A sight-seeing car had paused while the gentleman with the megaphone explained to a few late tourists the Arroyo Seco, that great river-bed with only a trickle of water at the bottom, on whose brink our house perches. At home two plumbers were playfully tossing bricks about our courtyard in a half-hearted endeavor to find out why our cellar was flooded. Hence the back bedroom. No amount of cotton wool in one's ears, however, could camouflage a telephone bell.
"The Red Cross Executive Committee will meet at ten on Wednesday."
A short interval followed. "Will Mr. S—— make a 'four-minute' speech on Friday at the Strand Theatre for the Liberty Bond Campaign?"
Another interval during which I began to feel drowsy. "Will Mr. S—— say a few words of appreciation and present a wrist watch to the Chapter Secretary just starting for France?" etc. Just here I made a resolve. Escape I would, for one week, to my lovely hill-top by the sea, and leave J——, the two boys, the two dogs, the two white mice, the Red Cross, the Red Star, Food Conservation and Liberty Bonds to manage beautifully without me. I even had the reckless idea of trying to forget that there was a war going on! I was furnished with a perfectly good excuse; we had rented "The Smiling Hill-Top" for two months, and it must be put
in order. Hence my "Adventure in Solitude."
Everything is called an adventure nowadays, and to me it was a most exciting one, as I had not gone forth independently for many years. One chauffeur, one smiling Helen to clean house for the tenants and cook for me, my worst clothes and my best picnic lunch went into the motor, and I followed. I think my family expected me back next day, when I bade them a loving farewell. Not I! My spirit was craving silence. I wanted not to curl my hair or be neat or polite or a good mother, or any of the things I usually try to be, for just one week. Longer, and I would be lonely and homesick.
It was a lovely day. The coast road to San Diego runs through orange groves for miles, and the perfume of the blossoms
hung about us till we came to the sea, where a salt breeze blew away the heavy sweetness. I lunched on the sand and watched the waves for an hour. There, at least, are endless re-enforcements! As fast as the front ranks break more come always to fill their places.
I felt no hurry, as the Smiling Hill-Top is some fifteen miles nearer Pasadena than San Diego—an easy day's run—and I had no engagements, but at last my impatience to see how much our garden had grown started me once more on my way, and we arrived at our wicket gate in the late afternoon. There were twenty-seven keys on the ring the real-estate agent gave me—twenty more than caused so much trouble at Baldpate—but none fitted, so I had the chauffeur lift the gate bodily from its hinges and I was at home!