Next the kitchen came the men’s dining room, which contained a long table, covered with oil-cloth and flanked by wooden benches; the constant fragrance of mutton-stew and onions, of frijoles and strong coffee was more attractive to a hungry nose than the odors chastened for the family meals. Harry frequently ate with the men but I couldn’t. There are certain disadvantages in being a carefully brought up girl.
Following down the line of rooms in the left wing one came next upon a wood-room which was given over to many tiers of willow wood, a very necessary adjunct to a kitchen when cooking for as many as thirty people must be done with that light wood for fuel.
In the adjoining laundry, lighted only by two doors in the thick walls we could weekly watch, admire, and try to imitate the skillful sprinkling of the clothes in the approved Chinese manner,—a fine spray blown from the mouth. In those days there were no germs!
The last of the series, opening into the court-yard, was the milk room where the rows of shining pans afforded us unstinted supplies of cream both for the interesting barrel-churns and for the table,—clotted cream thick enough to spread with a knife upon hot baking powder biscuits, or a steaming baked potato. I am glad I can remember it, for there is no evidence now-a-days that such cream ever was.
A second court off to one side was formed by the row of barns, sheds, the granary, the hen houses, each offering a different chance to play. On one occasion when we had climbed the outside ladder to the high door in the granary, when it was full of wheat, we tried the difficult feat of chasing mice across the top of the huge, soft mass of grain. One small boy who was fast enough to catch a mouse by the tail had the unpleasant experience of having it turn and bury its little teeth in the back of his hand.
There was a corn crib nearer the barn and I think I must have filled my mouth at some time full of the hard yellow kernels, for otherwise how would I have acquired knowledge of certain sensations to enable me to dream from time to time that my teeth have suddenly all fallen loose into my mouth, very much over-crowding it?
Once across this court I saw a rebellious young colt who objected to being “broken,” walk magnificently on his hind legs, and it was here that Silverheel, the father of all the colts, and otherwise honored as a trotter who had won races, showed his superior intelligence, when loosed in the barn which was on fire, by dashing out, rolling in the dirt and extinguishing the blaze in his mane. It made so great an impression upon my little cousin Fanny that some time later when her apron caught at a bonfire she promptly followed his example and undoubtedly saved her life by her prompt action.
To enter the house from the court, we stepped up to the brick terrace and through a wide, low door into a short hall that opened directly opposite into the garden. In this hall was a narrow, steep stairway, under which was a fascinating closet where choice bridles and old coats and boots were kept; where there were boxes of mixed nails and bolts and screws and tacks; on the shelf forward could be found some plug tobacco, some small square bunches of California matches, some candles, and a pile of pink bar soap for use at the veranda washstand. I know yet the smell of that closet.
On the right was a door into the parlor, so low that tall Uncle John had to stoop to enter; across the hall was the spare room. All other rooms opened directly on the long outdoor corridor.
The rooms were dimly lighted because the windows were high, rather small, and, on account of the thickness of the adobe wall, deep-set; upstairs there was more light as those walls were but two-feet thick, the lower ones being about three. At the Alamitos one of the first things Aunt Susan did was to cut the windows to the floor. This was never done at Cerritos.