When my eyes opened this morning they looked out upon a hillside of vivid green, like the tops of Monterey cypress, flecked with bits of darker green embroiderings, and behind this was green, too, but very dark, and it had great splashes of a green so dark that they looked black—and my heart was glad. It was a common scene, nothing rarely beautiful about it. Fog enclosed the earth. There was no sky. But I had known it as a boy, this same kind of a picture, and it went to this poor tired heart of mine and was like balsam to a wound. By Jove, it is balsam! These hills are for the healing of men. I have been here three days and have taken more exercise than in three months—walking and climbing; beside the creek lined with great sycamores—alluvial soil, crumbles in your hand, and with our friend the gopher in it; and climbed up through a bit of manzanita—big fellows, twenty feet high some of them— and such a rich brown, near-burgundy red! I barked a bit of the bole to get that green beneath, spring green, great contrast!

And above the grove of manzanita was a flat top to the hill, from which I could see three ways, and all ending in cloud-wrapped mountains, that had shape and were blue of some kind, as far as you could see. Ah man, this is a glorious land—even the people! Along the road I talked to Lundgren, who used to be a ship- carpenter, but he had a prune orchard here "since the fire." I must "see his horses," great snuzzling monsters that he had raised himself (sold one of them once, and sneaked off and bought it back) and his calves, twins out of a three-year-old—and she had had one before. Oh shades of Teddy Roosevelt, there's your ideal! (Do you remember Kipling's line in the Mary Gloster, "And she carried her freight each trip"?)

And next to Lungren was the Frenchman—far up on the hill cultivating his grapes, for which he got $110 per ton last year— and this year he puts out five acres more. The Frenchman has indigestion and lives alone … that hillside of vines gives him something to love.

When we come to the turn in the road, where you cross the creek to climb the hill, there the "Portugee" lives. He always has lived there. He was found just there when the Padres came. And his name was Silva. John Silva, of Stevenson's Treasure Island—born in the Azores, of course—there are no other Portuguese in America.

And John has—how many children? Give you three guesses. All by one wife, too, and she is in evidence, and a native daughter. I saw her with my own eyes, black hair, dark skin, slight figure, voluble, smiling, large-knuckled hands and a flashy eye, oh! a long way from being uninteresting to John yet, or a merely "good woman." Well, how many children did they have, right there by the road?—eleven. Eight boys and three girls—and four dead, too. Fine boys and girls, one I saw plowing or cultivating straight up and down the vineyard, a sixty degree hill, I should say. I was struggling with a cane to get one foot before another on the sloping road and he was outdoing a horse, that he drove with his neck and shoulders, while with his hands he guided the little plow straight up toward the sky. I am not envious of such youth. I never had it. I was always lazy. But it is a real joy for me to be near such youth—just to know that such things can be done—by angels from the Azores. You remember Anne's story, "In future it is prohibited to refer to our beloved Allies as 'the God-damned Portuguese'"? Well, I feel the same way.

Yes, this land of yours is good. (All land is good, I believe.) And the stillness, and the birds, and the flowers! The simplicity of these two dear hearts—George and his wife—the little they need! A paper once a day for five minutes, a song to break day with, and a round of songs and piano pieces to end the day, every act one of consideration, and each word spoken with a tender look, a gay lilt to the voice, even in asking to pass the salt. "Better a dinner of herbs where love is," etc. Well, they have it, herbs and all,—beet tops and mustard leaves. … Good luck to you.

F. K. L.

P. S. You don't deserve this—you stingy, skimpy mollusk!

To Lathrop Brown

Morgan Hill, [March] 16, [1921]