s only of the remoteness of certain
events that served as landmarks in her simple experience,--events not
yet two years distant.

"Orange-pickun' before last ain't nigh two years ago," she mused, "an'
't ain't a year yet sence Lysander hauled grapes from the Mission to the
winery; an' the year before that he was over to Verdugo at the
bee-ranch, an' come home fer the grape-haulin' at Santa Elena. That's
when Hooker was born; he'll be two years old this fall; it's ever so
long ago. He couldn't stand bein' in jail that long; some folks could,
but he couldn't. He sings, and laughs out loud, and goes tearin' around
so lively. It 'ud kill 'im."

She slipped down from the tree, and started toward the house. The path
was hot to her bare feet, and the wind came in heated gusts from the
mountains. The young turkeys panted, with uplifted wings, in the shade
of the dusty geraniums, whose scarlet blossoms were glowing in fierce
tropical enjoyment of the glaring sun. The hounds went languidly, with
lolling tongues, from one shaded spot to another, blinking their
comments on the weather at their human companions, and snapping in a
half-hearted way at unwary flies.

Mrs. Sproul and her mother were still seated on the little porch when
Melissa appeared.

"Why don't you come in out of the heat, child?" called her sister, as
reproachfully as if Melissa were going in the opposite direction. "We
hain't had such a desert wind for more 'n a year. I keep thinkin' about
Lysander. I've heern of people bein' took down with the heat, and havin'
trouble ever afterward with their brains."

"Lysander ain't a-goin' to have any trouble with his brains," said her
mother significantly.

Mrs. Sproul turned a highly insulted gaze upon the old woman's impassive
face, and tilted her husband's hat defiantly above her diminutive,
freckled countenance.

"Lysander kin have as much trouble with his brains as anybody," she
said, with bantam-like dignity, straightening her limp calico back, and
tightening her grasp on the baby in her arms.

The old woman elevated her shaggy brows, and made a half-mocking sound
in imitation of the spitting of an angry kitten.

Mrs. Sproul's pale blue eyes filled with indignant tears, and she turned
toward Melissa, who looked up from the step, a gleam of sisterly
sympathy lighting up the wan dejection of her young face.

"I wouldn't fret, Minervy," she said kindly; "Lysander don't mind the
heat. People never get sunstru