. I gave both money 

 and sympathetic advice, but never heard from him 

 afterward. While he sat there, forlorn, dusty, and 

 soggy, Knight entered and, taking him for a real 

 man and a friend, walked up and offered to shake 

 hands. It was a long time since he had been thus 

 humanly treated, and he nearly broke down. But 

 suddenly he pulled himself together, a great change 

 came over his appearance for a moment, and I heard 

 him repeating softly the words from Dickens' little 

 poem, "The Children": 



I know now how Jesus could liken 

 The Kingdom of God to a child. 



For two years we lived picturesquely (if not with 

 entire comfort) at Escondite, and in this quaint 



C 379 3 



