J—— dubbed it "El rancho goato" at once. Our friends in the East were delighted with the idea, and many were their gibes. One in particular always added something to the address of his letters for the guide or diversion of the R. F. D. postman: "Route 2, Box so-and-so, you can tell the place by the goats"; or during the spring floods this appeared in one corner of the envelope: "Were the goats above high water?"

It wasn't just an ordinary farm. There was a certain something—I think the names of the goats had a lot to do with it—Corella, Coila, Babette, Elfa, Viva, Lorine, and so on, or perhaps it was the devotion of their mistress, who expended the love and care of a very large heart on a family that I think appreciated it as far as goats are capable of appreciation. If she was a little late coming home (she had a tiny shack on one corner of the place) they would be waiting at the gate calling plaintively. There is a plaintive tone about everything a goat has to say. In his cot on the porch J—— composed some verses one morning early—I forget them except for two lines:

"The plaintive note of a querulous goat Over my senses seems to float."

Of course that was the difficulty—creatures of one kind or another do not lie abed late. Our Sabine Farm was surrounded by others and there was a neighborhood hymn to the dawn that it took us some time to really enjoy—if we ever did. Sopranos—roosters; altos—pigeons, and ducks; tenors—goats; bassos—cows, and one donkey. There was nothing missing to make a full, rich volume of sound. Of course there is no place where it is so difficult to get a long, refreshing night's sleep as the country.

One rarely comes through any new experience with all one's preconceived ideas intact. Our first season on the Sabine Farm shattered a number of mine. I had always supposed that a mocking-bird, like a garden, was "a lovesome thing, God wot." Romantic—just one step below a nightingale!

There was a thicket of bamboos close to my window, and every night all the young mocking-birds gathered there to try out their voices. It was partly elocutionary and partly vocal, but almost entirely exercises—rarely did they favor me with a real song. This would go on for some time, then just as I dared to hope that lessons were over, another burst of ill-assorted trills and shrills would rouse me to fury. I kept three pairs of boots in a convenient place, and hurled them into the bamboos, paying the boys a small reward for retrieving them each morning. Sometimes, if my aim was good, a kind of wondering silence lasted long enough for me to fall asleep. There is an old song—we all know it—that runs:

"She's sleeping in the valley, etc., etc., And the mocking-bird is singing where she lies."

That, of course, would be impossible if the poor little thing hadn't been dead.

By day I really enjoyed them. To sit in the garden, which smelled like a perpetual wedding, reading Lafcadio Hearn and listening to mocking-birds and linnets, would have undermined my New England upbringing very quickly, had I had time to indulge often in such a lotus-eating existence.

Then there was "Boost." He was a small bantam rooster, beloved of our landlady, which really proves nothing because she was such a tender-hearted person that she loved every dumb creature that wandered to her door. Had Boost been dumb I might have loved him too. He had a voice like the noise a small boy can make with a tin can and a resined string. He had a malevolent eye and knew that I detested him, so that he took especial pains to crow under my windows, generally about an hour after the mocking-birds stopped. I think living with a lot of big hens and roosters told on his nervous system, and he took it out on me. Great self-restraint did I exercise in not wringing his neck, when help came from an unexpected quarter. Boost had spirit—I grant him that—and one day he evidently forgot that he wasn't a full-sized bird, and was reproved by the Sultan of the poultry-yard in such a way that he was found almost dead of his wounds. Dear Miss W——'s heart was quite broken. She fed him brandy and anointed him with healing lotions, but to no avail. He died. I had felt much torn and rather doublefaced in my inquiries for the sufferer, because I was so terribly afraid he might get well, so it was a great relief when he was safely buried in the back lot.

Though I love animals I have had bloodthirsty moments of feeling that the only possible way to enjoy pets was to have them like those wooden Japanese eggs which fit into each other. If you have white mice or a canary, have a cat to contain the canary, and a dog to reckon with the cat. Further up in the scale the matter is more difficult, of course. One of our "best seller" manufacturers, in his early original days, wrote a delightful tale. In it he said: "A Cheetah is a yellow streak full of people's pet dogs," so perhaps that is the answer. The ultimate cheetah would, of course, have to be shot and stuffed, as it would hardly be possible to have a wild-cat lounging about the place. I think the idea has possibilities. So many of our plans are determined by pets. "No, we can't close the house and go motoring for a week, because there is no one with whom to leave the puppies." "Yes, we rented our house to Mrs. S—— for less than we expected to get for it, because she is so fond of cats and promised to take good care of Pom Pom"—which recalls to my mind a dear little girl who had a white kitten that she was entrusting to a neighbor. The neighbor, a busy person with eight children, received the kitten without demonstration of any kind. Little Lydia looked at her for a few moments and then said, "Mrs. F——, that kitten must be loved." That is really the trouble, not only must they be loved, but they are loved and then the pull on your heart-strings begins. We have a pair of twin silver-haired Yorkshire terriers, who are an intimate part of our family circle. I sometimes feel like a friend of mine in San Francisco, who has a marvellous Chinese cook, and says she hopes she will die before Li does. I hope "Rags" and "Tags" will live as long as I do—and yet they are a perfect pest. If they are outdoors they want to come in, or vice versa. It is practically impossible to sneak off in the motor without their escort and they bark at my best callers. Since they made substantial sums of money begging for the Red Cross, they have added a taste for publicity to their other insistent qualities and come into the drawing-room, and sit up in front of whoever may be calling, with a view to sugar and petting. And the worst of it is I can't maintain discipline at all. Rags has had to be anointed with a salve compounded of tar and sulphur. It is an indignity and quite crushes his spirit, so that after it has been put on he wishes to sit close to me for comfort. The result is that I become like a winter overcoat just emerging from moth-balls rather than hurt his feelings. Of course it makes some difference whether the pet that is annoying you belongs to you or a neighbor. I doubt whether I could have loved Boost, however, even if I had known him from the shell.

In spite of these various drawbacks we led a most happy life. It was so easy. The bungalow was so attractively furnished; our own oranges and limes grew at the door. There was just room for us with nothing to spare, that had to be kept in order, and our landlady was as different from the cold-hearted ones we had known as the bankers and real-estate men. She seemed to be always trying to think of what we might need, and to provide it. Dear Miss W——, she will never be a good business woman from the world's point of view; she is too generous and too unselfish! We all loved her. Many were the hours I inveigled her into wasting while we sat on bales of the goats' hay and discussed life and the affairs of the country—but mostly life with its curious twists and turns—its generosities and its stinginesses. The boys spent their time in the goat-pen making friends of the little kids, whose various advents added so much interest to the spring, and learning much from Miss W——, whose attitude towards life was so sane and wholesome for them to know.

"Buckaboo," the only buck on the ranch when we came, was a dashing young creature, prancing about and kicking up his heels for the pure joy of living. Joedy informed J—— that he reminded him of him, "only in a goat way, father"—a tribute to the light-heartedness that California had already brought to at least one member of the family.

If our Sabine Farm's vocation was goats, its avocation was surely roses. We were literally smothered in them. A Cecil Brunner with its perfect little buds, so heavily perfumed, covered one corner of the house. The Lady Bankshire, with its delicate yellow blossoms, roofed our porch, and the glorious Gold of Ophir, so thorny and with little fragrance, concealed our laundry from the road. There was a garden of bush roses of all kinds to cut for the house, and the crowning glory of all was a hedge of "Tausend Schoen," growing luxuriantly, and a blaze of bloom in May. After years of illness and worry, it was good to feel life coming back joyously in a kind of haven—or heaven—of roses.



THE LAND OF WHYNOT

When Alice stepped through the looking-glass and ran out into that most alluring garden, she must have felt much as I did long ago when I stepped off the Santa Fe Limited and found myself in Southern California for the first time! It isn't just the palm trees and the sunshine, though they are part of the charm. It isn't even the mocking-birds and the orange blossoms altogether. It is something you can't really put your finger on, that lures you from your old habits and associations. At first you are simply glad that you have left the cold and snow behind you, and that the earth is so sweet with flowers, and then you begin to find a new world of possibilities. There are all sorts of little garden gates with golden keys on glass tables, and you set about growing shorter or taller, as the case may be, to make yourself a proper height to reach the key and slip through the door. You don't even need to hurry, if you are firm about not grasping the hand of any Red Queen that may come your way, and yet it isn't a land of manana; it's a land of "Why Not?" The magic has nothing to do with one's age; I feel it now even more than I did twenty years ago, and Grandmother felt it at eighty just as I did at eighteen. Ulysses could have himself lashed to the mast and snap his fingers at the Sirens, but I know of no protection against the Southwest except to somehow close the shutters of your imagination. However, let me not be a Calvinist; because it is enchanting, why should I fear it?

I shall never forget my first experience of the spell. I was invited by my Grandmother to go to California for several months. There were four of us, and we were all tired, for one reason or another; Grandmother because she was eighty, and it's a strenuous matter to live eighty years; my Aunt because she had been desperately ill; C. C. because she had nursed my Aunt back to comparative health, and I because I had been a debutante that winter, and every one knows that that is the hardest work of all. We went as far south as the train would take us, and settled ourselves at Coronado to bask in the sunshine until the tiredness was gone and we became a band of explorers, with the world before us! A pair of buggies drawn by nags of unblemished reputation for sagacity and decorum, driven by C. C. and me, carried us over many a picturesque and rough road. It invariably took us all day to get anywhere and back, irrespective of what the distance was supposed to be. The outfit was so old that I often had to draw up my steed and mend the harness with a safety-pin. Trailing Ramona was our favorite game. Fortunately for that part of the country, she and Allessandro managed to be born, or sleep, or marry, or die in pretty nearly every little settlement, ranch, or mission in San Diego County, and it's a great boon to the country. Now, of course, with a motor you can cover the ground in a day, but then, with a guaranteed horse and a safety-pinned harness, Ramona was good for weeks.

We usually took a picnic lunch, and it was on one of these trips that I first saw the Smiling Hill-Top and knew it not for my later love. How often that happens! Jogging home, with the reins slack on the placid mare's back, Grandmother liked me to sing "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms" and "Araby's Daughter," showing that she was a good deal under the spell of the palm trees and the sunset, for I have the voice of a lost kitten. It also shows the perfect self-control of the horse, for no accidents occurred.

It was a very different Coronado from the present day, with its motors on earth and water, and in air. I liked ours better and hated to leave it, but after six weeks of its glory of sunshine I was deputed to go north to Pasadena to rent a bungalow for two months. It was my first attempt of the kind, and aided by a cousin into whose care I had been confided, I succeeded in reducing the rent twenty-five dollars a month for a pretty cottage smothered in roses and heliotropes and well supplied with orange and lemon trees. I was rather pleased with myself as a business woman. Not so Grandmother. She was thoroughly indignant and announced her firm intention of paying the original rent asked, a phenomenon that so surprised our landlord, when I told him, that he insisted on scrubbing the kitchen floor personally, the day of her arrival. Thus did Raleigh lay down his cloak for the Queen!

Everything was lovely. It only rained once that spring—the morning after we had gone up Mount Lowe to see the sun rise, to be sure, but it would be a carping creature who would complain when only one expedition had been dampened. For twenty years I cherished the illusion that this was a land of endless sunshine. I don't know where I thought the moisture came from that produces the almost tropical luxuriance of the gardens and the groves. I know better now and, strange to say, I have come to love a rain in its proper time and place, if it isn't too boisterous. We discovered a veteran of the Civil War turned liveryman, who for a paltry consideration in cash was ours every afternoon, and showed us something new each day, from racing horses on the Lucky Baldwin Ranch to the shadow of a spread eagle on a rock. Grandmother's favorite excursion was to a picturesque winery set in vineyards and shaded by eucalyptus trees. She was what I should call a wine-jelly, plum-pudding prohibitionist, and she included tastes of port and fruit cordials as part of the sight-seeing to be done. You can be pretty at eighty, which is consoling to know. Grandmother, with a little curl over each ear and the pink born of these "tastes" proved it, and she wouldn't let us tease her about it either. It was an easy life, and so fascinating that I even said to myself, "Why not learn to play the guitar?" for nothing seemed impossible. It shows how thoroughly drugged I was by this time, for my Creator wholly omitted to supply me with a musical ear. I always had to have my instrument tuned by the young man next door, but I learned to play "My Old Kentucky Home" so that every one recognized it. Now, if years had not taught me some fundamental facts about my limitations, I should probably render twilight hideous with a ukelele, for a ukelele goes a guitar one better, and Aloha oee wailed languorously on that instrument would make even a Quaker relax.

It was in the late spring that the Great Idea came to Aunty and me. I don't know which of us was really responsible for it, and there was a time when neither of us would own it. A course in small "Why Nots?" made it come quite naturally at the last. Why shouldn't we drive into the Yosemite Valley before we went home? By the end of May it would be at its loveliest, with the melted snows from the mountains filling its streams and making a rushing, spraying glory of its falls. It did seem a pity to be so near one of the loveliest places on earth and to miss seeing it. Aunty and I discussed the matter dispassionately under a palm tree in the back yard. We honestly concluded that it wouldn't hurt Grandmother a bit, that it might even do her good, so we began to put out a few conversational feelers, and the next thing we knew she was claiming the idea as her own and inviting us to accompany her! In her early married life she was once heard to say to Grandfather, "Edwin, I have made up our minds." So you can see that Aunty and I were as clay in her hands! Where we made our great mistake was in writing to the rest of the family about our plans until after we had started. They became quite abusive in their excitement. Were we crazy? Had we forgotten Grandmother's age? What was C. C., a trained nurse, about, to let a little delicate old lady take such a trip? They were much shocked. We had to admit her age, but Aunty and I weren't so sure about her delicacy, and anyway her mind was made up, so we burned their telegrams and packed the bags.

It happened twenty years ago, but I can see her sitting in a rocking-chair on the piazza of Leidig's Hotel in Raymond, surrounded by miners, all courteously editing their conversation and chewing tobacco as placidly as a herd of cows, while Grandmother, the only person whose feet were not elevated to the railing, rocked gently and smiled. Of course we planned to make the trip as easy as possible, and had engaged a spring wagon so that we could take more time than the stage, which naturally had to live up to a Bret Harte standard. We made an early start from Raymond after a rather troubled night at Leidig's Hotel. You hear strange sounds in a mining camp after dark. Every one in town saw us off, as Grandmother was already popular, and looked on as rather a sporting character. Al Stevens, who drove us, was a bitter disappointment to me, not looking in the least romantic or like the hero of a Western story. I shan't even describe him, except to say that he smoked most evil-smelling cigars, the bouquet of which blew back into our faces and spoiled the pure mountain air, but we didn't dare say a word, for fear that he might lash his horses round some hair-pin curve and scare us to death, even if we didn't actually go over the edge. I don't think he would really have rushed to extremes, for he turned out to be distinctly amiable, and our picnic lunches, eaten near some mountain spring, were partaken of most sociably and Al Stevens didn't always smoke. How good everything tasted! I don't believe I have ever really enjoyed apple pie with a fork as I enjoyed it sitting on a log with a generous wedge in one hand and a hearty morsel of mouse-trap cheese in the other.

We spent three days driving into the valley, staying at delightful inns over night, and stopping when we pleased, to pick flowers, for wonderful ones grow beside the road; Mariposa tulips with their spotted butterfly wings, fairy lanterns, all the shades of blue lupin, and on our detour to see the big trees I found a snow-plant, which looks like a blossom carved out of watermelon—pink and luscious! It is hard to realize how big the big trees are! Like St. Peter's, they are so wonderfully proportioned you can't appreciate their height, but I do know that they would be just a little more than my tree-climbing sons would care to tackle. Stevens was a good driver and approved of our appreciation of "his" scenery, and I think he was proud of Grandmother, who really stood the trip wonderfully well. At last came the great moment when a bend in the road would disclose the valley with its silver peaks, its golden-brown river, and its rainbow-spanned falls. We had never suspected it, but Stevens was an epicure in beauty. He insisted on our closing our eyes till we came to just the spot where the view was most perfect, and then he drew in his horses, gave the word, and we looked on a valley as lovely as a dream. I am glad that we saw it as we did, after a long prelude of shaded roads and sentinel trees. Nowadays you rush to it madly by train and motor. Then it was a dear secret hidden away in the heart of the forest.

We spent five days at the hotel by the Merced River, feasting on beauty and mountain trout, and lulled by the murmur of that gentle stream. Moonlight illumined the whiteness of the Yosemite Falls in full view of the hotel verandah as it makes the double leap down a dark gorge. We could see a great deal with very little effort, but after a day or two I began to look longingly upward toward the mountain trails. At last a chance came, and "Why Not" led me to embrace it. A wholesale milliner from Los Angeles invited me to join his party. We had seen him at various places along our way, so that it was not entirely out of a clear sky. He was wall-eyed—if that is the opposite of cross-eyed—which gave him so decidedly rakish a look that it was some time before I could persuade my conservative relatives that it would be safe for me to accept the invitation, but as the party numbered ten, mostly female, they finally gave me their blessing. Being the last comer, and the mules being all occupied, I had to take a horse, which I was sorry for, as they aren't supposed to be quite as sure-footed on the trail. The party all urged me to be cautious, with such emphasis that I began to wonder if I had been wise to come, when Charley, our guide, told me not to pay any attention to them, that I had the best mount of the whole train. Charley, by the way, was all that Al Stevens was not, and added the note of picturesqueness and romance which my soul had been craving. He was young, blond, and dressed for the part, and would have entranced a moving-picture company! The wholesale milliner called me "Miss Black Eyes," and was so genial in manner that I joined Charley at the end of the parade and heard stories of his life which may or may not have been true. Every now and then Jesse James, an especially independent mule, would pause, and with deliberation and vigor kick at an inaccessible fly on the hinder parts of his person, while his rider shrieked loudly for help, and the procession halted till calm was restored. At last we reached the end of the trail. Somewhere I have a snap-shot of myself standing on Glacier Point, that rock that juts out over the valley, clinging to Charley's hand, for I found that standing there with the snow falling, looking down thousands of feet, made me crave a hand to keep the snowflakes from drawing me down. The wholesale milliner and the rest considered me a reckless soul, and many were the falsetto shrieks they emitted if I went within ten feet of the edge of the precipice. They did not realize the insurance and assurance of Charley's hand.

Of course I endured the anguish of a first horseback ride for the next day or two, but it was worth it, and by the time we were ready to start for home I could sit down quite comfortably. The trip was accomplished without a jolt or jog sufficient to disarrange Grandmother's curls. Aunty and I were always so thankful that we defied the family and let her have her last adventure, for soon afterward her mind began to grow dim. For myself, I treasure the memory both for her sake, and because I can't climb trails myself any more, and that is something I didn't miss. Was it Schopenhauer or George Ade who said, "What you've had you've got"?

Twenty years later another party of four, consisting of a husband and two boys, were led by a lady Moses into the promised land, and were met by an old friend, the Civil War veteran, with a motor instead of his pair of black horses! He was too old to drive, but he had come to welcome me back. Billie and Joedy were thrilled. They adored the tales of his twelve battles and the hole in his knee, even more than their mother had before them, being younger and boys. It was as lovely a land as I had remembered it, only, of course, there were changes. The motor showed that. I should not say that the tempo of life had been quickened so much as that its radius had been widened, or that the focus was different; the old spell was the same. To reconcile the past and the present, I have thought of a beautiful compromise. Why not a motor van? The family jeered at me when I first suggested that we spend J——'s next vacation meandering up the coast in one. Of course, the boys adored the idea at first, but sober second thoughts for mother made them pause.

Billie: "But, Muvs, you'd hate it, you couldn't have a box spring!"

Joedy: "And you don't like to wash dishes."

Quite true. I had thought of all that myself. I don't like to wash dishes, but we use far more than we really need to use, and anyway I had rather decided that I wouldn't wash them. As to the bed-spring, I could have an air mattress, for while it's a little like sleeping on a captive balloon, it doesn't irritate your bones like a camp cot.

The family distrust of me, as a vagabond, dates from a camping trip last August to celebrate Billie's twelfth birthday. It lasted only one night, so "trip" is a large word to apply to it, but I will say that for one night it had all the time there could be squeezed into it. We selected a site on the beach almost within hallooing distance of the Smiling Hill-Top, borrowed a tent and made camp. I loved the fire and frying the bacon and the beat of the waves, but I did not like the smell of the tent. It was stuffy. I had been generously given that shelter for my own, while the male members of the party slept by a log (not like one, J—— confessed to me) under a tarpaulin—I mean "tarp"—with stars above them except when obscured by fog. My cot was short and low and I am not, so that I spent the night tucking in the blankets. The puppies enjoyed it all thoroughly. Though they must have been surprised by the sudden democratic intimacy of the situation, they are opportunists and curled themselves in, on, and about my softer portions, so that I had to push them out every time I wanted to turn over, which was frequently. I urged them to join the rest of the party under the "tarp," but they were firm, as they weren't minding the hardness of the cot, and they don't care especially about ventilation. I greeted the dawn with heartfelt thanksgiving, and yet I'm as keen about my vacation idea as ever. I have simply learned what to do and what not to do, and it won't matter to me in the least whether my ways are those of a tenderfoot or not. Why not be comfortable physically as well as spiritually? Think of the independence of it! To be able to sit at the feet of any view that you fancy till you are ready to move on! Doesn't that amount to "free will"? Yes, I am resolved to try it out and Billie says if I make up my mind to something I generally get my way (being descended from Grandmother probably accounts for it), so if you should see a rather fat, lazy green van with "Why not?" painted over the back door, you may know that two grown vagabonds, two young vagabonds, and two vagabond pups, are on the trail following the gypsy patteran.



WHERE THE TRADE WIND BLOWS

Mr. Jones meets his friend, Mr. Brown:

"Surprised to see that your house is for sale, Brown."

"Oh—er—yes" replies Brown; "that is, I don't know. I keep that sign up on the lawn." Then with a burst of confidence: "Mrs. Brown meets so many nice people that way, don't you know!"

So it is that we have a reputation for being willing to sell anything in California, even our souls. Of course, it isn't at all necessary to have a sign displaying "For Sale" to have constant inquiries as to the price of your place. After the days of "The Sabine Farm" were only a lovely memory, we bought a bungalow in Pasadena, or, rather, we are buying it on the instalment plan. It is really an adorable little place with a very flowery garden, surrounded by arbors covered with roses, wistaria, and jasmine (I think I should say we have been very fortunate in our dwelling-places since we emigrated), and passers-by usually stop and comment favorably. Young men bring their girls and show them the sort of little place they'd like to own, and often they ring the door-bell for further inquiries. Driven to bay, I have put a price of half a million on our tiny estate. When I mention this, the investigators usually retreat hastily, looking anxiously over their shoulders to see if my keeper is anywhere in sight. As to the real-estate men, they are more in number than the sands of the sea, and the competition is razor-edged. If you have the dimmest idea of ever buying a lot or house, or if you are comfortably without principle, you won't need to keep a motor at all. The real-estate men will see that you get lots of fresh air, and they are most obliging about letting you do your marketing on the way home. We have an especial friend in the business. He never loses hope, or his temper. It was he that originally found us "The Sabine Farm." He let us live there in peace till we were rested, for which we are eternally grateful, and then he began to throw out unsettling remarks. The boys ought to have a place to call home where they could grow up with associations. Wasn't it foolish to pay rent when we might be applying that money toward the purchase of a house? Of course it told on us in time and we began to look about. "The Sabine Farm" would not do, as it was too far from J——'s business, and the lotus-flower existence of our first two years was ours no longer. Every lot we looked at had irresistible attractions, and insurmountable objections. At last, however, we settled on a piece of land looking toward the mountains, with orange trees on either hand, paid a part of the price, and supposed it was ours for better or worse. Just then the war darkened and we felt panicky, but heaven helped us, for there was a flaw in the title, and our money came trotting back to us, wagging its tail. It was after this that we stumbled on the arbored bungalow, and bought it in fifteen minutes. I asked Mr. W—— if he liked bass fishing, and whether he'd ever found one gamier to land than our family. He will probably let us live quietly for a little while, and then he will undoubtedly tell us that this place is too small for us. I know him!

In case of death or bankruptcy the situation is much more intense. Every mouse hole has its alert whiskered watcher, and after a delay of a few days for decency, such pressure is brought to bear that surviving relatives rarely have the courage to stand pat. Probably a change of surroundings is good for them.

If people can't be induced to sell, often they will rent. There is an eccentric old woman in town who owns a most lovely lot, beautifully planted, that is the hope and snare of every real-estate man, but, though poor, she will not part with it. She has a house, however, that she rents in the season. One day some Eastern people were looking at it, and timidly said that one bath-room seemed rather scant for so large a house.

"Oh, do you think so?" said Mrs. Riddle. "It is enough for us. Mr. Riddle and I aren't what you'd call bathers. In fact, Mr. Riddle doesn't bathe at all; I sponge!"

Real estate isn't the only interest of the West. We all read the advertising page of the local paper just as eagerly as we do the foreign news. If I feel at all lonely or bored I generally advertise for something. Once I wanted a high-school boy to drive the motor three afternoons a week. The paper was still moist from the press when my applicants began to telephone. I took their names and gave them appointments at ten-minute intervals all the following morning, only plugging the telephone when J—— and I felt we must have some sleep. In the morning, forgetting the little wad of paper we had placed in the bell, I took down the receiver to call the market, when a tired voice started as if I had pressed a button:

"I saw your 'ad' in the paper last night, etc." When they arrived they ranged in age from sixteen to sixty. The latter was a retired clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Bain, who said he drove for his wife, but (here he fitted his finger-tips together, and worked them back and forth in a manner that was a blend of jauntiness and cordiality) he thought he could fit us both in!

I blush to state that I selected a younger chauffeur! Emboldened by the success of my first advertising venture, I decided to try again. This time I wished to sell our superfluous old furniture. The war has made me dislike anything about the place that isn't really in use. Having lived some years in Pennsylvania, and having amassed quite a collection of antique mahogany furniture, I felt justified in thinning out a few tables and odd pieces that our desirable bungalow is too small to hold. The results weren't as pronounced as before, but they quite repaid me. I sold my best table to a general, which gave me a lot of confidence, but my greatest triumph was a hat-rack. It was a barren, gaunt-looking affair, like a leafless tree in winter, but it was mahogany, and it was old. Two ladies who were excitedly buying tables spied it, and exclaimed in rapture. I rose to the occasion:

"That is the most unusual piece I have," I unblushingly gushed. "It is solid mahogany and very old. I never saw another like it. Yes, I would sell it for twenty-five dollars."

They both wanted it—I was almost afraid it might make feeling between them, till I soothed the loser by selling her an old brass tea-kettle that I had picked up in a curiosity shop in Oxford years ago. It was so old that it had a hole in it, which seemed to clinch the matter. I sent for the packer the moment they were out of the house, and had the things boxed and away before they could change their minds. When I showed J—— the money, he said I was wasting my time writing, that he was sure I had a larger destiny.

Speaking of having furniture boxed carries me back to the time when we lived in Pennsylvania and I bought many things of a pleasant old rascal who just managed to keep out of jail. One time he showed me a lovely old table of that ruddy glowing mahogany that adds so much to a room. I said I would take it, but told him not to send it home till afternoon. I wanted time to break it to J—— after a good luncheon. J—— was very amiable and approving, and urged me to have it sent up, so I went down to the shop to see about it. To my dismay I found it neatly crated and just being loaded into a wagon. I called frantically to my rascally friend, who tried to slip out of the back door unobserved, but in vain. I fixed him with an accusing eye.

"What are you doing with my table?" I demanded.

"Did you really want it?" he queried.

"Of course I want it. Didn't I say I'd take it?" I was annoyed.

"Oh, well," to his men, "take it off, boys." "You see," turning to me, "a man from Seattle was in after you left, and he said he'd take that round table over there if I'd sell him this one too. I showed him another one every bit as good as this, but he wouldn't look at it; still, I guess I'll box it up in that crate with his round one, and when it gets to Seattle I reckon he won't want to send it way back. It's a long way to Seattle!"

"That's your business, not mine," I remarked coldly, though I felt an unholy desire to laugh. "Just send mine home before any one else tempts you."

I still sleep in a Hepplewhite four-poster that he wheedled out of an old Pennsylvania Dutch woman for a mere song. The posts at the head were sawed off so that the bed could stand in a room with a sloping ceiling, but, fortunately, the thrifty owner had saved the pieces instead of using them for firewood, so I have had them neatly stuck on again.

I think perhaps a subconscious recollection of his methods was what made me so successful with the hat-rack.

War work has brought out much latent ability of this kind. Lilies of the field, who had never needed to toil or spin for themselves, were glad to do so for the Red Cross. In Pasadena we had a small Spanish street (inside a building), with tiny shops on either side, where you could buy anything from an oil painting to a summer hat. In front was a gay little plaza with vines and a fountain, where lunch and tea were served by the prettiest girls in town in bewitching frilled caps with long black streamers and sheer lawn aprons over blue and green frocks. The Tired Business Men declined to lunch anywhere else, and there was a moment when we feared it might have to be given up, as there was some feeling in town on account of the vacant stools at their old-time counters! It all went to prove that you don't need to be brought up in "trade" to be a great success at it.

No one has stuck to his or her usual role in the past two years, which has added a piquancy to life. We have all wanted to do our bit and the "Why not?" that I feel so strongly in California has spread over the whole country. In order to make the most efficient use of the newly discovered talents on every side, the Red Cross sent out cards with blanks to be filled by all those ready to work, asking what they felt themselves fitted to do, when could they work, and how long. One card read "willing but nervous, might possibly pray."

Our Red Cross Street brought in many people full of enthusiasm and energy, who might never have rolled a bandage. I shan't soon forget the strenuous days of its opening. J—— and another diplomat, who also has a talent for pouring oil on troubled waters, were in charge of the financial part of the enterprise, and theirs was the task of seeing that none of the chapter funds were used, so that no possible criticism could arise. A pretty young actress offered to give a premiere of a comedy which she was about to take on the road, for the benefit of the street, and every one was delighted until they saw a rehearsal. It was one of those estranged-husband-one-cocktail-too-many farces, full of innuendo and profanity. J—— and his partner were much upset, but it was too late to withdraw. The company, in deference to the Red Cross, agreed to leave out everything but the plain damns. Even then it wasn't what they would have chosen, and two very depressed "angels" met in the hall of the High School Auditorium, on the night of the performance. Nothing had gone right. The tickets were late coming from the printer, the advertising man had had tonsilitis, every one was "fed up" with Red Cross entertainments, and it was pouring in torrents. There was a sprinkling of gallant souls on the first floor of the big hall, and that was all. The fact that they wouldn't make much money wasn't what was agitating the "angels" nearly as much as the wrath of the pink-and-white lady about to appear. Then came the inspiration. I wish I could say it was J——'s idea, but it was Mr. M——'s. A night school of several hundred is in session in that building every evening, and a cordial invitation to see a play free brought the whole four hundred in a body to fill the auditorium, if not completely, at least creditably. They loved it and were loud in their applause. The "damns" didn't bother them a bit. They encored the lady, which, combined with a mammoth bouquet, provided by the "management," gave the whole thing quite a triumphant air. When we all went behind the scenes after the play, the atmosphere was really balmy. The lady expressed herself as greatly pleased and gratified by so large and enthusiastic an audience. ("On such a bad night, too!") I retired behind a bit of scenery and pinched myself till I felt less hilarious. One thing I know, and that is that if J—— should ever change his business it won't be to go into any theatrical enterprise. I don't think even the "movies" could lure him, and yet she was a very pretty actress!

It is a far cry from blonde stars to funerals, but J—— feels no change of subject, however abrupt, is out of place when talking of his "first night," so I would like to say a few words about that branch of California business. In the first place, no one ever dies out here until they are over eighty, unless they are run over or meet with some other accident. J—— says that old ladies in the seventies, driving electrics, are the worst menace to life that we have. When our four-score years and ten have been lived—probably a few extra for good measure—an end must come, but a California funeral is so different! A Los Angeles paper advertises "Perfect Funerals at Trust Prices." We often meet them bowling gayly along the boulevards, the motor hearse maintaining a lively pace, which the mourners are expected to follow. The nearest J—— ever came to an accident was suddenly meeting one on the wrong side of the road, and the funeral chauffeur's language was not any more scriptural than J——'s. As we were nowhere near eighty, we felt we had a lot of life still coming to us and gave grateful thanks for our escape.

Life is a good thing. I maintain it in the face of pessimists, but it is a particularly good thing in California, with its sunshine and its possibilities. I shan't go on because I believe I have said something of this same sort before. It makes you ready for the next thing, whatever that may be, and you feel pretty sure that it will be interesting. It's a kind of perpetual "night before Christmas" feeling. Some time ago when I picked up my evening paper my eye fell on this advertisement:

"Wanted: A third partner in a well-established trading business in the South Seas. Schooner now fitting out in San Francisco to visit the Islands for cargo of copra, pearls, sandalwood, spices, etc. Woman of forty or over would be considered for clerical side of enterprise, with headquarters on one of the islands. This is a strictly business proposition—no one with sentiment need apply."

When I read it first I couldn't believe it. I rubbed my eyes and read it again. There it was next to the Belgian hares, the bargains in orange groves and the rebuilt automobiles. It was fairly reeking with romance. I felt like finding an understudy for my job at home, boarding the schooner and sailing blithely out of the Golden Gate. The South Seas is the next stop beyond Southern California. I think I could keep their old books, though I never took any prizes in arithmetic at school. How amusing it would be to enter in my ledger instead of "two dozen eggs" and "three pounds of butter," "two dozen pearls at so much a dozen" (or would they be entered by ounces?) and "fifty pounds of sandalwood," or should I reckon that by cords? I could find out later. I would wear my large tortoise-shell spectacles (possibly blinders in addition), and I should attend strictly to business for a while, but when a full moon rose over a South Sea lagoon, and the palm trees rustled and the phosphorescence broke in silver on the bow of the pearl schooner, where she rode at anchor in our little bay, could I keep my contract and avoid sentiment? How ridiculous to suppose that stipulating that the lady should be forty or over would make any difference! What is forty? If they had said that she must be a cross-eyed spinster with a hare-lip, it would have been more to the point. I'm not a spinster or cross-eyed, but why go on? I don't intend to commit myself about the age limit. I don't have to, because I am not going to apply for the position, after all. I have a South Sea temperament but as it is securely yoked to a New England upbringing, the trade wind will only blow the sails of my imagination to that sandalwood port.



SUNKIST

We saw a most amusing farce some time ago which contained much interesting information concerning the worth of advertising. I forget the fabulous figure at which "The Gold Dust Twins" trade-mark is valued, but I know that it easily puts them into Charley Chaplin's class. I am sure that "Sunkist" cannot be far behind the "Twins," for no single word could possibly suggest a more luscious, delectable, and desirable fruit than that. It would even take the curse off being a lemon to be a "Sunkist" lemon. It contains no hint of the perilous early life of an orange. Truly that life is more chancey than an aviator's. They say that in the good old days there were no frosts, but that irrigation is gradually changing the climate of Southern California. We would not dare to express an opinion on this much discussed point, as we have never gone to any new place where the climate has been able to stand the shock. It is always an unusual season. I do know, however, that bringing up a crop of oranges is as anxious an undertaking as "raising" a family. Little black smudge pots stand in rows in the groves, ready to be lighted at the first hint of frost. The admonition of the hymn applies to fruit growers as well as to foolish virgins:

"See that your lamps are burning, Your vessels filled with oil."

On sharp mornings the valleys are full of a gray haze still lingering protectingly over the ranches. Then there are blights. I don't pretend to know all the ills the orange is heir to. Sometimes it grows too fat and juicy and cracks its skin, and sometimes it is attacked by scale. Every tree has to be swathed in a voluminous sheet and fumigated once a year at great expense. After living out here some time, I began to understand why even in the heart of the orange country we sometimes pay fifty cents a dozen for the large fruit. There is a way, however, of getting around the high cost of living in this particular—you can go to a packing house and buy for thirty-five cents an entire box of what are called culls—oranges too large or too small for shipping, or with some slight imperfection that would not stand transportation, but are as good for most purposes as the "Sunkist" themselves.

In California, Orange Day is next in importance to Washington's Birthday and the Fourth of July. I shall never forget our first experience of its charms. We were motoring, taking a last jaunt in an old machine which we had just sold for more than we ever had expected to get for it. It was a reckless thing to do, for we had no spare tire and it is very like speculating in oil stocks to start for a run of any length under those circumstances. It worked out about as it would have done if we had been trifling with the stock market. A rear tire blew out, and we were put under the disagreeable necessity of giving our purchaser more nearly his money's worth. This was a poor start for a holiday, but being near a delightful inn, we crept slowly to town on our rim and found a fete awaiting us. We also found friends from the East who asked us all to lunch, thereby, as one member of the party put it in Pollyanna's true spirit, much decreasing the price of the new tire. The inn is built in Spanish style and we lunched in a courtyard full of gaudy parrots, singing birds in wicker cages and singing senoritas as gay as the parrots, on balconies above us. The entire menu was orange, or at least colored orange. It was really charming, and our spirits rose to almost a champagne pitch, though orange juice—diluted at that—was the only beverage served. (I believe that there is a Raisin Day, also, but on account of its horrid association with rice and bread puddings we have let that slip by unnoticed.)

Our California color scheme is the very latest thing in decorative art. There is nothing shrinking about us, for we come boldly forth in orange and yellows in true cigar-ribbon style—even our motor licenses of last year had poppies on them. Speaking of poppies, I heard the other day of a lady who voiced her opinion in all seriousness in the paper, that Mr. Hoover should have California poppy seeds sent to him for distribution among the Belgians to sow over the ruins of their country. Of course there is something in the power of suggestion, and I suppose it would brighten up the landscape. Joedy is strong on the color idea. We had a neighbor who had a terrible attack of jaundice, which turned her the color of a daffodil. I was saying what a pity it was, then Joedy observed: "Well, Muvs, I think she makes a nice bright spot of color!"

There is a road leading toward the San Fernando Valley, with fruit stalls on both sides, very gay with oranges, grape-fruit, and lemons. One particularly alluring stand is presided over by a colored mammy in bandana shades, turban and all.

All this profusion makes one feel that it is no trick to get a living out of this very impulsive soil, but before buying a plot of one's own, it is wise to see the seasons through. California is a very unexpected country. You see a snug little ranch, good soil, near a railroad, just what you were looking for, but three months of the year it may be under water. After the spring rains we once went for a change of air to one of the beaches, which we particularly disliked, because it was the only place that we could get to, bridges being out in all directions. For the same reason it was so packed with other visitors, maybe as unwilling as we, that we had a choice of sleeping in the park or taking a small apartment belonging to a Papa and Mama Dane. It was full of green plush and calla lilies, but we chose it in preference to the green grass and calla lilies of the park. We passed an uneasy and foggy week there. I slept in a bed which disappeared into a bureau and J—— on a lounge that curled up like a jelly roll by day. Mama Dane gave us breakfast in the family sitting-room where a placard hung, saying, "God hears all that you say." J—— and I took no chances, and ate in silence. Anyway, the eggs were fresh. We explored the country as well as we could in the fog, and found quite a large part of it well under water. On one ranch we met a morose gentleman in hip boots, wading about his property, which looked like a pretty lake with an R. F. D. box sticking up here and there like a float on a fishing line, while a gay party of boys and girls were rowing through an avenue of pepper trees in an old boat. The gentleman in the hip boots had bought his place in summer! J—— and I decided then and there that if we ever bought any property in California, it would be in the midst of the spring rains, but we know now that even that wouldn't be safe—another element has to be reckoned with besides water—fire.

Of course Rain in California is spelled with a capital R. Noah spelled it that way, but we didn't before we came West. It swells the streams, which in summer are nothing but trickles, to rushing torrents in no time. Bridges snap like twigs, dams burst, telegraph lines collapse; rivers even change their courses entirely, if they feel like it, so that it would really be a good idea to build extra bridges wherever it seemed that a temperamental river might decide to go. I have heard of a farmer who wrote to one of the railroads, saying, "Will you please come and take your bridge away from my bean-field? I want to begin ploughing."

This adds natural hazards to the real-estate game. There are others—Fire, as I said a moment ago. I have a very profound respect for the elements since we have come West to live. A forest fire is even more terrifying than a flood, and in spite of the eagle eyes of the foresters many are the lovely green slopes burned over each year. I have seen a brush fire marching over a hill across the canyon from us, like an army with banners—flying our colors of orange and yellow—driving terrified rabbits and snakes ahead of it, and fought with the fervor of Crusaders by the property owners in its path.

The very impulsiveness of the climate seems to give the most wonderful results in the way of vegetables and fruit. Around Pasadena there are acres and acres of truck gardens, developed with Japanese efficiency. I love al fresco marketing. If I can find time once a week to motor up the valley and fill the machine with beautiful, crisp, fresh green things of all kinds, it makes housekeeping a pleasure. The little Japanese women are so smiling and pleasant, with their "Good-by, come gen," the melons are so luscious, the eternal strawberry so ripe and red, the orange blossom honey so delectable, and everything is so cheap compared to what we had been used to in the East! I think that in San Diego one can live better on a small income than anywhere in the country. Once some intimate friends of ours gave us a dinner there in January that could not have been surpassed in New York. The menu included all the delicacies in season and out of season, fresh mushrooms, alligator pears and pheasants. J—— and I looked at one another in mingled enjoyment and dismay that so much was being done for us. Finally our host could not help telling us how much for each person this wonderful meal was costing, including some very fetching drinks called "pink skirts." You wouldn't believe me if I told how little!

One more delicacy of which we make rather a specialty: I should call it a climate sandwich. If you live in the invigorating air of the foothills, to motor to the sea, a run of some thirty miles from where we live in winter, spend several hours on the sand, and before dark turn "Home to Our Mountains" gives a mountain air sandwich with sea-breeze filling—a singularly refreshing and satisfying dainty.

Perhaps my enthusiasm for California sounds a little like cupboard love. There is a certain type of magazine which publishes the most alluring pictures of food, salads and desserts, even a table with the implements laid out ready for canning peaches, that holds a fatal fascination for me. I have even noticed J—— looking at one with interest. When my father comes out to visit us every spring, the truck gardens, the packing houses, and the cost of living here, I think, affect him in much the same way that those magazines do me, and I wonder if every one, except a dyspeptic, doesn't secretly like to hear and see these very things! Could it be the reason people used to paint so much still life?—baskets of fruit, a hunter's game-bag, a divided melon, etc. I frankly own that they would thrill me more if I knew their market price, so that I might be imagining what delightful meals I could offer my family without straining the household purse, which is my excuse for the intimate details concerning food and prices which I have given.

Surely human beings ought to respond as the fruits do to this climate, in spirit as well as in body, and become a very mellow, amiable, sweet-tempered lot of people, and I think they do. Even the "culls" are almost as good as the rest, though they won't bear transportation. It is the land of the second chance, of dreams come true, of freshness and opportunity, of the wideness of out-of-doors—"Sunkist!"

THE END