The San Gabriel Valley, in December, is pleasant to look upon. Not as
winsome as in February, when the Carnival of the year is born, but
serenely beautiful. Cleansing rains have polished every ridge of the
Sierra Madre, until purple canons shine out like treasures of amethyst,
while clearly defined spurs, shot with softest green, reflect the
promises of the Spring.
"Old Baldy," the hoary sire of the range, gleams like a high priest. To
the south, shaggy "Gray Back," and still beyond, San Jacinto, a lone
fortress of alabaster on a turquoise sea, emphasize again the boundaries
of the horizon. The misty veil of the long summer has lifted, disclosing
an unbroken line of ravishing landscape. Every leaf and bud in the
valley breathes with fresh lungs. The meadow lark, tilting upon the
topmost tip of the highest pine, sings to the sky a jubilate in three
pure syllables. Birds are wooing sweethearts fearlessly, for now time
must not be lost, and home sites must be secured in the lacy pepper
trees, before the poppies cover the foothills, or baby-blue-eyes and
cream-cups fringe the roadsides.
Everything is noisy with awakening life. The rich earth teems with
ambitions. Volunteer seeds are springing enthusiastically to the
surface. Timid wild flowers are peeping forth each day to test the
possibilities of an early season, heralded even now by the irrepressible
Al Filerea, which runs riot in all directions, unconscious of its doom
when the plowman invades the land.
Then it is that the oranges begin to glow like gold among green shadows,
and naked deciduous trees to flush with the faintest pink of returning
life. So intoxicating is the air that the saddest invalid beams with
renewed hope, almost forgetting his burden beneath the delicious blue of
the peaceful sky.
At the foot of the Sierra Madre lies Pasadena--"Crown of the Valley"--so
named from its imperial situation. An established and aristocratic
nucleus for its surrounding towns, few places are so rich in conditions
to palliate or allay the sorrows and disappointments of the usual life.
South of this beautiful town, where wealth and culture have displaced
the primitive ranch, ordaining in its place extensive villa sites,
ornate with lawns of blue grass, bordered by rose gardens and ornamental
shrubbery, stretch the fertile acres of San Gabriel. Still utilitarian
in their scheme, these acres comprise ranches that radiate for miles in
all directions from the Old Mission, like spokes from an antiquated hub.
Close to the old church are the houses and stores of the once thriving
village, now, alas! dusky with memories of the Senora, the captivating
Senorita, the valiant Don, and the watchful Padre.
Defenseless in its degeneracy, the place now boasts a motley population
of low-bred Mexicans and narrow-eyed Celestials. Still, when the old
Spanish bells call to the early Sabbath mass, if one is observing, he
may find among the weather-beaten countenances of the Mexicans, often
marked with the high cheek bone of the Indian, true descendants of the
early aristocracy, holding aloof from the horde, absorbed in prayers,
that alone are the same since the ranches were ruthlessly divided and
railroads allowed to invade.
Yet the Spanish homes that remain in the valley are mere echoes of
former times, but tiny specks upon the map of the real estate dealer,
which have miraculously escaped the clutches of strangers. Although
humble, a few of these homes are strikingly picturesque.
On a retired road, sheltered on either side by mammoth pepper trees,
east of the Mission by several miles, lived the Dona Maria Del Valle.
Her little ranch was all that she had saved from her husband's estate,
and she ever scorned its importance when she told indignantly how her
husband's father had once held a splendid principality comprising four
thousand acres.
"Now, alas! we own nothing," she said, resting, a moment, her dark hands
from their incessant labor at the exquisite drawn work. "My child will
be always poor, she will grow like the Americans, caring not for the
past. It is cruel indeed that she saw not her noble father Don Arturo.
Had he but lived, with his learning and accomplishments, his child would
rejoice that she was born a Del Valle! Now she listens not patiently to
the tale of former days, for in the Convent she has met American girls,
and thinks only to imitate them, hoping to gain for herself a strange
husband who loves not her people. Our dear Arturo she scorns! driving
him far away by her wicked disobedience; for when she laughed at his
love he could no longer endure to behold her."
Unhappy indeed was the Dona Maria when indulging in such confidences;
but not often did she speak of her troubles, for so poor had the family
become, that, to support her aged mother and the pretty Mariposilla, she
was compelled to work constantly at the drawn work, learned in her youth
as a pastime, now, alas! one of her chief sources of revenue.
It was owing to her reduced circumstances that the proud Dona Maria had
received under her roof Marjorie and myself, for she loved not the
Americans; but, as she told me artlessly one day, "Only the Americans
now have gold.
"Once it was not so. We, too, had gold in abundance, but we loved not
our gold as the Americans love theirs, to keep in the bank. We loved
gold because it gave us joy to buy land, and cattle, and jewels, and
lace."
Yes, it was simply for our gold that Marjorie and I had been received
under the roof of the Del Valles. Still, when once the arrangement had
been entered upon, the Dona Maria was all that we could desire as a
hostess.
Marjorie stole each hour into the hearts of the old grandmother and the
proud disappointed daughter, aging so fast under stress of multiplied
troubles, that she needed just such an appealing interest as my delicate
child to call into action the unselfish side of her noble nature. Before
we had lived long at the ranch our lives were running together as
smoothly as if we all rejoiced in the same blood.
The house of the Dona Maria Del Valle was not the original ranch house,
but a smaller adobe, built after many of the broad acres had been
bartered away by the taking of imperfect securities, the worthlessness
of which the happy-go-lucky owners had failed to comprehend until too
late to obviate the consequences.
"We understood not the laws and the papers of the Americans," the Dona
Maria explained, as we sat, one sunshiny morning, upon the sheltered
veranda. "One day we owned all the land in the valley for many miles,
the next day we owned not so much, and at last only the little that is
left."
To me, the fifteen remaining acres appeared most desirable, for I was
not then versed in the matter of fruit culture. I did not understand
that orange trees differ one from another in point of perfection as
widely as do people.
It was some time before I learned that in the early settlement of the
valley disastrous experiments had been made. Many of the first trees
planted had yielded an inferior variety of fruit, not lucrative in a
market each year growing more critical, as the country became settled by
determined agriculturists, who possessed, not only cash capital, but
brains stimulated by college education and practical experience. Such
men soon discovered that it was unprofitable to irrigate or nurture for
long a tree that was not all that a tree of its kind should be.
Consequently there had been frequent upheavals of earth; many old
orchards were regarded by the experienced as worthless, the owners
preferring to replant with the best varieties of budded trees, even
though a considerable time must elapse before a revenue would result.
Unfortunately, the orange ranch of the Dona Maria Del Valle was a poor
one. It was planted with a flavorless variety of seedling, which yielded
an income quite insufficient for the demands of the family. From an
aesthetic point of view the grove appeared the Garden of the Hesperides.
The staunch, far-reaching limbs of the old trees drooped opulently
beneath the golden balls that invited the "Forty Thieves," who,
happening to be "tenderfeet," ate with wry faces and discourteous
exclamations the fruit that a native would have scorned to touch. For in
California oranges are not ripe in December. Not until the late spring,
when the sun has used persistently his winsome inducements, does the
fruit consent to assume its luscious perfection.
Turning from the highway, the ranch of the Dona Maria Del Valle was
entered from between two mammoth century plants, whose giant spears made
formidable the approach to the long avenue leading to the house. The
drive was shaded by gnarled old pepper trees, uniting from each side
their fantastic branches to form an elfin tunnel of lacy shade. On the
ground, thickly scattered, lay dartlike leaves, and scarlet berries
shading from rich to pale, until a long oriental rug seemed spread for
the court of an expected princess.
At the end of the Avenue stood the low adobe, covered with ivy and the
famous Gold of Ophir rose, which at Easter illuminated the veranda and
roof with the lights and shadows of forty thousand blooms. Not far from
the house two giant palms--honored patriarchs of the valley--reared
their trembling feathers to the sky. Like grim sentinels, true to a
trust, they guarded in dumb eloquence the story of the past.
Before reaching the house the drive divided, encircling within the arms
of its curve a soft oval cushion of Bermuda grass that in December is
brown and unpromising, but in the spring grows green remaining so
through the long summer, making no imperative demand for water, and
being at all seasons as soft to the feet as the most luxurious rug. It
is the grass created for the invalid. He alone appreciates the thick,
delicious mat, which hoards for his bloodless feet thousands of warm
sunbeams that cheat his physician into the belief that he is eminent,
when he discovers his patient escaping his professional clutches.
Added to the tropical effect of full-grown palms and riotous shrubbery,
the guardian Sierra Madre was ever flashing rich shadows and tender
patches of light, that, in the clear, prismatic air, reflected countless
expressions into the hearts of the flowers and onto the surface of the
leaves.
Such was the home of the Dona Maria Del Valle. Here Mariposilla had been
born, sixteen years before, five months after the death of her father,
Don Arturo.