Next to the execution of the telegraph
pole I felt a little grass lawn to be of the utmost importance. Nothing could better show how short a time I had been in California than not to realize that even if you can afford to dine on caviar, paté de fois gras, and fresh mushrooms, grass may be beyond your means. I bravely had the ground prepared and sown. First, the boys' governess watered it so hard that it removed all the seed, so we tried again. Then the water was shut off while pipes were being laid on the highway below, and only at dawn and after dark could we get a drop. I did the watering in my night-gown, and was soon rewarded by a little green fuzz. Then all the small rabbits for miles around gathered there for breakfast. They were so tame you could hardly drive them away, so I invited the brothers who kept the hardware store in the village to
come up and shoot them. They came gladly and brought their friends, but were so very anxious to help that I thought they were going to shoot the children too, and had politely to withdraw my invitation. The gardener and I then made a luscious compound of bacon grease and rough-on-rats, which we served on lettuce leaves and left about the edges of the grass plot. Did you ever hear a rabbit scream? They do. I felt like Lucretia Borgia, and decided that if they wanted the lawn they could have it. Oddly enough, a lot of grass came up in quite another part of the garden. I suppose it was the first planting that Fräulein had blown away with the hose! We often have surprises like that in gardening. We once planted window-boxes of mignonette and they came up petunias—volunteer petunias at that. Of
course, it all adds to the interest and adventure of life.
After the water-pipes were laid the gas deserted us, and we had a few meals cooked on all the little alcohol lamps we could muster. Then the motor fell desperately ill, and from then on was usually to be found strewed over the floor of the garage. Jerome K. Jerome says about bicycles, that if you have one you must decide whether you will ride it or overhaul it. This applies as well to motors. We decided to overhaul ours with a few brief excursions, just long enough to give an opportunity for having it towed home. One late afternoon we were hurrying across the mesa to supper, when our magneto flew off into the ditch, scattering screws in all directions. Fortunately, a kind of Knight Errant to our family appeared just in the nick of
time to take us home and send help to the wreck. I once kept a garage in San Diego open half an hour after closing time by a Caruso sob in my voice over the telephone, while my brother-in-law's miserable chauffeur hurried over for an indispensable part.
Poppy, the cow, contributed her bit—it wasn't milk, either—to this complicated month, but deserves a chapter all to herself.
The backbone of the family found my letters "so entertaining" at first, but gradually a note of uneasiness crept into his replies after I had told him that Joedy had fallen out of the machine and had just escaped our rear wheels, and that the previous night we had had three earthquakes. I had never felt an earthquake before, and it will be some time before I develop the nonchalance of a seasoned Californian,
whose way of referring to one is like saying, "Oh, yes, we did have a few drops of rain last night." One more little tremble and I should have gathered the family for a night in the garden.
After an incendiary had set fire to several houses in town, and Fräulein had had a peculiar seizure that turned her a delicate sea-green, while she murmured, "I am going to die," I sat down and took counsel with myself. What next? I bought a rattlesnake antidote outfit—that, at least, I could anticipate, and then I went out with the axe and hacked out the words "Suma Paz" from the pergola. We are now "The Smiling Hill-Top," for though peace does not abide with us, we keep right on smiling.