"Yes; in just a minute," Mary replies; "I want to sit so that I can see both ways, Lagunita that way and the brown field with the tarantula holes that way," and she sweeps half the horizon with a chubby hand.
We are half-sitting, half-lying, in the shade at the base of a live-oak on a little knoll back of the campus, whence we can look down on the red-tiled roofs and warm buffy walls of the Quadrangle, and on beyond to the Arboretum with its great eucalyptuses sticking out above the other trees. We can catch glimpses of the bay, too, and of the white houses of the caretakers of the oyster-beds perched on piles above the water like ancient Swiss lake-dwellers.
Strolling about over the brown field of the tarantula holes and carrying bundles of sticks, and stooping down now and then to strike at the ground with one of the sticks, are several young men, Sophomores by their hats, and one of them with a red jacket on:
"Gowfin' a' the day,
Daein' nae wark ava';
Rinnin' aboot wi' a peck o' sticks
Efter a wee bit ba'!"
Mary recites this in a pretty singsong.
"Why, Mary, where did you learn that?" I ask in surprise.
"From the Scotch lady that I take of."
"Take of! What is it you take of her? I hope not measles or smallpox, or—"
"Why no, of course not. Music. That's what all young ladies take."
