covered veranda, with wide cracks in the floor. Opening from this were two small pens into which a hundred sheep might be turned. The shearer would go out among these sheep, feel critically the wool on several, choose his victim and drag it backward, holding by one leg while it hopped on the remaining three to his regular position. Throwing it down, he would hold it with his knees, tip its head up, and begin to clip, clip, until soon its fleece would be lying on the floor, the animal would be dismissed with a slap, and the wool gathered up and placed on the counter that ran the length of the shearing floor. Here the grown boys of the family tied each fleece into a round ball and tossed it into the long sack that hung in a nearby frame, where a man tramped it down tight. When the Mexican delivered his wool at the counter he was given a copper check, the size and value of a nickel, marked J. B., which he presented Saturday afternoon for redemption. It is a fact that frequently the most rapid workmen did not get the most on pay day, simply because they were less skillful or lucky as gamblers than as shearers.
I remember going one evening out into the garden and peering through a knot-hole at a most picturesque group of men squatting about a single candle on the wool barn floor, playing with odd looking cards, not like the ones in the house. The pile of checks was very much in evidence.
George told me that it was his father’s custom for many years to carry the money for the ranch payroll from Los Angeles to Cerritos in a small valise under
