I was not involved in this affair, but I cannot claim blood-guiltlessness. I recall with a shudder my participation in the stabbing of fat frogs in a shallow pool; even then it sent shivers up and down my spine, but I could do almost anything the boys could. I did draw the line at knocking down swallows nests and feeding the baby birds to the cats, although Harry maintained that this was necessary to prevent the introduction of bed-bugs from the nests into the house. A year or two later the boy went out with a new gun that had been given him, but came back telling me that he could not shoot turtle doves who sat in so friendly a fashion together on the fence rail and made mournful sounds, neither could he shoot rabbits, for they looked at him. He was a sensitive boy and the earlier killings belonged to our primitive stage of development.
In those days I frequently watched, in spite of mother’s wish that I should not, the daily butchering of a sheep, not so much the actual slaying, but the skinning and the removal of the slippery, interesting insides; a daily course in anatomy. And blown-up bladders made wonderful playthings.
One of the most interesting features of the Alamitos was the cheese-making that was done on a large scale, two hundred cows being milked for the purpose night and morning. To improve the milk for this Uncle John imported some of the first registered Holsteins into Southern California. There was great excitement among us children, and undoubtedly a fair degree of it among the grown-ups, when a carload of fine
