Aunt Susan, grandmother to these girls, was most hospitable, especially to children, and Uncle John, with his jokes and merry pranks, a delight to them. I shall always hear the sound of his voice as he came in the back door of the hall, danced a sort of clog and called some greeting to his little wife. He always wore at the ranch boots with high heels,—cowboy boots.
Often there would be gathered at the Alamitos, in addition to the children who belonged, half a dozen cousins with their friends, and the small Hellmans, whose father was a part owner in the ranch. The house was elastic, and if there were not beds enough there were mattresses and blankets to make warm places on the floor. The privilege of sleeping in the impromptu bed was a much coveted one.
A favorite resort was the great barn, a still familiar sight to passers-by on the Anaheim Road. It was made from an old government warehouse taken down, hauled over from Wilmington and rebuilt at the ranch, forty odd years ago. It afforded magnificent leaps from platform to hay or long slides on the slippery mows. Up among the rafters were grain bins, whose approach over narrow planks added a spice of danger—a mis-step would have meant a thirty foot fall, but we never made mis-steps. In the central cupola Fred and Nan kept house, while the babies were parked in the bins.
“Old Sorrel,” a friendly mare, lived down in the pasture beyond the wool-barn, and might be ridden for the catching. She seemed to like to carry a back
