There may be a more smiling hill-top than "La Collina Ridente" somewhere
on the Southern California edge of the Pacific Ocean, but deep down in
my heart I don't believe that there is. It is just the right size
hill-top--except when I first began to drive the motor, and then it
seemed a trifle small for turning around. It's just high enough above
the coast highway and the town to give us seclusion, and it's just far
enough from the waves to be peaceful. It used to be called "Suma
Paz"--perfect peace--but we changed the name, that being so unpleasantly
suggestive of angels, and, anyway, there isn't such a thing. If "The
Smiling Hill-Top" were everything it seems on a blue and green day like
to-day, for instance, it would be a menace to my character. I should
never leave, I should exist beautifully, leading the life of a
cauliflower or bit of seaweed floating in one of the pools in the rocks,
or to be even more tropically poetic, a lovely lotus flower! I should
not bother about the children's education or grieve over J----'s
bachelor state of undarned socks and promiscuous meals, or the various
responsibilities I left behind in town, so it is fortunate that there
are thorns. Every garden, from Eden down, has produced them.
I haven't catalogued mine, I have just put them down "higgledy-piggledy,"
as we used to say when we were children. J----'s having to work in town,
too far to come home except for an occasional week-end, the neighbors'
dogs, servants, Bermuda grass, tenants, ants, the eccentricities of an
adobe road during the rains, and the lapses of the delivery system of
the village. Of course they are of varying degrees of unpleasantness.
J----'s absence is horrid but the common lot, so I have accepted it
and am learning "to possess, in loneliness, the joy of all the earth."
Truth compels me to add that it isn't always loneliness, either, as,
for example, one week-end that was much cheered by a visit from our
architect friend, who rode down from Santa Barbara in his motor, and
made himself very popular with every member of the household. He brought
home the laundry, bearded the ice man in his lair, making ice-cream
possible for Sunday dinner, mended the garden lattice, and drew
entrancing pictures of galleons sailing in from fairy shores with
all their canvas spread, for the boys. As we waved our handkerchiefs
to him from the Good-by Gate on Monday, Joedy turned to me:
"I wish he didn't have to go!" A little pause.
"Muvs, if you weren't married to Father, how would you like--" but here
I interrupted by calling his attention to a rabbit in the canyon.
One thing I do not consider a part of the joy of all the earth--the
neighbors' dogs. On the next hill-top is an Airedale with a voice like a
fog-horn. He is an ungainly creature and thoroughly disillusioned,
because his family keep him locked up in a wire-screened tennis-court,
where he barks all day and nearly all night. He can watch the motors on
the coast road from one corner of his cage, and that seems to drive him
almost wild. He ought to realize how much better off he is than the Lady
of Shalott, who only dared to watch the highway to Camelot in a mirror!
Sometimes he has a bad attack of lamentation in the night--he is quite
Jeremiah's peer at that--and then we all call his house on the
telephone. You can see the lights flash on in the various cottages and
hear the tinkle of the bell, as we each in turn voice our indignation.
Once I even saw a white-robed figure in the road across the canyon, and
heard a voice borne on the night wind, "For heaven's sake, shut that dog
up." We all bore it with Christian resignation when his family decided
to take a motor camping trip, Prince to be included in the party. He is
probably even now waking the echoes on Lake Tahoe, or barking himself
hoarse at the Bridal Veil Falls in the Yosemite, but thank goodness we
can't hear him quite as far away as that.
I dare say that he might be a perfectly nice, desirable dog if he had
had any early training. Our own "pufflers," as the boys call "Rags" and
"Tags," their twin silver-haired Yorkshire terriers, could tell him what
a restraining influence the force of early training has on them, even on
moonlight nights.
Prince is the worst affliction we have had, but not the only one. The
people on the mountain-slope above us acquired a yellowish collie-like
dog to scare away coyotes. He ought to have been a success at it, though
I don't know just what it takes to scare a coyote. At any rate, he used
to bark long and grievously about dawn in the road across the canyon.
One morning I was almost frantic with the irregularity of his outbursts.
It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. Suddenly a rifle shot
rang out; a spurt of yellow dust, a streak of yellow dog, and silence!
I rushed to J----'s room, to find him with the weapon, still smoking,
in his hands. I begged him not to start a neighborhood feud, even if
we never slept after dawn. I even wept. He laughed at me. "I didn't
shoot at him," he said. "I shot a foot behind him, and I've given him
a rare fright!" He had, indeed. The terror of the coyotes never came
near us again.
As to servants, the subject is so rich that I can only choose.
Unfortunately, the glory of the view does not make up to them for the
lack of town bustle and nightly "movies," so it isn't always easy to
make comfortable summer arrangements. As you start so you go on, for
changing horses in mid-stream has ever been a parlous business. A
temperamental high-school boy who came to drive the motor and water the
garden, though he appeared barefooted to drive me to town, and took
French leave for a day's fishing, pinning a note to the kitchen door,
saying, "Expect me when you see me and don't wait dinner," afflicted me
one entire summer. I tried to rouse his ambition by pointing out the
capitalists who began by digging ditches--California is full of
them--and assuring him that there were no heights to which he might not
rise by patient application, etc. It was no use. He watered the garden
when I watched him; otherwise not. I came to the final conclusion that
he was in love. Love is responsible for so much.
Another summer I decided to try darkies and carefully selected two of
contrasting shades of brown. The cook was a slim little quadroon, with
flashing white teeth and hair arranged in curious small doughnuts all
over her head. She was a grass widow with quite an assortment of
children, though she looked little more than a child herself. "Grandma"
was taking care of them while the worthless husband was supposed to be
running an elevator in New Orleans. Essie had quite lost interest in
him, I gathered, for I brought her letters and candy from another swain,
who used such thin paper that I couldn't avoid seeing the salutation,
"Oh, you chicken!"
Mandy was quite different. She was a rich seal brown, large and
determined, and had left a husband on his honor, in town. We had hardly
washed off the dust of our long motor-ride before trouble began. A
telegram for Mandy conveyed the disquieting news that George had been
arrested on a charge of assault at the request of "grandma." It appeared
that after seeing wifey off for the seashore he felt the joy of bachelor
freedom so strongly that he dropped in to see Essie's mother, who gave
him a glass of sub rosa port, which so warmed his heart that he tried to
embrace her. Grandma was only thirty-four and would have been pretty
except for gaps in the front ranks of her teeth. She had spirit as well
as spirits, and had him clapped into jail. Telegrams came in--do you say
droves, covies, or flocks? Night letters especially, and long-distance
telephone calls--all collect. The neighbors, the Masons, the lawyer, and
various relatives all went into minute detail. Grandma, being the
injured party, prudently confined herself to the mail. As we have only
one servant's room and that directly under my sleeping-porch, it made it
very pleasant! The choicest telegram J---- took down late one night. It
was from one of Mandy's neighbors, and ended with the illuminating
statement: "George never had a gun or a knife on him; he was soused at
the time!" Mandy emerged from bed, clad in a red kimono and a pink
boudoir cap, to receive this comforting message. She wept; Essie, who
had followed in order to miss nothing, scowled, while J---- and I wound
our bath-robes tightly about us and gritted our teeth, in an effort to
preserve a proper solemnity. Of course we had to let her go back to the
trial, which she did with the dignity of one engaged in affairs of
state. She and the judge had a kind of mother's meeting about George,
and decided that a touch of the law might be just the steadying
influence he needed.
The sentence was for three months, which suited me exactly, as I
calculated that his release and our return to town would happily
synchronize. Mandy really stood the gaff pretty well and returned to her
job, and an armed neutrality ensued, varied by mild outbreaks. Essie was
afraid of Mandy. She said that she would never stay in the house with
her alone; Mandy wouldn't stay in the house alone after dark, so it
became rather complicated. We apparently had to take them or else find
them weeping on the hillside, when we came back from a picnic. In
justice to the darky heart I must say that when Billie was taken very
ill they buried the hatchet for the time, and helped us all to pull
him through.
The summer was almost over when I began to suffer from a strange
hallucination. I kept seeing a colored gentleman slipping around corners
when I approached. As Mandy was usually near said corner, I certainly
thought of George, but calmed myself with the reflection that he was
safe in jail. Not so. George had experienced a change of heart and had
behaved in so exemplary a manner that his sentence had been shortened
two weeks, and what more natural than that he should join his wife? It
wasn't that I was afraid of George; I was afraid for George. I did not
want him to meet Essie, for if Grandma's smile had cost him so dearly, I
hated to think of the effect of Essie's black eyes and unbroken set of
white teeth. I needn't have worried, for George was apparently "sick of
lies and women," and never let go his hold on the apron-string to which
he was in duty bound.
This summer I am unusually fortunate, owing to a moment of clear vision
that I had forty-eight hours before leaving town. I had a Christian
Science cook, a real artist if given unlimited materials, and she didn't
mind loneliness, as she said that God is everywhere; to which I heartily
agreed. I know that He is on this hill-top. So far so good, but her idea
of obeying Mr. Hoover's precepts was not to mention that any staple was
out until the last moment. At about six o'clock she usually came
pussy-footing to my door in the tennis shoes she always wore, to tell me
that there wasn't a potato in the house, or any butter. Not so bad in
Pasadena, with a man to send to the store, but very trying on a smiling
hill-top, one mile from town, with me the only thing dimly suggestive of
a chauffeur on the place. At 3 A.M. I resolved to bounce her, heavenly
disposition and all. I did, and engaged a cateress for what I should
call a comfortable salary, rather than wages. She can get up a very
appetizing meal from sawdust and candle-ends, when necessary, and that
is certainly what is needed nowadays. Also, she has launched a wonderful
counter-offensive against the ants. There was a time when we ate our
meals surrounded by a magic circle like Brunhilde, but ours was not of
flames, but of ant powder. Not that they mind it much. I'm told that
they rather dislike camphor, but do you know the present price of that
old friend?
There are singularly few pests or blights in the garden itself. Bermuda
or devil grass is one of our Western specialties, though it may have
invaded the East, too, since we left. It is an unusually husky plant,
rooting itself afresh at every joint with new vigor, and quite choking
out the aristocratic blue grass with which we started our lawn. At first
you don't notice it as it sneaks along the ground, some time above and
some time below, as it feels disposed, and then suddenly you see it's
cobwebby outlines as plainly as the concealed animals in a newspaper
puzzle. If you begin to pull it out you can't stop. It reminds me of the
German system of espionage, and that adds zest to my weeding. The other
day I laboriously uprooted an intricate network of tentacles, all
leading to one big root, which I am sure must have been Wilhelmstrasse
itself. Being able to do so little to help win the war, this is a
valuable imaginative outlet to me!
Everything about the place, as well as the lawn, seems to get out of
order when we have tenants. No one likes tenants any more than we like
"Central." There is a prejudice against them. They do the things they
ought not to do and leave undone the things they ought to do, and there
is no health in them. I have more often been one than had one, and I
hate to think of the language that was probably used about us, though we
meant well.
I am not going to tell all I know about tenants after all. I have
changed my mind. I am also going to draw a veil over the adobe road
during the rains, because we really do like to rent the place to help
pay for the children's and the motor's shoes, and it wouldn't be
good business.
The village delivery system enrages and entertains me by turns. I was
frankly told by the leading grocery store that they did not expect to
deliver to people who had their own motors, and when I occasionally
insist on a few necessities being sent up to my house, they arrive
after dark conveyed by an ancient horse, as the grocery manager is
conservative. A horse doesn't get a puncture or break a vital part often
(if he does, you bury him and get another) and it is about a toss-up
between hay and gasoline.
Every now and then I am marooned on my hill, if the motor is "hors de
combat," and then I get my neighbour to let me join her in her morning
marketing trip, sometimes with disastrous results. One day the boys and
I sat down to dinner with fine sea-air appetites, to be confronted by a
small, crushed-looking fish. I sent out to ask the cook for more. She
said there was no more, and as no miracle was wrought in our behalf, we
filled up the void with mashed potatoes as best we could. Just as the
plates were being removed the telephone rang, and my neighbor's agitated
voice asked if I had her cat's dinner! Light flooded in on my
understanding. We had just eaten her cat's dinner. She went on to say
that the fish-man had picked out a little barracuda (our household fish
in California) from his scraps and made her a present of it. I faintly
asked if she thought it was a very old one, visions of ptomaine
poisoning rising vividly. Oh, no, she said, "it wasn't old at all, he
had merely stepped on it." My own perfectly good dinner was at her
house. I told her to take off a portion for her cat, and I would send
the boys for the rest. I heaved a sigh of relief--a fresh young fish,
even if crushed, would not have fatal results.
I will pass rapidly on to my last thorn, which isn't on the list because
I'm not quite sure that it is one. It is a small, second-hand, rather
vicious little motor, which I have learned to drive as a war measure.
After the first time I ever tried to turn it around, and it flew at our
lovely rose-garlanded lattice fence at one hundred miles an hour, I
christened it "the little fury." I missed the fence by revolving the
steering wheel as though I were playing roulette. I almost went round
twice, but J---- rescued me by kicking my foot off the throttle. Since
then I have sufficiently mastered it to drive to town for the laundry
and the newspaper. I am like a child learning to walk by having an
orange rolled in front of it. I must know how far the Allies have driven
the Germans, so I set my teeth and start for town in the "little fury."
Every one told me that I'd have to break something before I really got
the upper hand. I have. I bravely drove out to a Japanese truck garden
for vegetables and came to grief. One of the boys tersely expressed it
in his diary, "Muvs ran into a Japanese barn and rooked the bumper!" Now
that that is over, I begin to feel a certain sense of independence that
is not unpleasant. It is some time since I have stalled the engine or
tried to climb a hill with the emergency brake set. The boys and the
"pufflers" are game and keep me company; we live or die together.
After all, the loveliest rose in my garden, the Sunburst, lifts its
fragrant flower of creamy orange on a stalk bristling with
wicked-looking mahogany spikes. If I'm very careful about cutting it, I
don't prick my fingers and the thorns really add to the effect.
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