the first things Aunt Susan did was to cut the windows to the floor. This was never done at Cerritos.
The parlor was a small square room with one window to the court and one to the front veranda. The walls were covered with a light flowered paper, and on them hung four steel engravings of the “Voyage of Life,” and the familiar picture of Lincoln and his son Tad. A large walnut book-case occupied one side of the room. Its drawers at the base were filled with blocks and toys for the downstairs delectation of the succession of babies in the home. A Franklin stove in one corner kept us snug and warm when the ocean chill crept inland. The furniture was covered with a maroon leather, a set exactly like the one in the office at San Justo. I associate the reading of many books with one of those comfortable, stuffed chairs, among them Two Years Before the Mast, and Oliver Twist.
At the table in the center of the room father and Uncle Jotham spent many a long evening over interminable series of cribbage, and my books are punctuated by “fifteen two, fifteen four and a run is eight.” Uncle Jotham’s convulsive shakings made his amusement visible rather than audible.
One night Nan was desperately ill with the croup and was wrapped up before the fire in this room while one of the older cousins rode in haste to Compton for the doctor. When he returned he tied his horse hurriedly in the stall in the barn, leaving too long a rope, with the result that somehow, during the night, the poor horse became entangled and was strangled to
