[CHRONICLES OF AN ANGLO-CALIFORNIAN RANCH.]
By MARGARET INNES.
CHAPTER VI.
THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE—THE WORKMEN—THE COLOURED LADY—AN ILLNESS IN THE BARN.
he plans for our house were finished. We had been very fortunate in the choice of our architect, and he had delighted us by working into them, with great taste, all the peculiarly English features, which we had set our hearts upon having, in this far-away Californian home.
There was to be a roomy ingle-nook, and large open fire-places, latticed windows with green shutters, and deep window seats, and great overhanging eaves to the roof. On the gables outside we were to have black beams in white plaster, to look like an old farm. To make the housework easier, and also because we liked it, all the rooms were to be on one floor, the whole second storey being one large attic.
Finally after many negotiations, the contract was signed, and we began to look daily for the coming of the men. We had learnt to dread the desert wind, which according to tradition, comes along in spells of three, or at most four days, but which we found had a nasty habit of staying longer, leaving one painfully parched, inside and out, body and spirit. At such times we watched anxiously for the great bank of white sea fog, rising up behind the mountains on the west, and always a sign that the fresh sea breeze was coming back to us.
It was on a Sunday evening, during a specially diabolical dose of desert wind, when there were bush fires on nearly all the mountains round us, and the air seemed filled with smoke and the pungent smell of burning sage, that our men arrived, bringing with them two waggon loads of materials for putting up the various sheds and tents needed for their comfort, during the eighty days, which was the contracted time for building the house.