nded and whose minds were seldom, if ever, occupied with any life
beyond the hills that walled us in. We sat down at a camp board and ate
with relish. The land was flowing with milk and honey; no sooner was the
pitcher drained or the plate emptied than each was replenished by the
willing hands of our hostess or her boys.
Another smoke under the stoop followed, and then, perhaps, a doze at the
cottage, or in one of the dozen rocking-chairs about the house, or on
the rustic throne hewn from a stump in the grove between the house and
the barn. The sun flooded the canon with hot and dazzling light; the air
was spiced with the pungent odor of shrubs; it was time to rest a little
before beginning the laborious sports of the afternoon. Later, we all
wandered on the banks of the creek and were sure to meet at the
swimming-pool about four o'clock. Meanwhile the Artist has laid in
another study. Foster has finished his tale, and is rocking in a hammock
of green boughs; the Scribe has booked a half-dozen fragmentary
sentences that will by and by grow into an article, and the boys have
come home from school.
By and by we wanted change; the monotony of town life is always more or
less interesting; the monotony of country life palls after a season.
Change comes over us in a most unexpected guise. Our canon was decked
with the flaming scarlet of the poison-oak; these brilliant bits of
foliage are the high-lights in almost every California landscape, and
must satisfy our love of color, in the absence of the Eastern autumnal
leaf. The gorgeous shrubs stand out like burning bushes by the roadside,
on the hill-slope, in the forest recesses, and almost everywhere. The
Artist's chum gave evidence of a special susceptibility to the poison by
a severe attack that prostrated him utterly for a while. Yet he stood by
us until his vacation came to an end, and, to the last, there was no
complaint heard from this martyr to circumstances.
One day he left us--on mule-back, with nine dogs fawning upon his
stirrup, and amid a hundred good-byes wafted to him from the house, the
smithy, the barn, and the swimming-pool. He had orders to send in the
Kid, or his successor, immediately upon his arrival at the Bay. We must
needs have some one to indulge, some one whose interests were not
involved in the primeval farther than the pleasure it afforded for the
hour. The Kid was the very thing--a youngster with happiness in heart,
luster in his eye, and noth
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