They planted the garden about it and the orchard, and made below it the pond where the hills could look to see if their trees were on straight. In winter time those hills were as green as any of Maine in June, but in our rainless summer they were soft tan or gold against the cobalt sky.
To accommodate three families there were three apartments, each with sitting-room, bedroom and bath, and in addition, for the use of the whole group, a common parlor, large office, dining room and kitchen, together with numerous guest rooms in the upper story. Every convenience of the period was included,—ample closets, modern plumbing, sufficient fire-places.
The plan for housekeeping in this large establishment was for each wife in turn to take charge for a month. It was no small undertaking to provide for the household, with the growing flocks of children and the frequent addition of visiting sisters, cousins, or aunts. The women involved, being individuals, had differing capacities and ideas, and each had the desire for a home managed according to her own idea. Imagine sitting down to every meal with six parents, twelve children and half a dozen guests! Inevitably the communal plan could not but fail to be altogether ideal. For a wonder it held together in a fashion for fifteen years, but there were many trips to San Francisco to relieve the strain, or long visits of mothers and children in Maine, that I guess might not have been so frequent or of so long duration if there had been individual homes for the cousin-partners. Ultimately the Ben Flints took up a permanent residence in Oakland and we moved to Los Angeles, leaving the Dr. Flints on the ranch.
CHAPTER VII
LOS ALAMITOS AND LOS CERRITOS
For many reasons our choice of Los Angeles as a residence was a very happy one. In the first place it gave my father an opportunity to keep in touch with his business interests in the southern part of the state, and in the second it fulfilled two dear wishes of my mother.
It had been her desire, for years, to get away from the large ranch house at San Justo, with its crowds of people, and into a small home of her own where she could surround her children with influences and conditions that accorded with her ideals.
Again, it was joy to her to be near her two sisters, who lived on the neighboring ranches, Los Cerritos and Los Alamitos, and to her father who had recently come to Southern California.
Rancho Los Alamitos
The three families were doubly related,—Hathaway mothers and Bixby fathers, Mary and Llewellyn, Margaret and Jotham, Susan and John. I have told of my father’s marriage to Sarah Hathaway. She was always a delicate girl and lived only six years after she came west as a bride. There were no children, much to the disappointment of them both. After an interval of six years father returned to Maine and married my mother, Mary, the little sister of his loved Sarah, who had, in the twelve years passed, grown to womanhood. When I came I was given the name of this beloved older sister and wife.