and were not subjected to the ignominy of being painted with poinsettias on fringed leather souvenirs for tourists. The yellow violets were gallitas, little roosters, perhaps because in the hands of children they fought to the death, their necks hooked together until one or the other was decapitated. The brodiæas, or wild hyacinths, sometimes now called “rubbernecks,” were called cacomites, (four syllables), a word of Aztec origin brought to California by people from Mexico where it was applied to a different flower but one having like this one a sweet edible root.
Between the weeds and bushes there were bare spots of ground where, by careful searching, one might find faint circles about the size of a “two-bit” piece. Wise ones knew that these marked the trap doors of tarantula nests. It was sport to try to pry one open, with mother spider holding it closed. We young vandals would dig out the nests, interested for a moment in the silky lining and the tiny babies and then would throw away the wrecked home of the gorgeous black velvet creatures that did no harm on the open hill side.
At this house Harry and I conducted an extensive “essence factory,” collecting old bottles far and near, and filling them with vari-colored liquids, obtained by soaking or steeping different flowers and leaves. We used to drink the brew made from eucalyptus leaves. The pepper infusion was pale, like tea; that made from old geraniums was of a horrible odor,—hence we liked to inveigle innocent grown folks into smelling it. The cactus solution was thick, like castor oil,
