On the sands where a blonde girl was stopping
To the rescue of Jean she came hopping,
Waved the hose in the air—
And said "I don't care,
If I do get my Snippsikins sopping."
"There," he said, "is an example of an anapæst. If a sprinkling can produce this, next time I will turn out an entire poem. There's nothing like water, and plenty of it, to make genius grow. Give Jean a saucer of cream. No skimmed milk for this." Mr. Saltus laughed and resumed, "You are the first feminine thing to face me and put me to rout—My hat's off to you."
I laughed at this, it seemed so ridiculous.
"Let me tell you a story," he went on. "There was before your day a prize-fighter,—a powerful fellow,—six feet of brawn. He could knock anyone into a cocked hat in the first round. Even his friends were rather afraid of him. One day a delegation of them went to his house to suggest a new fight. His wife was opposed to this. She wanted him to accompany her on a vacation. It was she who met the friends at the door, and told them definitely that her husband was going to take a rest and would not consider their offers. They turned away, but one of the party,—a Peeping Tom sort of a chap, crept back, and looked in through a crack in the shutters. What he saw was a revelation. The prize-fighter was emerging from under the bed. The frail scrap of a wife was standing in the center of the room, with one slender finger upraised. Shaking this she said, 'Stay where you are till they are a safe distance off. I'll kill you if you come out before.'"
This story, whether he made it up or not, amused Mr. Saltus enormously, and when thereafter, entering into the spirit of it, I would put up a finger, it never failed to make him laugh like a boy. The playfulness which had been inhibited so long had full fling now, and he adored to have me pretend I was going to chastise him for something, declaring, as he afterward put in his copy, "When a woman ceases to quarrel with a man she ceases to love him." With his almost uncanny intuition he got the motive underlying every act.
It was during this spring that the framework on which Mr. Saltus afterward built "The Gardens of Aphrodite" grew. Much of it was written when sitting in the rose garden under a palm tree, the offending Jean purring at his feet. Notes on which he constructed "Oscar Wilde,—An Idler's Impression," were gathered together as well, and reminiscences used in "Parnassians Personally Encountered" were jotted down and put into shape to use.
There was something soothing and yet stimulating in the song of the surf on the sands, reaching him as it did through the branches of acacia trees. In "the enchanted garden," as he called the small green handkerchief-like patch of grass, Mr. Saltus evolved, co-ordinated and put in shape the material from which he drew largely ever after.
A few weeks later he was en route for New York, to break up such home as he had there and return to the coast with his things, having decided to make California his home indefinitely. A ranch in the middle part of the State welcomed me. It was a heavenly spot,—no neighbors within miles, and plenty of animals and flowers for company.
From that ranch came two little creatures,—one particularly, destined to have a larger place and a greater influence in Mr. Saltus' life than most of the humans he encountered. Taken from their respective mothers at an age when their eyes were just open, so young that they had to learn to lap by nibbling my fingers dipped in milk, Fifi the kitten and Toto the shepherd dog puppy were annexed from a neighbor, and given to one ready to shield them with her life.
In the late summer these little ones with Auntie and myself were settled again. This time it was in a large house in Los Angeles with a delightful garden, situated in what was then the extreme upper limit of the city. Beyond it were vacant fields. Hollywood was in the distance. It was taken with a view to giving Mr. Saltus a bed-room with study adjoining in a wing of the house, off by itself, and shortly after we moved in, he joined us.