When the
change was made and for what reason, who suggested it and under what
authority, were not easy to determine, as the sign on his former store
had borne nothing but the legend, Goods and Provisions, and his name did
not appear on written record until after the occupation of Tasajara;
but it is presumed that it was at the instigation of his daughters, and
there was no one to oppose it. Harcourt was a pretty name for a street,
a square, or a hotel; even the few in Sidon who had called it Harkutt
admitted that it was an improvement quite consistent with the change
from the fever-haunted tules and sedges of the creek to the broad,
level, and handsome squares of Tasajara City.
This might have been the opinion of a visitor at the Harcourt House, who
arrived one summer afternoon from the Stockton boat, but whose shrewd,
half-critical, half-professional eyes and quiet questionings betrayed
some previous knowledge of the locality. Seated on the broad veranda
of the Harcourt House, and gazing out on the well-kept green and young
eucalyptus trees of the Harcourt Square or Plaza, he had elicited a
counter question from a prosperous-looking citizen who had been lounging
at his side.
"I reckon you look ez if you might have been here before, stranger."
"Yes," said the stranger quietly, "I have been. But it was when the
tules grew in the square opposite, and the tide of the creek washed
them.
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