"Sometime Uncle Jason is going to take me way over yonder," nodding her head. "We shall go to the Sandwich Islands, which he says are still more beautiful than California. And then to China. Perhaps then all the gates of Japan will be open and they will let us in. I'd like to see the little girls in Japan; they don't drown them there, they never have too many. And then there will be India, and all those queer islands. You wouldn't think there would be room for Australia, which is almost a continent by itself, would you? The world is very wonderful, isn't it?"
Sometimes they watched magnificent sunsets when the whole Pacific seemed aflame with gorgeous tints, for which there could be no name, for they changed as quick as thought. Then they noted a faint pearl-gray tint just edging the horizon line, it seemed, and then spreading out in filmy layers, growing more distinct and yet darker, marching on like an army. Gulls circled and screamed, great loons and murres gave their mournful cry, cormorants swept on, hardly stirring a wing until, with one swift lurch, they went down and came up triumphant. Then the sky and sea faded, though you knew the sea was there because it dashed upon the rocks, though its tone was curiously muffled.
"Come," Miss Holmes would say, "we shall be caught in the fog."
"I'd just like to be damp and cold. It has been so dry that one wants to be wet through and through."
"We shall have to pick our way."
It would sometimes come up very fast, woolly, soft to the skin, at others like a fine cutting mist, when the west wind drove it in. And now it was all gray like a peculiar twilight that made ghosts out of the rocks, piled about and shut out the Golden Gate and the peaks beyond, but they drew long breaths of the sea fragrance that were reviving. The ponies stepped carefully down this way, and across that level, and then on the road Pablo was making for his mistress. The ponies shook their heads and whinnied for very gladness. Bruno gave his cheerful bark. Balder made a funny grumbling noise as if he were scolding.
"Oh, you know you like the fog. You are dripping wet," with a hug of tenderness.
They were dripping wet, too, but they soon found dry clothes. Miss Holmes kindled up the fire, for Pablo kept them well supplied, though sometimes he went long distances and came home with a great bundle on his back that almost bent him double.
"Now you look just like a German peasant," Laverne would declare; and Pablo would shake his head mysteriously. The young Missy had seen so many wonderful things.
Wood was a rather scarce article in this vicinity, and was expensive. Coal likewise, though now some had been discovered nearer home. The charcoal venders were familiar figures in the streets. Wild indeed would he have been who had ventured to predict a gas range, even the useful kerosene stove.