"I wouldn't know where to look one up," Kenneth confessed.
"Hell, I didn't look him up, I made him up," explained Frank. "He sure was good! I picked him a good name off three dago fishermen down at Largo's, and I wrote him a bunch of these as one who first lines. You know," confided Frank, "it's plumb easy to write first lines to sonnets; it's the rest of 'em that stump you. All you have to do is to get 'em sort of solemn, like as one who died without his trousers on. Then next time I got invited—they invited me twice—I waited until the right time and then pulled my dago. 'Miss Wills,' says I—you bet I can do the flossy when I want to, can't I, Gordy?—'that is indeed a beautiful thing. But I don't need to ask you if you remember the lines by John Smith'—or whatever I called him—'beginning as one who died et cetery!' and by gosh she walked right in! 'I can't just quote them,' says she, 'but I remember them perfectly, of course.'"
Before he went to bed that night Kenneth had borrowed a copy of The Ranges and had thrilled over The Dogie, his eyes had filled over The Meadow Lark, and he had chuckled aloud at The Ballad of Bold Bad Men. Gordon Carlson had won him completely: and his soul was forever freed from the smothering danger of the near-culture. He saw the humour of it, and turned his light out, chuckling. Then a swift unexpected thought struck through him. What was that about Pearl?
VI
While all these relations were being established California had gone on her serene way through her seasons. The carpets of flowers had come to seed and had laid them down on the warm soil to rest until another year. Over the hills the alfileria, the fox tail, the wild oats had turned brown and the live oak trees in contrast stood clear and rounded, cuddling each its precious shadow under the sun. And the sun drove his chariot triumphantly through blue days.
People sat out evenings in the tepid air: and the night was ecstatically alive with creatures that chirped or croaked or fluttered on painted downy wings around the dim gas jets in the
