Livery stable -- J. Vernon, prop.".
Coaching had declined considerably by 1905, but the sign was still there, near the old Wells Fargo building in San Francisco, creaking in the fog as it had for thirty years.
John Vernon had had all the patronage he cared for -- he had prospered, but he could not retire from horsedom.
Coaching was in his blood.
He had two interests in life: the pleasures of the table and driving.
Twice a week he drove his tallyho over the Santa Cruz road, upland and through the redwood forest, with orchards below him at one hand, and glimpses of the Pacific at the other.
The journey back he made along the coast road, traveling hell-for-leather, every lantern of the tallyho ablaze.

The southward route was the classic run in California, and the most fashionable.
His patronage on this stretch was made up largely of San Franciscans -- regulars, most of them, and trenchermen like himself.
They did not complain at the inhuman hour of starting (seven in the morning), nor of the tariff, which was reasonable since it covered everything but the tobacco.
Breakfast was at the Palace Hotel, luncheon was somewhere in the mountain forest, and dinner was either at Boulder Creek or at Santa Cruz.

Gazing too long at the scenery could be tiring, so halts were contrived between meals.
Then the Chinese hostler, who rode with Vernon on the box, would break open a hamper and produce filets of smoked bass or sturgeon, sandwiches, pickled eggs, and a rum sangaree to be heated over a spirit lamp.

In spring and in autumn the run was made for a group of botanists which included an old friend of mine.
They gathered roots, bulbs, odd ferns, leaves, and bits of resin from the rare Santa Lucia fir, which exists only on a forty-five mile strip on the westerly side of these mountains.
In the Spanish days Franciscan monks roamed here to collect the resin for incense.
It yields a fragrance as Orphic as that of the pastilles of Malabar.
Vernon was serviceable on the botanical field trips, but he could arrange no schedule with the cooks, and he was glad when the trips dropped off, and the botanists began to motor out by themselves.

My friend often breakfasted with Vernon on the morning of the regular tallyho run.
This was an honor, like dining with a captain at his private table.
Vernon's office adjoined the stable, and the walls were adorned with brightly colored lithographs, the folk art of the period.
They advertised harness polish, liniments, Ball's Rubber Boots, Green River Whiskey, Hood's Sarsaparilla, patent medicines, shoe blacking, and chewing tobacco.

The hostler would have the table ready and a pot of coffee hissing on the stove;
then a porter from Manning's Fish House would trot in with a tray on his head.
It was draped with snowy napkins that kept hot a platter of oyster salt roast and a mound of corn fritters.
Vernon was consummately fond of oysters, and Manning's had been famous for them since the Civil War.
Oyster salt roast -- oysters on the half shell, cooked on a bed of coarse salt that kept them hot when served -- was a standby at Manning's.
Its early morning patrons were coachmen, who fortified themselves for the day with that delicacy.

In the 1890's the Palace Hotel began serving an oyster dish named after its manager, John C. Kirkpatrick.
This dish much resembles the oysters Rockefeller made famous by Antoine's in New Orleans, though the Palace chef announced it as a variant of Manning's roast oysters.
(Gastronomes have long argued about which came first, the Palace's or Antoine's.
Antoine's held as mandatory a splash of absinthe or Pernod on the parsley or spinach which was used for the underbedding.
The Kirkpatrick version holds liqueur as optional.
) Vernon, however, held out for plain oyster roast, and plenty of it, unadorned by herbs or any seasoning but salt, though he did fancy a bit of lemon.

After the meal, he and his guests went out to inspect the rig;
this was merely a ritual, to please all hands concerned.
The tallyho had cost Vernon $2,300.
A replica of two coaches made in England for the Belmont Club in the East, and matchless west of the Rockies, it was the despair of whips on the Santa Cruz run.
One could shave in the reflection of its French-polished panels, and its axles were greased like those of roulette wheels.
The horses were groomed to a high gloss;
departing, they stepped solemnly with knees lifted to the jaw, for they had been trained to drag at important funerals.

But for the start of the Santa Cruz run, the whip fell.
The clients boarded the tallyho at the Palace promptly at seven.
They had been fed a hunting breakfast, so called because a kedgeree, the dish identified with fox hunting, was on the bill.
There are many ways of making a kedgeree, every one of which is right.
Here is an original kedgeree recipe from the Family Club's kitchen:

Club Kedgeree

Flake (for three) a cupful of cold boiled haddock, mix with a cupful of cooked rice, two minced hard-boiled eggs, some buttery white sauce done with cream, cayenne, pepper, salt, a pinch of curry, a tablespoonful of minced onion fried, and a bit of anchovy.
Heat and serve hot on toast.

The omelet named for Ernest Arbogast, the Palace's chef, was even more in demand.
For decades it was the most popular dish served in the Ladies' Grill at breakfast, and it is one of the few old Palace dishes that still survive.
Native California oysters, salty and piquant, as coppery as Delawares and not much larger than a five-cent piece, went into it.
The original formula goes thus:

omelet Arbogast

Fry in butter a small minced onion, rub with a tablespoonful of flour, add half a cup of cream, six beaten eggs, pepper, celery salt, a teaspoonful of minced chives, a dash of cayenne, and a pinch of nutmeg.
A jigger of dry Sherry follows, and as the mixture stiffens, in go a hundred of the little oysters.

Louis Sherry once stayed a fortnight at the Palace, and he was so pleased with omelet Arbogast that he introduced it at his restaurant in New York J. Pierpont Morgan had come in his private train to San Francisco, to attend an Episcopal convention, and brought the restaurateur with him.
As things happened, Morgan was installed in the Nob Hill residence of a magnate friend, whose kitchen swarmed with cooks of approved talent.
Sherry remained in his hotel suite, where he amused himself as best he could.
Twice he left everything to his entourage, and fled to make the Santa Cruz tour under Vernon's guidance.

In the grand court of the Palace, notable for its tiers of Moorish galleries that looked down on the maelstrom of vehicles below, Vernon's station was at the entrance.
It was a post of honor, held inviolate for him;
he had the primacy among the coachmen.
Of majestic build, rubicund and slash-mouthed, he resembled the late General Winfield Scott, who was said to be the most imposing general of his century, if not of all centuries.
Vernon wore a gray tall hat, a gardenia, and maroon Wellington boots that glistened like currant jelly.

Promptly at seven he would clatter out of the court with twelve in the tallyho.
He had style: he held his reins in a loose bunch at the third button of his checked Epsom surtout, and when the horses leaned at a curve, as if bent by the force of a gale, he leaned with them.
They cantered down the peninsula, not slackening until the coach reached Woodside where the Santa Cruz uplands begin.

The road maps of the region have changed since 1905;
inns have burned down, moved elsewhere, or taken other names.
Once on the road (and especially if the passengers were all regulars and masculine), the schedule meant nothing.
An agreeable ease suffused Vernon and the passengers of the tallyho, from which there issued clouds of smoke.
Vernon would tilt his hat over one ear as he lounged with his feet on the dashboard, indulging in a huge cigar.
The horses moved at a clump;
they were no more on parade than was their driver;
one fork of the road was as good as another.
The Santa Cruz mountains sprawl over three counties, and the roads twist through sky-tapping redwoods down whose furrowed columns ripple streams of rain, even when heat bakes the Santa Clara valley below at the left.
The water splashes into shoulder-high tracts of fernery.
You arrive there in seersucker, and feel you were half-witted not to bring a mackintosh.

Vernon kept an account book with a list of all the establishments that he thought worthy of patronage.
A number of them must have fallen into disfavor;
they were struck out with remarks in red ink, denouncing both the cooks and the management.
He was copious in his praise of those that served food that was good to eat.
The horses seemed to know these by instinct, he used to say: such places invariably had stables with superior feed bins.

There was Wright's, for one, lost amongst trees, its wide verandas strewn with rockers.
Many of its sojourners were devoted to seclusion and quiet, and lived there to the end of their days.
It was the haunt of writer Ambrose Bierce, who admired its redwoods.
Acorns from the great oaks fed the small black pigs (akin to Berkshires), whose "carcass sweepstakes" were renowned.
Their ham butts, cured in oak-log smoke, were also esteemed when roasted or boiled, and served with this original sauce:

Wright's devil sauce

;

put into a saucepan a cupful of the baked ham gravy, or of the boiled ham liquor, with a half stick of butter, three teaspoonfuls of made mustard, and two mashed garlic cloves.
Contribute also an onion, a peeled tomato and two pickled gherkins, and a mashed lime.
After this has simmered an hour, add two tablespoons each of Worcestershire, catsup, and chutney, two pickled walnuts, and a pint of Sherry.
Then simmer fifteen minutes longer.

Every winter a kegful of this sauce was made and placed at the end of a row of four other kegs in the cellar, so that when its turn came, it was properly mellowed.

Vineyards and orchards also grew around Wright's, and deer were rather a nuisance;
they leaped six-foot fences with the agility of panthers.
But no one complained when they wound up, regardless of season, in venison pies.
No one complained of the white wine either: at this altitude of two thousand feet, grapes acquire a dryness and the tang of gunflint.
(The Almaden vineyards have now climbed to this height.
) Apple trees grew there also.
Though creeks in the Santa Cruz mountains flow brimful the year round and it is forever spring, the apples that grow there have a wintry crackle.

Dwellers thereabouts preferred to get their apple pies at the local bakery, which had a brick oven fired with redwood billets.
The merit of the pie, Vernon believed, was due more to its making than to the waning heat of the oven.
The recipe, which he got from the baker, and wrote down in his ledger, is basically this:

Wright's apple pie

;

peel, core, and slice across enough apples to make a dome in the pie tin, and set aside.
In a saucepan put sufficient water to cover them, an equal amount of sugar, a sliced lemon, a tablespoonful of apricot preserve or jam, a pinch each of clove and nutmeg, and a large bay leaf.
Let this boil gently for twenty minutes, then strain.
Poach the apples in this syrup for twelve minutes, drain them, and cool.

Set the apples in the pastry-lined tin, spread over them three tablespoonfuls of softened butter, with as much brown sugar, a sprinkling of nutmeg, and a fresh bay leaf, then lay on a cover of pastry, and gild it with beaten yolk of egg.