Adobe Days/Chapter 2
Chapter II
The very little girl
I was born, as I have said, on a sheep ranch in the central part of California during its pastoral period, but it is doubtless true that the environment and influences about me during the first few months of my life were very little different from what they would have been had my Maine mother not left her New England home about a year before my birth.
But as the months passed and the circle of my experience widened, I was more and more affected by the conditions of my own time and place.
My first memory relates to an experience characteristic of a frontier country in which the manner of life is still primitive. I remember very distinctly sitting in my mother’s lap in a stage-coach and being unbearably hot and thirsty. After I was a grown girl my father took me with him to inspect the last remaining link of the old stage lines (between Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez), that formally ran up and down the state from San Diego to San Francisco, and I, being reminded of that long ride in my babyhood, asked him about it. He told me that on the return trip to San Juan after my first visit to Los Angeles, instead of going north by steamer they had traveled by stage through the San Joaquin Valley, encountering the worst heat he had ever experienced in California. Then he added that I could not possibly remember anything about it since I was only eleven months old when it happened. I maintain, however, that I do, because the picture and the sense of heat is too vivid to be a matter of hearsay alone. I was so small that my head came below my mother’s shoulder as I leaned against her outside arm at the left end of the middle seat. There were no other women in the stage, papa was behind us, and opposite were three men, who were sorry for me and talked to me.
The months went by and I came to know my home. It was among rolling hills whose velvety slopes bounded my world. Over all was the wide blue sky, a bit of it having fallen into a nearby hollow. This was a fascinating pond, for water ran up hill beside the road to get into it. Then there were many fish, none of which ever would get caught on my bent-pin hook. It was into this water that I once saw some little ducks jump, and, like many of the younger generation, greatly alarm their mother, who, being a hen, had no understanding of her children’s adjustment to strange conditions.
The ranch house was a new one, built by the three partner-cousins, large enough to accommodate their families. It was reminiscent of Maine, with its white paint, green blinds and sharp gables edged with wooden lace, something like the perforated paper in the boxes of perfumed toilet soap,—perhaps meant to remind them of icicles. The house and all the auxiliary buildings were built on rising ground, so that under each one, on the lower side, was a high basement, usually enclosed by a lattice. Under the veranda that extended across the front of the house was a fine place to play, with many treasures to be found, among them sacks of the strange beet seed, reminders of an early interest in sugar-making, and sweet potatoes that are very good for nibbling, raw; they taste like chestnuts.
At the rear of this house was a low porch, without a railing, where the carriages drove up many times a day, for, with the large family, the wide acres, and active business, there was much coming and going. This veranda served as an annex to the dining room. In those days fruit came after breakfast instead of before, and it was here that we ate it, tossing the squeezed oranges and the scalloped watermelon rinds into a conveniently placed box that was frequently emptied.
Directly back of the kitchen was a small building containing a storeroom where Dick and I were accustomed to climb the shelves like a ladder for packages of sweet chocolate, while Aunt Francina, oblivious, skimmed the many large milk pans. In the building also was a laundry, containing a stove upon which I have seen soft-soap made and tallow prepared for the candle moulds. In a corner, made by this house and a retaining wall, was a large sand pile, and from the great oak on the bank above hung a long swing. I wonder if it is any more delightful for an old person to penetrate the sky in an aeroplane than for a little girl to do the same when pushed by the strong arm of her father.
Down towards the pond was the horse barn, with its long rows of stalls on one side, and its shelter for the carts and buggies beside the hay-mow on the other. I was warned of dangerous heels and was duly circumspect, but liked to get, occasionally, a nice, fresh, long hair from a tail for purposes of scientific experiment. I was going to turn a hair into a snake if possible. In a similar attempt to verify popular statements I spent many an hour with salt in my hand, trailing birds.
On one of my ventures behind the horses I was rewarded by the discovery of a very heavy little bottle, standing on a dark ledge. It contained mercury. Great was my joy to get a few drops in my hand, to divide them into the tiniest globules, and then to watch them coalesce into one little silvery pool.
The building standing back up the hill was the one in which the imported Spanish merino sheep were kept. I seldom went there, but in the corral behind the barn next lower several cows stood every night to be milked, among them Old Muley, my friend, on whose broad back I often sat astride while the process was going on. There were large, pink-blossomed mallows bordering the fences and this barn, and under the latter many white geese could be seen between the slats of the open siding. How excited I was when the day for gathering the feathers came!
The hired men occupied the original ranch house; in the usual basement was the tool room, open to us children. I here learned to hammer, saw and plane, and, most charming of all, bore holes with an auger in the wooden boxes we used in the making of figure-four traps. I also learned about gimlets, chisels, pliers, brads, rivets, and screws and thus prepared myself to be a general handy man at college and in my own home. It was in this shop that papa made me a fire-cracker holder,—a willow stick with a hole bored in one end in which to place the lovely red symbol of patriotism, so that I could celebrate without endangering my fingers.
In front of the house was the flower garden, enclosed by a white picket fence as a protection against chickens and other wandering ranch animals. Ladies-delights turned up their smiling little faces beside one walk, and nearby grew papa’s favorites, cinnamon pinks. I liked the red honey-suckle and the dark mourning-brides that were like velvet cushions stuck full of white-headed pins. There was one orange tree that bore no fruit important enough for me to remember, but, in spring, had many waxy white blossoms that smelled so good it made one hurt inside.
In larger enclosures, bounded by the same white fencing, grew vegetables and fruit trees. Sometimes we pulled a pungent horse-radish root and pretended that a bite of it made us crazy, an excuse for much running and wild gesticulation. Under a long row of loaded blackberry vines Dick once asked me the riddle, “Why is a blackberry like a newspaper?” Do you know the answer? It is: “Both are black and white and red all over.” I presume the play upon the word “red” was my introduction to puns.
The orchard contained peaches, plums, pears, apples, and apricots, but, to my mind, the cherry trees were the chief glory. One evening while Annie Mooney, our nurse, was taking in some clothes from the line, my little sister and I had a feast of fallen cherries, but she ate with less discrimination than I, for when, a few minutes later, we drank our supper milk she had convulsions. A quick immersion in a tub of hot water cured her, and we had learned about babies and cherries and milk, all mixed up together.
Down in the far corner of the orchard was a spring, with marshy ground about it, where the children were forbidden to go. But one morning, bored by the lack of novelty in our lives, one of the Flint twins and I boldly ventured into the tabooed region. We had hardly arrived when we saw an enormous black snake, which drove us back in terror, chasing us, with glittering eyes and darting tongue, over the ridges and hollows of the new-ploughed ground that clutched at our feet as if in collusion with the black dragon guard of the spring. I laid, during those few minutes, the foundation for many a horror-stricken dream. The snake was real. I wonder if the pursuit was merely the imagining of a guilty conscience.
Beyond the summer house, beyond the fence and at the hilltop end of a little grassy path, was the family burying ground, where, under the wild flowers, lay a few baby cousins who had gone away before I came, and papa’s young brother, Solomon, who, while reading poetry in a lonely sheep camp, had been shot to death by some unknown hand.
Our home was in a little valley, with no other houses in sight, but a mile and a half away, down a hill and across a bridge, lay the old town of San Juan Bautista, with its post-office, store, adobe inn and its homes, a medley of Spanish and American types. The mission church with its long corridor, arched and tile-paved, and its garden, where peacocks used to walk and drop their shining feathers for a little girl to pick up, was the dominating feature of the place, its very cause for being. Inside was dim silence; there were strange dark pictures on the walls, and burning candles, a very large music book with big square notes, and a great Bible, chained to its desk.
There was another church in San Juan, one that was wooden, light, bare and small, where I learned from a tiny flowered card, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” which, being interpreted for my benefit, meant, “Sallie mus’n’t quarrel with little sister.” I ate up a rosebud and wriggled in my seat during the long sermon and wondered about the lady who brushed her hair smooth and low on one side and high on the other. Had she only one ear?
I have been told that my church attendance involved certain distractions for my fellow-worshippers, and that my presence was tolerated only because of the desirability of training me in correct Sunday habits. On one occasion my restlessness led me into disaster. My parents had gone to the chancel, carry ing my little sister Anne for her christening, leaving me in the pew. It was a strange performance. The minister took the baby in his arms, and then put something from a silver bowl on her forehead, and began to pray. I must know what was in the bowl! Everybody had shut-eyes, so there was a good chance for me to find out without troubling anyone. I darted forward and managed to discover that the mysterious something was water, for I spilled it over myself.
The trip to church was made in a two-seated, low carriage, with a span of horses, while my every day rides with papa were in a single buggy, but with two horses, also, for we had far to go and liked going fast. Sometimes we went to Gilroy, and sometimes to Hollister, often just about the ranch to the various sheep camps, which were widely separated.
I began these business trips almost as soon as I was old enough to sit up alone. When we started I would be very erect and alert at papa’s side, but before long I would droop and be retired to the bottom of the buggy, where, wrapped in a robe, and with his foot for a pillow, I would sleep contentedly for hours. I remember my disgust when I had grown so long that I must change my habit and put my legs back under the seat, instead of lying across in the correct way. I objected to change, but was persuaded that it would be inconvenient for me to get tangled, during some pleasant dream, in the actualities of the spokes of a moving wheel.
At one time papa and I were very much occupied clearing a field, a piece of work which he must have reserved for himself, since there were no other men about. He also enjoyed chopping wood and this may have been his “daily dozen.” We cut down several large oak trees, cleared out underbrush, and, piling it up against the great stumps, built fires that roared for a time and then smouldered for days.
Sometimes I walked with mamma on the hills back of the house, and when we were tired we would sit down under a tree and she would tell me a story and make me a chaplet of oak leaves, folding and fastening each leaf to the next in a most ingenious way. If our walk took us into the lower lands she made bewitching little baskets from the rushes that grew near the water’s edge. I also found the strange equisitum, that I sometimes called “horse-tail,” and sometimes “stove-pipe,” which latter I preferred, because none of the horses that I knew had disjointable tails, while the little hollow tubes of stem that fitted into each other so well must serve the fairies most excellently for their chimneys.
Several spring mornings as I grew older, I got up at dawn with mamma, went to the early empty kitchen for a drink of milk, and then went out with her for a horseback ride, she in her long broadcloth habit and stiff silk hat, and I, a tiny timid girl, perched on a side-saddle atop a great horse. From the point of view of horsemanship I was not a great success, but the joy of the dawn air, the rising sun, the wild-flowers, the companionship of my mother is mine forever.
It was on one of these morning expeditions when we were comparing notes about our tastes in colors, that I found she liked a strange shade of red that to me looked unattractive. I was overwhelmed by the thought that perhaps it did not look the same to both of us, and that if I saw it as she did I might like it also; but there was no way for either of us to know how it actually looked to the other! I realized the essential isolation of every human being. However, I forgot the loneliness when papa joined us on the road beside the pond, where the wild lilac scattered its blue-violet lace on the over-hanging bank, and cut for me a willow whistle that sounded the shrill joy of being alive.
On the Sunday afternoon walks when we all went up into the hills together I learned, among other classics:
“Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make a mighty ocean
And the wondrous land.”
But it was at night when I was safely put in my bed that I heard through the open door, mamma, at the parlor piano, singing to me:
“I want to be an angel,
And with the angels stand,
A crown upon my head,
A harp within my hand.”
I suppose that neither she nor I were really in immediate haste for the fulfillment of that wish, but it made a good bed-time song. Another favorite was, Shall we Gather at the River?, and there was occasionally a somber one called Pass Under the Rod.
My bed was a very safe place, for did not angels guard it, “two at the foot, and two at the head”? I knew who my angels were,—my very own grandmother, who had died when my mother was a new baby, the aunt for whom I had been named, my little cousin Mary who really should have been guarding her brother Harry, and a fourth whom I have now forgotten.
The songs were not gay, but my life was not troubled by thoughts of death. Heaven seemed a nice place, somewhere, and angels and fairies were normal parts of my universe.
I did have a few minor troubles. My language was criticized. “You bet your boots” did not meet with maternal approval. Then, if I carelessly put my sunbonnet strings into my mouth, I got my tongue burned from the vinegar and cayenne pepper into which they had been dipped for the express purpose of making the process disagreeable. Those sunbonnets, with which my head was sheathed every time I started out into the airy out-of-doors, were my chief pests. I usually compromised my integrity by untying the strings as soon as I was out of sight. I would double back the corners of the bonnet, making it into a sort of cocked hat with a bow on top, made from the hated strings, thus letting my poor scratched ears out of captivity.
My cousin, Mrs. Gibson, tells me that she also suffered the martyrdom of sunbonnets; I suppose in those days girls were supposed to preserve natural complexions, it not being considered decent to have recourse to vanity boxes. Her mother was more ingenious than mine in making sure that her child did not jeopardize her skin. She made buttonholes in the top of the bonnet through which she drew strands of hair and braided them outside the bonnet, thus insuring it against removal.
Papa and I went to the circus on every possible occasion. Once, at Hollister, I saw General and Mrs. Tom Thumb, Minnie Warren and Commodore Nutt, whose photograph—with Mr. Barnum—I have preserved. Minnie Warren was supposed to be the size of a six-year-old, but the standard for six-year-olds must have come out of the east. I was several inches taller than she.
A pretty lady, dressed in pink tarleton skirts, who rode several horses at a time, and jumped through tissue paper hoops, was my first heroine. Dick and I kept her picture for months on a ledge under the office desk, and there rendered her frequent homage.
The mention of this desk calls to mind other activities centering in that office. On one occasion, when I was suitably young, the spirit moved me to carry a shovelful of live coals out through the door to the porch, and there coax up a fire by the addition of kindling wood. The same spirit, or another, however, suggested a compensating action. I summoned my mother to see my “nice fire,” to the salvation of the house.
Fire, candles, matches, revolvers, all held a fascination. It is evident that neither my cousin Harry nor I were intended for a violent death, for it was our custom to investigate from time to time his father’s loaded revolver, turning the chambers about and removing and replacing the cartridges. Our faith in our ability to handle the dangerous weapon safely seems to have been justified by our success.
It was deemed wise to keep me occupied, so far as possible, in order to thwart Satan, ever on the lockout for idle hands. So I was taught to sew patch-work and to knit, to read and to spell. There were short periods when I had to stay in the house, but like most California children, I spent out of doors most of the time not given over to eating and sleeping. Now-a-days even those duties are attended to upon porches.
Under mamma’s guidance I once laboriously and secretly sewed “over and over” a gray and striped “comfort bag” for a birthday gift to papa. It was modelled on the bags made for the soldiers in the Union army when my mother was a girl. We made a special trip to Hollister to buy its contents, black and white thread, coarse needles, buttons, wax, blunt scissors, and to top off, pink and white sugary peppermint drops. That bag remained in service for twenty years, going always in father’s satchel whenever he went away. It came to my rescue once when I had torn my skirt from hem to band. As he sewed up the rent for me with nice big stitches, first on one side and then on the other, he told me it was a shoemaker’s stitch and had the advantage of bringing the edges together just as they had been originally, without puckering the cloth. Mamma used the same stitch to mend the torn pages of books and sheet music, in those days before Mr. Dennison invented his transparent tape.
Time went by slowly, slowly, as it does when one is young. All day there was play, except for the occasional stint of patchwork, or the reading lesson,—every day but Sunday, with its church in the forenoon and stories and walks in the afternoon. Mamma would say, “When I was a little girl in Maine,” until to me Maine meant Paradise. In that country there was a brook where one could wade, and the great river, on whose banks in the woods children could picnic and hunt for wild berries,—what a charm in the words, “going berrying!” Even the nest of angry hornets with their sharp stings did not lessen my enthusiasm. At San Justo there were no Martha and Susan, no Julia and Ella for me to play with,—just boys, (who seemed to answer very well for little tom-boy Sallie when Maine was not in mind).
When I heard of snow and sleighs and sleds and the wonderful attic with its cunning low curtained windows and the doll colony who lived there, I forgot the charms of the ranch and the boy play. It was nothing to me that there were horses and cows, ducks, geese and chickens. It was nothing to me that Dick and I could make figure-four traps, and, walking beyond the wool-barn, set them on the hillside for quail; that once we had the excitement of finding our trap upset, our captives gone, and great bear tracks all about. The long sunny days of freedom with the boys, the great herds of sheep that came up for shearing, the many rides with my father through the lovely valleys and over the hills were commonplace, just what I had always known. No, life in California was very tame compared with the imagined joys of Maine.