easy to
make comfortable summer arrangements. As you start so you go on, for
changing horses in mid-stream has ever been a parlous business. A
temperamental high-school boy who came to drive the motor and water the
garden, though he appeared barefooted to drive me to town, and took
French leave for a day's fishing, pinning a note to the kitchen door,
saying, "Expect me when you see me and don't wait dinner," afflicted me
one entire summer. I tried to rouse his ambition by pointing out the
capitalists who began by digging ditches--California is full of
them--and assuring him that there were no heights to which he might not
rise by patient application, etc. It was no use. He watered the garden
when I watched him; otherwise not. I came to the final conclusion that
he was in love. Love is responsible for so much.

Another summer I decided to try darkies and carefully selected two of
contrasting shades of brown. The cook was a slim little quadroon, with
flashing white teeth and hair arranged in curious small doughnuts all
over her head. She was a grass widow with quite an assortment of
children, though she looked little more than a child herself. "Grandma"
was taking care of them while the worthless husband was supposed to be
running an elevator in New Orleans. Essie had quite lost interest in
him, I gathered, for I brought her letters and candy from another swain,
who used such thin paper that I couldn't avoid seeing the salutation,
"Oh, you chicken!"

Mandy was quite different. She was a rich seal brown, large and
determined, and had left a husband on his honor, in town. We had hardly
washed off the dust of our long motor-ride before trouble began. A
telegram for Mandy conveyed the disquieting news that George had been
arrested on a charge of assault at the request of "grandma." It appeared
that after seeing wifey off for the seashore he felt the joy of bachelor
freedom so strongly that he dropped in to see Essie's mother, who gave
him a glass of sub rosa port, which so warmed his heart that he tried to
embrace her. Grandma was only thirty-four and would have been pretty
except for gaps in the front ranks of her teeth. She had spirit as well
as spirits, and had him clapped into jail. Telegrams came in--do you say
droves, covies, or flocks? Night letters especially, and long-distance
telephone calls--all collect. The neighbors, the Masons, the lawyer, and
various relatives all went into minute detail. Grandma, being the
i