Apparently it cured me. It is strange how popular mustard was in those days, not only the terrible plasters but the torturing foot baths for colds—boiling water reinforced by that awful stinging powder that came out of yellow covered cans bearing the lion and unicorn of old England. I wonder if doctors and parents applied the cure to themselves as well as to children.
Compton was the second stop beyond Cerritos on the wonderful railroad from Wilmington to Los Angeles; the first was Dominguez and the third was Florence and that was all until one reached Alameda Street, and the “depot” which was on a corner by a flour mill. What fun it was to go to the city. We got into the carriage in the court yard, and drove out through the gates and down the hill to the river, where sometimes the fording was very exciting,—water might come into the buggy if it was winter and had been raining a long time; then there were two separate “willows” to go through, only a half mile ride in all. Either we were always very prompt or the train was not, for there was time and permission to put our ears down on the rail to listen for the coming train, and there was a low trestle over the “slew” where we might walk the ties.
I was amused to read recently in an old book the boast that Los Angeles was a railroad center, the focus for four roads! This one that I knew was the first, twenty-three miles in length; next was the one to Spadra, longest of all, thirty miles; then one to San Fernando, reaching out through the grain fields of the
