men, Chinese bombs,—to make the day glorious,—and, for the exciting evening (one of the two yearly occasions when I was permitted to stay up beyond bed-time) there were pinwheels that flung out beauty from the top of the hitching post, there were dozens of roman candles with their streams of enveloping fire, and luscious shooting stars, and sky-rockets that rose majestically with a disdainful shriek as they spurned the earth and took a golden road to the sky.
Inter-family feasting at the three homes in turn marked Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Day. It was the laden tree on Christmas Eve that offered the second annual escape from early bed-time rules, in itself enough to key one up to ecstacy, without the added intense joy of mysterious expectation and satisfied possession of the largesse of Santa Claus. A Christmas celebration at Cerritos when I was four stands out distinctly in my memory,—a tall, tall tree, as much as twenty feet high, judged by present standards, stood in the upper chamber whose ceiling, unlifted by an excited imagination, is about eight feet. From that tree came Isabel, my most beloved doll, a small bottle of Hoyt’s German Cologne,—how I delighted in perfume,—a small iron stove. The latter was put to a use not contemplated by the patron saint, for I am sure he did not want me to spend the whole of the following morning in duress vile in my bed, because of that stove. This is what happened. After breakfast my almost-twin cousin Harry and I, while our mothers chatted at table, re-visited the scene of the past evening’s festivities and wished to bring
