boisterous. We discovered a veteran of the Civil War turned liveryman,
who for a paltry consideration in cash was ours every afternoon, and
showed us something new each day, from racing horses on the Lucky
Baldwin Ranch to the shadow of a spread eagle on a rock. Grandmother's
favorite excursion was to a picturesque winery set in vineyards and
shaded by eucalyptus trees. She was what I should call a wine-jelly,
plum-pudding prohibitionist, and she included tastes of port and fruit
cordials as part of the sight-seeing to be done. You can be pretty at
eighty, which is consoling to know. Grandmother, with a little curl over
each ear and the pink born of these "tastes" proved it, and she wouldn't
let us tease her about it either. It was an easy life, and so
fascinating that I even said to myself, "Why not learn to play the
guitar?" for nothing seemed impossible. It shows how thoroughly drugged
I was by this time, for my Creator wholly omitted to supply me with a
musical ear. I always had to have my instrument tuned by the young man
next door, but I learned to play "My Old Kentucky Home" so that every
one recognized it. Now, if years had not taught me some fundamental
facts about my limitations, I should probably render twilight hideous
with a ukelele, for a ukelele goes a guitar one better, and Aloha oee
wailed languorously on that instrument would make even a Quaker relax.

It was in the late spring that the Great Idea came to Aunty and me. I
don't know which of us was really responsible for it, and there was a
time when neither of us would own it. A course in small "Why Nots?" made
it come quite naturally at the last. Why shouldn't we drive into the
Yosemite Valley before we went home? By the end of May it would be at
its loveliest, with the melted snows from the mountains filling its
streams and making a rushing, spraying glory of its falls. It did seem a
pity to be so near one of the loveliest places on earth and to miss
seeing it. Aunty and I discussed the matter dispassionately under a palm
tree in the back yard. We honestly concluded that it wouldn't hurt
Grandmother a bit, that it might even do her good, so we began to put
out a few conversational feelers, and the next thing we knew she was
claiming the idea as her own and inviting us to accompany her! In her
early married life she was once heard to say to Grandfather, "Edwin, I
have made up our minds." So you can see that Aunty and I were as clay in
her hands! Where