f 
 
 ft 
 c 
 
 f. 
 
 SARA 
 WHITE 
 
 ISAITAN 
 
University of California Berkeley 
 
University of California Berkeley 
 
DOWN IT CAME WITH ALL ON BOARD. 
 
Uncle Hiram 
 
 in 
 
 California 
 
 More Fun and Laughter 
 With Uncle Hiram and Aunt Phoebe 
 
 By 
 
 Sara White Isaman 
 
 New York 
 The H. K. Fly Company 
 
 Publishers 
 
Copyright, 1917, 
 
 By 
 Sara White Isaman 
 
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 
 
 TO 
 
 MY BELOVED SISTEE, 
 MES. WILLIAM HENEY AKIN 
 
TEN YEAES IN "THE CITY BEAUTIFUL" 
 
 gjTTT'S just ten years ago to-day, Mandy," 
 
 announced Aunt Phoebe Harrison, 
 
 "since me and your Uncle Hiram first 
 
 landed in California. So this morning when we 
 
 were sitting down to our breakfast I asked, 'Do 
 
 you know, Hiram Harrison, that this is one of 
 
 our anniversary days'? 
 
 "Your Uncle looked up from the mornin' 
 paper where he was scanning the headlines for 
 the latest news, and answered me back by ask- 
 ing, 'What do you mean, Phoebe?' 
 
 " 'I mean it's just ten years ago today since 
 we' 'landed in California' finished your Uncle, 
 glancin' at the date on the paper and throwing 
 it under the table, and then, continuing in a 
 reminiscent-like mood : 'Sure enough ; how time 
 does fly on golden wings in this land of the set- 
 ting sun; seems more like ten months than ten 
 years, and IVe enjoyed every minute of it, too. 
 
 " 'And Phoebe,' he continued, 'you don't look 
 
 9 
 
10 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOKNIA 
 
 a day older ; and now that I take a good square 
 look at you, I believe you look younger, and a 
 whole lot handsomer, than you did ten years- 
 ago. 
 
 " 'This is a wonderful country to preserve 
 women's looks, provMed, of course, they have 
 any looks to preserve," he added. 
 
 "Mebby I do look younger, and handsomer, 
 than I did ten years ago, and mebby I don't, 
 but all the same such talk listens good to any 
 woman who is picking out gray hairs on the 
 sly and living in fear of a three-ply double chin ; 
 especially since dame fashion has wished a lot 
 of juvenile styles on us that we are supposed to 
 wear regardless. 
 
 "Many a man walking behind a woman and 
 admiring her trim, girlish-clad figure has had 
 the shock of his life when he sees a grand- 
 mother face peeping out from beneath her 
 flower-laden picture hat ; and far be it from me 
 shocking anyone like that if I can help it ; and it 
 certainly is encouraging to hear, at least, that 
 you are holding your own, and not at all dis- 
 pleased at the compliment, I answered back: 
 
 " 'I suppose losing that forty pounds did im- 
 prove my figure, and I must say the fifty pounds 
 
IN THE "CITY BEAUTIFUL" 11 
 
 you gained since coming to Californy made a 
 fine looking man out of Hiram Harrison. 
 
 " 'And I was just thinking,' I continued, 
 'there was not a man on the golf links yesterday 
 whose clothes set any better than yours. Since 
 you have been patronizing that expensive tailor 
 you look like a different man.' 
 
 " 'And I heard a party of swell-looking folks 
 say, yesterday,' he broke in, 'that your new golf 
 clothes had more class to them than anything 
 seen in the club house for years.' 
 
 "Then we both laughed; for there we sat, 
 throwing bouquets at each other worse than any 
 young honeymoonin' couple, and then I said 
 'Well, there certainly was plenty of room for 
 improvement. Yes, I guess, like a lot of other 
 green tourists from the middle west, there was 
 room for improvement, all right.' 
 
 " 'Middle west, nothing! I get tired of hear- 
 in' that remark. One would think any tramp 
 born in the slums of New York City was better 
 than a gentleman from the middle west. Every- 
 body has to learn the ropes when they come to 
 Californy. Heard a fresh tourist ask a police- 
 man the other day if he'd have to take the 
 "Angel's Flight car line" to see the Bunker 
 
12 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 Hill monument, and another one wanted to know 
 if there was an Indian settlement out of Alle- 
 sandro street, and I Ve had a half dozen of them 
 ask me this winter what convention was in town 
 when they see the crowds on Broadway, so I 
 guess we caught on about as well as the rest.' 
 
 " 'Well,' says I, *I wouldn't want to go 
 through it again. Eemember the first time we 
 ate at Levy's, because you thought it would be 
 cheap seeing them cooking in full view of the 
 street? And the first time we ever was in a 
 cafeteria, and you dropped a tray full of vic- 
 tuals onto a bald-headed man?' 
 
 " * Just like a woman,' growled your Uncle, 
 'to get a man into a thing and then laugh at 
 him. Well, I never got supper in the wrong 
 apartment anyway; and you was pretty badly 
 plagued when that smarty saw you in your bath- 
 ing suit, and told the other bathers to look out, 
 for when you got in the ocean would rise a 
 foot.' 
 
 "So the tables were turned on me, but I con- 
 tinued: 'Eemember how the sight-seeing man 
 told us Busche's Gardens was sunken by an 
 earthquake?' 
 
 " 'Yes, and I'm not sure yet but what they 
 
IN THE "CITY BEAUTIFUL" 13 
 
 were/ argued your Uncle, who always hates to 
 give up to being fooled; 'so long as there was 
 earthquakes some fifty thousand years or more 
 before that smarty was born, who knows for cer- 
 tain how they was sunk!' 
 
 " 'And then,' says I, 'when we asked him if 
 he'd showed us all the curiosities we were en- 
 titled to for our two dollars, he pointed out a 
 woman standing on the sidewalk and said, she 
 was the biggest curiosity he knew of because she 
 was the first woman he ever saw who stuttered. 
 He was right about that but I never thought of 
 it before. 
 
 " 'I've heard a woman can't keep a secret, 
 too, but I never told a soul back home about the 
 time you thought you was a capturing a Cata- 
 lina mountain goat alive, and grabbed a nanny 
 goat, that had her head in some bushes, by the 
 hind legs and both of you tumbled, head over 
 heels, down that steep mountain side and a mov- 
 ing picture man who happened to see the per- 
 formance, offered you five hundred dollars to do 
 the act over again?' 
 
 " 'Yes, I shut him up mighty quick by tellin* 
 him I'd do it for nothin', if he'd take the part 
 of the goat." 
 
14 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOBNIA 
 
 " 'That wasn't as funny though, as the idea 
 you got into your head when we visited the os- 
 trich farm, and saw a rooster ostrich sitting in 
 the sand trying to hatch out some eggs, while 
 the lady ostrich was gadding around enjoying 
 herself; and you said, you was going to invent 
 a Booster Brooder Machine that would revo- 
 lutionize the chicken industry and land you in 
 the millionaire class.' 
 
 66 'Well, didn't I do it T answered back your 
 Uncle real peeved as he always is when I men- 
 tion this subject, 'even experts said the Boos- 
 ter Brooder Machine was a marvel of simplicity, 
 and if you hadn't got chicken-hearted yourself 
 when the old General I tried it on went on the 
 hunger strike, we'd be livin' now in a half- 
 million-dollar house on some swell street in 
 Pasadena. That Brooder would have been a 
 bigger money-maker than any patent medicine 
 or chewing gum ever put on the market. Trust 
 you to interfere and spoil things. If I had it 
 to do over I'd force-feed that rooster like they 
 do them suffragette women they put in jail.' 
 
 " 'All the same,' says I, 'I'll never forget 
 the old General sittin' on them eggs, with his 
 head sticking out of a hole in top of the brooder, 
 
IN THE "CITY BEAUTIFUL" 15 
 
 and a flock of hens circlin' round him at a safe 
 distance, with a curious look in their eyes, for 
 all the world like I've seen a lot of wimin look 
 at a man milliner, or a man dressmaker.' 
 
 " 'Well,' observed your Uncle thoughtfully, 
 'mebby the feathered kingdom won't take kind- 
 ly to this new feminist movement, but it don't 
 take a prophet to see the finish of mere man, 
 and Californy with its deciding vote in the 
 hands of the wimen is going to head the move- 
 ment with a brass band.' 
 
 " 'I guess you are right,' I admitted; *I 
 used to take this equality talk as a joke, but 
 after hearing that woman lecture at the club the 
 other day I am prepared for anything; she is 
 the President of a "Dress Eeform Movement," 
 to compel by law the adoption of a uniform 
 dress to be worn by men and women alike. She 
 said dressing different was an idea handed 
 down from the dark ages, when folks lived in 
 caves and the wimen dressed themselves in 
 leaves and grasses and the men wore the skins 
 of animals. She said, "There never would be 
 a real equality of the sexes until they dressed 
 so as you can't tell which from the other." ' 
 
 "She showed us some drawings of the uni- 
 
16 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 form the * Dress Eeform Movement ' had in 
 mind, in which they tried to cater to the pre- 
 verted tastes in dress of both male and female, 
 so as not to shock either of them too much by 
 the change. 
 
 "For instance to please the men the derby 
 hat style was to be adopted, but to cater to the 
 savage taste of the wimen for decorating their 
 headgear an upstanding butterfly bow of ribbon 
 would be added to the back. The uniform itself 
 was to be a Norfolk jacket bloomer style of 
 dress, made of dark cloth in winter, and white 
 in summer." 
 
 "Your 'Uncle groaned, and said: 'They will 
 do it yet, Phoebe, see if they don't,' givin' the 
 women the balance of power at the poles was a 
 dark day for Calif orny. Things didn't go np 
 at Sacramento this year exactly to their likin', 
 and I've heard dark threats already that the 
 remedy was to replace the anti-women men leg- 
 islators with women, at the next election; and 
 who knows what humiliating laws they'll sad- 
 dle onto the menf Pretty how-de-doo, such a 
 uniform dress law would make, when worked 
 out. 
 
 " 'Take this young married couple next door 
 
IN THE "CITY BEAUTIFUL" 17 
 
 for instance. She's dark and tall, and he's 
 small and blonde ; dress him up in one of them 
 white uniforms, with a sky blue butterfly bow 
 on the back of his hat, and some man will be 
 tryin' to flirt with him before he'd get a block 
 away from home, and trust you, Phoebe, to put 
 on the cleanest duds, if our clothes are both 
 alike and you can have your choice. 
 
 "Let them go, though. It will save the men 
 a lot of money when they don't have to pay a 
 pack of milliners, to turn their wives' hats in- 
 side out, and upside down, so the old dome will 
 look as much out of style as a last year's bird's 
 nest. Its an ill wind that blows nobody good, 
 even this crazy idea of a lot of wimen politi- 
 cians." 
 
 " 'Speaking of politics,' says I, ' reminds me 
 of a discussion they had at the club; they of- 
 fered a prize, a copy of "How to Manage a 
 Man," for the best answer to the question, 
 "When is a Tourist a Calif ornian?" One 
 woman said it was when they quit wearing over- 
 coats ; another said it was when they quit knock- 
 ing California, but the woman who got the prize 
 says it was when wimen commenced to talk poli- 
 tics, and men commenced to grumble about the 
 
18 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 taxes. Now what would you have answered?' 
 " 'Who, me?' said your Uncle. 'Pd have 
 said, it was when the wimen commenced to 
 spend every dollar they can get their hands on 
 for clothes and take an interest in the society 
 news of the Sunday papers; and after makin' a 
 visit "back home," where life is apt to be pretty 
 tame after living in California.' 
 
CJNWELCOME GUESTS 
 
 FORMER NEIGHBORS VISIT AUNT PHOEBE AND UNCLE 
 HIRAM 
 
 { { T" *M glad you're goin' to make a long visit, 
 Mandy," observed Aunt Phoebe, "for I 
 want to tell you about a lot of funny ex- 
 periences me and your Uncle Hiram have had 
 since coming out to California. 
 
 "First I'll tell you about Caliope Campbell 
 and his family descendin' on us for a long visi- 
 tation soon after we had got comfortably set- 
 tled in our new home out Westlake way; and 
 later, how they nearly mortified us to death by 
 comin' to the Virginia to see us and followin' 
 us up to the St. Francis in San Francisco, 
 where Caliope nearly met his Waterloo gettin' 
 choked on a sand dab bone. Then some other 
 time I'll tell you about what a time I had tryin' 
 to get a good hired girl; then about apartment 
 house life in California and buyin' Twelve Hun- 
 
 19 
 
20 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOKNIA 
 
 dred Dollars worth of clothes at one time. And, 
 oh, yes, don't let me forget to tell you about the 
 time your Uncle thought I was crazy because 
 I told him I saw a man drivin' a cow a la horse 
 style on the women-crowded streets of Los An- 
 geles. Then about our trip to Seattle and Port- 
 land and last but not least, our trip back to our 
 old Indiana home that neither of us had seen 
 since we left it on our weddin' day to carve 
 out a new home on the prairies of Nebraska, and 
 how rejoiced we both were to get back to the 
 sunshine and flowers of dear, old California. 
 But now I must get back to the Campbell's visit. 
 
 "One mornin' when your uncle was readin' 
 the items from the Fairview Precinct in the 
 Lincoln Journal, he suddenly throwed the paper 
 clear across the room, and called out to me, who 
 was busy in the kitchen: 'Caliope Campbell has 
 traded his west eighty for a chicken ranch out 
 in the suburbs at "Watts, and they are comin' 
 out here for good an' all. 
 
 " ' Just my luck, of course,' he grumbled, 'af- 
 ter almost movin' to get rid of them, to have 
 them up and sell out and follow me.' 
 
 " i We're in for it, Phoebe,' he continued, 'for 
 the correspondent from Fairview Precinct says 
 
UNWELCOME GUESTS 21 
 
 after visitin' their former nabers, the Harri- 
 sons, for a month or so, an' seein' the sights of 
 the city, they will go overland to their new home 
 in Watts.' 
 
 " 'Do as you please about it, Phoebe/ he 
 growled, ' but forewarned is forearmed, and Hi- 
 ram Harrison is goin ' to be absent from the city 
 'bout the time his former nabers happen along. 
 Wouldn't live in the same house a month with 
 that clapper-tongued, long-nosed, tow-headed fe- 
 male if you's give me a thou ' 
 
 " 'Hush,' says I, interruptin' him; ' 'Taint 
 becomin' for a man of your years to talk so 
 against any former naber woman that way. If 
 they come we'll have to make the best of it.' 
 
 " 'Best of your granny's nightcap!' he broke 
 in. 'If them Campbells get into this house, 'twill 
 be over the prostrate form of Hiram Harrison. 
 I'd as soon entertain them young lions out to 
 the park as them Campbell twin boys. Never 
 could bear 'em since they put that dog into the 
 front room that time an' nearly scairt you to 
 death. Beckon Mrs. Campbell spread it all round 
 the naberhood that I was scairt, too. ' 
 
 "Then I commenced to laugh, for I never will 
 forget how scairt your Uncle was, when he 
 
22 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 opened the door first that night, and it bein' 
 pitch-dark, he tramped right onto the sleepin' 
 dog that jumped up with a bow-wow an' throwed 
 him acrost the room. The dog was scairt too, 
 an' run round and round, upsettin' chairs and 
 things till it see the door an' run out, nearly 
 upsettin' me, too; then I rushed in and lit the 
 lamp, an' there stood your Uncle in a chair 
 wavin' his arms an' callin' for me to git the 
 shotgun. 
 
 "He never could bear them Campbell twins 
 afterward, for the little rats was watchin' the 
 fun, an' their mother told it all over the next 
 day, an' folks laughed an' joked him 'bout it till 
 your Uncle thought he was disgraced all over 
 Lancaster county. 
 
 " 'Caliope,' continued your uncle (they called 
 him Caliope because when he snored, the noise 
 one side of his nose made sounded so much like 
 a steam caliope, <t would have fooled an expert), 
 'is so henpecked he makes me ashamed of my 
 sex. If she was to feed him froze sawdust for 
 ice cream, he'd go round blowin' 'bout the "ice 
 cream my wife made. ' ' Whenever he says ' l My 
 Wife," it seems to me he always says it in 
 itallacks and capital letters. If the nabors out 
 
UNWELCOME GUESTS 23 
 
 here hears him snorin' an' her talkin' through 
 her beak of a nose, they'd think we 'd bought us a 
 phonygraf, as well as a caliope.' 
 
 " There must have been a mistake 'bout the 
 time they was to start, for a few days afterward 
 I looked out of the window and saw the Camp- 
 bells a comin'. They was comin' single file, 
 stringin' along half a block, Caliope a-headin' 
 the procession, luggin' a box with slats nailed 
 over the top, through which three chickens, two 
 hens and a rooster, was stickin' their heads. 
 An awkward girl and Mrs. Campbell was loaded 
 down with pillers and satchels and lunch bas- 
 kets while the two twins, Silas and Sammy, was 
 leadin' a yellow dog that was about the size of a 
 Jersey calf. Your Uncle was upstairs, and come 
 tearin' down in a hurry when I called up to him 
 that the Campbells was a-comin'. 
 
 " 'To the bathroom,' he commanded, like a 
 general leadin' an army, an' just as the Camp- 
 bells came stringin' catacornered acrost the 
 lawn we was locked safe an' sound for the time 
 bein' inside, prepared for a good long wait. 
 iWhen I looked at your Uncle I see he had most 
 of a pie and part of a roast chicken an' a loaf 
 o' bread that he had grabbed from the pantry 
 
24 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOBNIA 
 
 ias we come through. 'A general always pre- 
 pares for a siege,' said he, gazin' at the vict- 
 uals; * more'n likely they'll stay till dark, an* 
 we don't want to get too far from our base of 
 supplies. ' 
 
 "Caliope rung the front door bell, and 
 pounded on the door, an' Mrs. Campbell rung 
 the side door bell and pounded on that door, 
 while the girl went round to try the kitchen. 
 The twins put in their time throwin' sand and 
 pebbles at the windows and tramplin' my ferns 
 and bio win' the auto horn; and, failin' to raise 
 us, they held a council of war and planned a 
 second attact. A window had been hoisted a 
 ways in the upstairs hall, an' Caliope got a lad- 
 der and tried that while the women took turns 
 at ringin' the bell and the twins squirted water 
 from the hose onto the windows and everything. 
 When I caught sight of Mrs. Campbell makin' 
 for the back of the house I had my fears. We 
 could see the kitchen door from one of the bath- 
 room windows, and we watched her while she 
 tried the screen door, which was hooked on the 
 inside. Your Uncle chuckled when it wouldn't 
 budge, but he laughed too soon, for, after think- 
 in' a bit, she fished out a hairpin from her little 
 
UNWELCOME GUESTS 25 
 
 wad of hair, and shapin' it somethin' like a 
 hook, she picked around till she had the door 
 open, and with a triumphant whoop Silas and 
 Sammy landed in the kitchen. There was a table 
 under a transom in the bathroom, where I could 
 see through into my bedroom, and through the 
 dinin' room door. I clum up and watched 'em 
 as they come in sheddin' things right and left 
 till they reached my bedroom. 'They ain't io 
 home,' said Mrs. Campbell, takin' off her short- 
 backed felt sailer, and her brown plush coat 
 lined with brown quilted satin that she bought 
 when they was all the rage back in the early 
 eighties. ' No, they ain't at home, and I Ve heard 
 folks get the gallups just as soon as they get to 
 Californy, so we may as well make ourselves 
 at home, for there's no tellin' when they will 
 get back. But they can 't be very far away, ' says 
 she, openin' a closet, 'for here's her hat and 
 cape. Aunt Phoebe's gettin' gay, and puttin' 
 on as much style as a country school ma'am,' 
 says she, takin' out my bird-of-paradise hat an' 
 puttin' it on hind-side before. Then she put on 
 my new black opera cape with the lavender 
 linin ' outside. ' There 's no fool like an old fool. ' 
 says she, and although she was lookin' in the 
 
26 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 lookin' glass, I knowed she wan't talkin' about 
 herself. 
 
 "By this time Sofie was busy in the parlor 
 with the pianola, Caliope was helpin' hisself to 
 things on the sideboard and the twins had 
 caught the white angora kitten and greased its 
 head an' tail slick with my face cream. The rest 
 of his fluffy fur stood out straight from fright, 
 an', mad as I was, I couldn't help laughin', he 
 looked so funny. When one twin took him by, 
 the ears and the other one by the tail and swung 
 him round, he let out such scairt, pitiful yowls 
 that your uncle, who set great store by the kit- 
 ten, couldn't stand it any longer, and tiptoes 
 hisself up onto the table alongside of me to see 
 what was goin* on. 
 
 "He hadn't any more'n put his two feet on 
 till the table swayed, an' with a noise like the 
 crack o' doom, down it went with all on board. 
 
 " ' Earthquakes,' yelled Mrs. Campbell, headed 
 for the front yard, the rest a-follerin' her. The 
 nabers came out to see what the commotion was 
 about, an' there she stood wearin' my hat an' 
 cape, and tellin' the nabers that she felt two 
 distinct earthquake shocks (one when I came 
 down and one when your uncle did, I suppose). 
 
UNWELCOME QUESTS 27 
 
 I heard she wrote back home that she went 
 through an awful quake, but the folks in Cali- 
 forny denied it for fear it'd hurt the country. 
 In the meantime, we was takin' an inventory of 
 ourselves, an' found your uncle had banged his 
 nose up pretty bad hittin' it on the bath tub, 
 and I had twisted my ankle so as I couldn't 
 stand up alone. 
 
 " 'Outgeneraled by a woman with a hairpin,' 
 blurted out your uncle, holdin' his handkerchief 
 to his nose. 
 
 " 'We're in for it,' says I, weakly; 'go 
 and ' 
 
 " 'Who's runnin' this campaign, Phoebe, you 
 or me?' 
 
 " 'It seems to be runnin' itself,' says I, and 
 he answered: 
 
 ' ' ' Obey orders, and I '11 get rid of them Camp- 
 bells in twenty-four hours or call in the police, 
 one or the other.' 
 
 "With a cane and your uncle's help I got to 
 the spare bedroom upstairs, and just as I turned 
 the key in the lock I heard the Campbells all 
 come troopin' back arguin' whether there was 
 one or two earthquake shocks. 
 
 "Puttin' on his hat, your uncle slipped out a 
 
28 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 side door and come in the front one like as if 
 he'd just come home from town. A little thing 
 like me bein' too sick to see any of them didn't 
 matter, an' Mrs. Campbell soon turned her at- 
 tention to gittin' supper. Your uncle told her 
 the Jap boy would be back soon, but she said 
 after four days of stale light bread on the cars, 
 she was pinin' for a mess of soda biscuit, and 
 she hadn't fell low enough yet to eat biscuits 
 after a heathen 'you might ketch the yeller 
 peril or some other furrin disease from 'em', 
 she said. 
 
 "When the Jap boy come back a little later 
 and found all the baggage and them chickens, 
 not to mention the dog, tied to the table leg in 
 the kitchen, and two new cooks wearin' his best 
 white aprons, gettin' supper, he was so excited 
 he forgot all his boasted fluent English an' jab- 
 bered to himself like a crazy man. 
 
 6 1 To go back a little, it seems that Sofie's beau, 
 Mosy Saunders, had come through with Cali- 
 ope's household goods, so that night, nearly 
 'leven o'clock 'twas, we heard the awfullest 
 poundin' on the front door an' trampin' on the 
 porch. I thought 't was a runaway horse, an' 
 your uncle thought mebby the house was on fire 
 
UNWELCOME GUESTS 29 
 
 an' the firemen was a-tryin' to break open the 
 door, so he jumped out of bed in an awful hurry 
 an' hoistin' the window, hollered down: 
 
 11 * Who's there, an' what do you want!' 
 
 " 'Why, it's me,' spoke up a cheerful young 
 voice from out the dark; 'Sid Saunder's young- 
 est boys, Mosy, an' I've come to set up.' 
 
 ' * * Well, you can set up on the telephone pole, 
 or mosey back to town, for all I care,' answered 
 back your uncle, mad as a hornit, slammin' down 
 the window and divin' back into bed. 
 
 " 'Hiram Harrison, I'm ashamed of you,' said 
 I, takin' a hand in the Campbell fracas for the 
 first time that day. 
 
 " 'Of course,' growled your uncle from the 
 bed covers, an' I went on: 'Surely you ain't for- 
 got that awful time when we first come to Ne- 
 braska and I had pneumony an' no one come 
 near because of a smallpox scare, an' when you 
 was nearly dead waitin' on me, who but Mary 
 Saunders come through a blindin' blizzard to 
 nurse me, leavin' little Mosy, that you've just 
 drove from the door, at home to cry his eyes 
 out after his ma?' 
 
 "He twisted 'round and said: 'She got paid 
 
30 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOBNIA 
 
 for it ; let a body lift a finger for yon an' you re- 
 member it forever. ' 
 
 *' 'You can't pay such debts with money,' I 
 answered, 'and besides there's been so few fin- 
 gers lifted that I can't afford to forget them 
 that was. Hoist that window at once an' tell 
 Sid Saunders' youngest boy Mosy, to go 'round 
 to the kitchen door.' 
 
 "Your uncle minded me or once in his life, 
 and while Mosy was waitin' for him to come 
 down I heard voices below. The policeman on 
 our block had heard the commotion an' come 
 over to see what was up. Mosy, innocent as a 
 lamb, said 'Howdy-do,' an' asked him if he was 
 a-boardin' with Aunt Phoebe. The policeman 
 told your uncle afterward that he was puzzled 
 for a minute as to whether he had nabbed a fa- 
 mous crook who was shammin', or whether the 
 feller was actually that green. 
 
 "Well, your uncle finally got Mosy in, an' 
 Sofie out, so to speak, and she went, sleepy-like 
 down the back stairs, buttonin' the back of her 
 dress as she went, an' missin' a step, she went 
 humpity-bump down them stairs, burstin' open 
 the stair door and Ian din' in the middle of 
 the kitchen in front of the astonished Mosy. 
 
UNWELCOME GUESTS 31 
 
 Then he told her the reason he was so late was 
 because he had lost the address she give him, 
 and rememberin' somethin' about Westlake, he 
 had knocked at half the doors 'round Westlake 
 Park till he found us. 
 
 "The course of true love run smoother after 
 this, for Sofie was soon gettin' Mosy his supper, 
 and everything was fine. 
 
 "Your uncle, gettin' up middlin' early next 
 mornin' found 'em both settin' on the couch 
 with their shoes off and their arms around each 
 other sound asleep. 
 
 "How did your uncle get rid of them Camp- 
 bells? I'll tell you some other time, for I see 
 your uncle comin' an' I dassent tell it afore him. 
 He gets mad if I even laugh when I hear a band 
 playin' 'The Campbells is comin'." 
 
HIEED GIELS 
 
 AUNT PHOEBE RELATES HER EXPERIENCES IN 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 UGH a time as we had in Californy, 
 Mandy, gettin' a good hired girl," com- 
 plained Aunt Phoebe to her niece. "I 
 thought at first it would be lots handier than it 
 used to be back home, just to ring up an employ- 
 ment agency and have 'em send one out, an' 
 save all the fussin' your uncle used to do, when 
 he had to hook on to the buggy and drive over 
 to the Swede settlement and fetch one home. 
 My goodness, Mandy, it seems like a dream the 
 way them clean, good-natured girls worked day 
 in an' day out, after a siege of them employ- 
 ment-agency kind. I see now I didn't half ap- 
 preciate what they done for me, so I sent every 
 one of them a nice present from Californy last 
 Christmas. Yes, after you got one of them good 
 Swede girls your troubles were over at least 
 
 32 
 
HIEED GIELS 33 
 
 till she married the hired hand. But out in Cal- 
 iforny a new hired girl means as much trouble 
 as a run of the grippe, or housecleaning back 
 home. 
 
 "Well, the first thing I done after movin' into 
 our house out Westlake way, was to call up one 
 of them agencies and asked fur a girl. The wo- 
 man who answered the 'phone, instead of an- 
 swerin' my questions commenced to put me 
 through a cross-examination about things I had 
 always thought was only family affairs. She 
 seemed disappointed when I said there was two 
 of us and said most of the girls was desirous 
 of obtaining situations in a family of one. How- 
 ever, she said if I could furnish satisfactory ref- 
 erences as to our respectability and financial 
 standing she would try and send me a maid, who 
 had seen better days and expected to be treated 
 as one of the family. When I told your uncle he 
 'lowed he'd been in some families where he'd 
 hate to be treated like one of 'em, and as for 
 her havin' seen better days, says he, 'I don't 
 wonder a mite, for the wind is blowin' a regular 
 Santa Ana out of doors.' 
 
 "She didn't show up till nearly night, after 
 me an' your Uncle had all the hard straitenin'- 
 
34 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 up work done. The 'maid' turned out to be 
 about the hombliest specimen of a muchly mar- 
 ried female I ever laid eyes on, and a curious 
 fact I'd often noticed before struck me with re- 
 newed force, to wit : that I never see an outra- 
 geously ugly woman that wa'n't married to 
 something at least once, an' mebby a time or two 
 more. Instead of tryin' to a kitchin apron an' 
 takin' holt at onct, she spent the first hour tellin' 
 me how she had bore up under loosin' a choice 
 collection of husbands by the suicide, divorce 
 court, and other routes ; but the saddest part of 
 her monologue was that her last husband re- 
 fused to efface hisself by any of the aforesaid 
 routes, and continued to eat off her while she 
 'went out.' 
 
 "What she went out for while he was a eatin' 
 I don't know, less he gulped his coffee, or 
 champed his victuals, an' made her nervous. 
 
 "At last I got her out into the kitchen, where 
 your 'Uncle was introduced to her, by runnin' 
 into her when she was nearly standin' on her 
 head tryin' to light the gas range by puttin' a 
 match clean under it, instead of in the oven 
 where she had the gas turned on. He was car- 
 ryin' a rockin' chair over his head an' the mix- 
 
HIEED GIELS 35 
 
 up was something awful, especially as the gas 
 exploded at what writers call the ' psychological 
 moment/ an' come nigh burnin' all their hair off. 
 
 "Your Uncle set there flat on the floor like's 
 if he'd been struck dumb, while the maid, who 
 was busy pullin' off scorched hairs from her eye- 
 brows and false transformer was in the mean- 
 time givin' him the best tongue-la shin' I ever 
 hear a man take. 
 
 "I shut off the gas, an' got him out before she 
 struck him, an' while he was gettin' his breath 
 an' pullin' off burnt whiskers, I tried to pacify 
 him; but as soon as he could get his breath he 
 broke out. ' Nice old wild cat you Ve landed onto 
 me, hain't you? I'd as soon go into that savage 
 lion's cage at the park as to run amuck the likes 
 
 of her again. I'll have the next hired girl ' 
 
 'Stop,' says I,' ' she's listenin', an' she objects 
 to bein' called a 'hired girl,' she calls herself a 
 maid. ' 
 
 " 'Made in Calif orny,' jeered your Uncle, 
 
 'self crankin', pure brass ' 'Hush,' says I, 
 
 tryin' to stop him, 'she is awful easy insulted, 
 she says she has seen better days.' 'If she sees 
 any ones worse,' says he, interruptin' me, 'I'll 
 have her arrested, woman or no woman.' 
 
36 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOKNIA 
 
 "When we went back into the kitchen, in- 
 stead of gettin' supper we found her pokin' 
 'round huntin' up all the bottles, an' emptyin' 
 of them into the sink. Your Uncle rescued a few 
 doses of his Peruna, and of course such actions 
 didn't pour any oil on the troubled waters be- 
 twixt 'em. I tried to smooth matters over by 
 sayin' mebby she was sick an' lookin' for medi- 
 cine, but your uncle will have it to this day that 
 she was lookin ' fur licker. She said it was about 
 her meal time, and when I told her to go ahead 
 an' get supper she looked awful surprised and 
 said she didn't hire out to cook, an' besides her 
 doctor had told her never to eat her own cook- 
 in'. By this time I had a nervous headache, so 
 I went upstairs to bed, leavin' her an' your 
 Uncle to fight it out between 'em. 
 
 "From what your Uncle told me, an' what I 
 see myself next mornin', she must a dished up 
 a terrible mess of victuals. After he eat his 
 supper he brought me up some of her biscuits, 
 sayin': 'If I could get holt of the recete, 
 Phoebe, from which them biscuits was made, 
 I'd be a bloated millionaire before the month 
 is out. I'd sell it to the government to use in 
 the war. One of them biscuits dropped from 
 
HIRED GIRLS 37 
 
 an airship, half a mile up in the sky, would crack 
 a skull like an eggshell jest heft 'em, if you 
 don't believe me.' 
 
 " 'But,' says I, 'the employment agency wo- 
 man said she was a good plain cook.' ' She's 
 plain enough, all right,' observed your Uncle, 
 interruptin' me, 'but as fur her cookin', I could 
 do better myself with my hands tied behind me. ' 
 
 "When I told her next mornin' we'd give her 
 two dollars if she'd go, she was dreadful mad, 
 an' said she knowed there was goin' to be trou- 
 ble just as soon as she see the look that come 
 over that old crank's face when he nearly broke 
 his teeth out on her biscuits. 
 
 "Well, things went on without any help for 
 a few days and then I picked up courage and 
 told the employment agency woman to send out 
 another maid, and, Mandy, as sure as I am se-t 
 tin' here, when I opened the door an hour later 
 there stood the same woman I've just been 
 tellin' you about. She looked kind of dazed 
 when she sees me, for it seems she thought she 
 was goin' to another place and got the address 
 mixed. When I told her there had been some 
 mistake she demanded her carfare and to save 
 trouble I give it to her. As she went down the 
 
38 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 steps she jerked her head back in the direction 
 of your uncle, who was pickin' out devil grass 
 in the yard, and said she knowed she had seen 
 that old crank somewhere before. 
 
 "The next one we got was a big, raw-boned, 
 jandiced lookin' oldish woman from Missouri 
 who demanded to know before she set down, if 
 we did our own reachin'. 'Reachin'? I asked, 
 puzzled to know what she meant. ' Yes, reachin', 
 she repeated, 'reachin' fur your own victuals at 
 the table. I ain't no nigger, an' if you don't 
 do your own reachin' I go.' 
 
 "She was of a pessimistic dispositun, an' 
 used to threaten suicide, and off she would start 
 fur the beach sayin' her wages was in a stockin' 
 under her bed ready for the coroner, and the 
 water was a-callin' her again. Your uncle, who 
 didn't take much stock in her from the first, 
 said mebby it was, for her neck didn't look like 
 it had seen any; water sense she left old Mis- 
 souri. 
 
 "When she left, your uncle put his foot down 
 on any more middle-aged female maids, so we 
 tried a young English girl, six weeks from old 
 England, whose specialty was makin' tea in the 
 middle of the afternoon an' grumblin' at the 
 
HIRED GIELS 89 
 
 4 beastly American ways.' She shocked your un- 
 cle's patriotism by scornin' everything Ameri- 
 can and when he said, 'I believe you would 
 rather kiss King George's shoe than shake 
 hands with our President,' she looked aston- 
 ished and said, 'Well, I rathah foncy I would.' 
 
 ' i Then we tried a Jap boy, and when he went 
 to your uncle to know if he would have to shave 
 before breakfast and serve dinner in a tuxedo 
 coat, your uncle told him he could wear a bathin- 
 suit and Vandyke beard fur all he cared, if he 'd 
 only cook us something decent to eat. The Jap 
 looked at him curiously and lookin' at one of 
 the books one day, I saw he had written down 
 what your uncle said, under a headin' of 'Cur- 
 ious remarks made by excentric Americans I 
 have met.' 
 
 "Well, we lived high while he was with us, 
 for he was a fine cook, but he made me nervous 
 settin' books up around the kitchin an' studyin' 
 while he worked. He was daffy on Sheakspear 
 and declaimed Shylock and the pound of flesh 
 while he pounded the beefsteak, and ranted 
 around nights in his bed-room about Hamlet's 
 ghost till I got shivers up my backbone, and 
 he got me into deep water tryin' to explain 
 
40 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 some of the capers them women cut in that piece 
 called ' The Merry Wives of Windsor. ' 
 
 " When he left us we sent back home for Tillie 
 Johnson ; then I had a good rest till she married 
 the Swede milkman three weeks after her ar- 
 rival. She hated awful bad to leave us and said 
 nothin' but Gus would ever V made her do it. 
 
 "She was about $25 back on the money your 
 uncle advanced fur her ticket, the amount bein' 
 made up by Gus, who sheepishly handed me 
 nearly a peck basketful of milk tickets the 
 morning after he asked her," 
 
THE CAMPBELLS' AEBIVAL 
 
 SOME STEANGE AND EXCITING HAPPENINGS AT THE 
 BEACH 
 
 66 \ FTEE Caliope (Jampoeii and his folks, 
 ^-\ who moved out to Watts on a chicken 
 ranch from Nebraska, got through 
 visitin' us, we was so tuckered out we just shut 
 up the house and went to the beach for a good 
 rest. Yes, your Uncle was always partial to 
 Long Beach, Mandy, so nothin' would do but 
 we must go there. Some folks don't think it 
 sounds so stylish to say you are at that beach, 
 but your Uncle Hiram 'lowed he'd ruther be 
 out of fashion than to go to one of them eclu- 
 sive places, where you ain't in it if you don't 
 play golf an' tennis, an' joy ride, an' change 
 your clothes three times a day. 
 
 " 'At such a place,' says he, 'if you don't do 
 as the Romans do, you are apt to set around 
 mighty lonesome, while at Long Beach there's 
 the Pike an' things.' 
 
 41 
 
42 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFOBNIA 
 
 "So to Long Beach we went, and after we 
 got there nothin' would do your Uncle but the 
 very best hotel in the place, an' I worked 'most 
 as hard tryin' to keep drest up as I would if 
 I'd a' stayed at home an' kept house. 
 
 "Your Uncle is just wild over seaweeds an' 
 ocean water an' tides an' things, so one mornin' 
 when I was settin' comfortable in a rocker on 
 the west porch watchin' the sea your Uncle 
 come rushin' out with a writin' pad an' a sharp- 
 ened pencil in his hand an' said: 'Here I've 
 been foolin' round fur nearly a week, an' no ode 
 yet.' 
 
 " 'Who was you expectin' one from?' said I, 
 not catching his meanin' at once an' thinking 
 mebby he meant a dun, an' he answered back as 
 cross as two sticks: 
 
 " 'Pheba, sometimes you act as dense as a 
 ticket agent. I was referrin' to an ode to old 
 ocean, to be printed in the poets' corner of the 
 Farmer's Guide. An' now, with the call of the 
 sea in your ears, an' the smell of the salt air 
 on the breezes, a man ought to be doin' his best 
 work. I want to ketch the atmosphere of old 
 ocean at close range, an' make this deep sea 
 pome reek with the odor of seaweed, an' smack 
 
THE CAMPBELLS' ABEIVAL 43 
 
 of old ocean in every line. I feel it in my bones 
 that this is the time an' the place, an' I'm the 
 man to write her.' 
 
 " 'Well,' says I, always ready to beat a re- 
 treat when he gits one of them writin' fits on, 
 '111 go to my ' 
 
 " 'No, you won't,' says he, before I could fin- 
 ish. 'I want you to help me pick out a meter. 
 We'll pick out several, an' use the one that 
 sounds the pomiest.' 
 
 "So I settled back resigned-like in my chair 
 an' said: 'The gas an' water meters are the 
 only ones I know anything about,' an' your 
 Uncle answered back: 'Now, don't get funny 
 when anything as serious as a sea pome is in 
 the makin'.' 
 
 " 'I ain't,' I answered, tryin' to look sober, 
 'for the gas meter is about the last thing I'd 
 think of bein' funny about.' 
 
 " 'Well,' says he, 'to business; put on your 
 thinkin' cap an 'try to reckolict a rattlin' good 
 sea pome er two. ' 
 
 "Thus put to, I ransacked my brain for sea 
 pome meters, but bein' a native of a prairie 
 State for nearly the first half century of my 
 life, sea poetry was about the last branch of 
 
44 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOBNIA 
 
 literature that ever appealed to me. But by an' 
 by a faint glimmer of a pome that used to be 
 in one of the old school readers come floatin' 
 back on the wings of time, an' I stammered out : 
 ' " Break, break, break. On thy cold gray 
 stones, O sea!" ' 
 
 " 'Good enough!' said your Uncle, brighten- 
 in' up. 'Now we will see what Hiram Harris 
 can compose along them lines an' meters.' 
 
 " 'But,' says I, doubtful like, 'wouldn't that 
 be copyin', or whatever ' 
 
 " 'Plagarism, I suppose you mean, madam,' 
 says he, real huffy like; 'but it's the words you 
 dassen't steal, not the meter.' 
 
 " 'Not even a gas meter?' I asked, an' he 
 growled back: 'Cut it out about your old gas 
 meter! A woman would risk spoilin' a master- 
 piece to get off some old chestnutty joke. Now 
 let's see.' 
 
 "After scowlin' at the ocean as if 'twas the 
 cause of all his trouble, he read: 
 
 " 'Boom, boom, boom, 
 
 All day goes the moanin' sea, 
 
 And in the night she's a-moanin' still ' 
 
 " 'What word rhymes with sea! ' he demand- 
 
THE CAMPBELLS' AKRIVAL 45 
 
 ed. 'I can't finish that last line till I find a 
 word to match sea.' 
 
 " ' Why/ says I, * there's bee an' knee an' flea.' 
 
 "But he shook his head, sayin': 'Bee an' 
 knee hain't got anythin' to do with this pome; 
 an' if I was to mention a flea, Long Beach would 
 boycott me forever. I'll try somethin* with a 
 little more ginger in it, like that "Life Boat." ' 
 
 "Then he read: 'There's Ocean Park an' 
 Venice, an' Clifton-by-the-Sea. But old Long 
 Beach, my boy, is the only beach for me. ' 
 
 " 'That ain't so bad,' says I, 'but why don't 
 you make your own meter?' So after a-writin' 
 a while, he read: 
 
 " 'I love to set on Long Beach sand, 
 While softly, softly plays the band, 
 For while the band does softly play 
 In fancy I am far away 
 Till evening shadows round me fall; 
 'Tis night ; again I do recall ; 
 For all around me hungry groups 
 Say to Cafeteria or to Schroopsf 
 Here you can lead the simple life ; 
 The sea breeze lulls all envy, strife, 
 An' life at last is free from trammels 
 Great Scott, Phebe, here come the Campbells !' 
 
46 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 "Sure enough, there they set in the poultry 
 wagon, drawed up in front of the hotel, an' 
 Caliope was makin' the most unearthly noise I 
 ever heard by usin' his two fists, like a mega- 
 phone, an' callin' through them to attract at- 
 tention. 
 
 "A bellboy went runnin' out to see what on 
 earth was the matter, an' when they asked for 
 us, he must have asked them for a card; any- 
 way, he come huntin' us, carryin' one on a sil- 
 ver platter. The card was about six inches long, 
 an' told all about the prices of poultry an' set- 
 tin' eggs, an' how to get there by takin' the 
 Watts local. Mrs. Campbell's name was printed 
 in big letters on one side of the card and your 
 Uncle was considerable taken back when he see 
 it, believin' as he does in wimmen's spheres 
 bein' at home, and so on, so he argued about it 
 as we took the longest way round the hotel to 
 meet 'em, sayin': 
 
 " 'There ought to be a law makin' it a mis- 
 demeanor for any woman to belittle a livin' hus- 
 band by printin' her name on a bizness card. If 
 this here "vote for women" business spreads 
 any further,' says he, 'Caliope won't dast call 
 his head his own. Mark my words, Phebe, he'll 
 
THE CAMPBELLS' AEEIVAL 47 
 
 be stayin' at home doin' dishes, while Mrs. 
 Campbell is settin' on juries, or runnin' for 
 town marshal, an' ' 
 
 "What more he was goin' to say against Mrs. 
 Campbell I don't know, for as we turned a cor- 
 ner in the porch we come on to Caliope, who 
 was making for the office to get the proprietor 
 to loan him a bucket to water the mules with. 
 
 "Your Uncle was so mortified he almost 
 dragged Caliope back to the wagon, promisin' 
 to show him a good waterin' place further down 
 the street. ' Caliope 's that green,' says he to 
 me aside, 'it's a wonder the cows don't eat 'iin 
 up in this dry country.' 
 
 "In the meantime the word had gone round 
 the hotel that the Campbells was some sort of 
 an amusement outfit bound for the Pike, an' sich 
 grinnin' an' cranin' of necks you never see. 
 
 "The twins had come to grief by this time; 
 they tried to walk the iron railin' that fenced 
 in the hotel, an' tumbled down about twenty feet 
 on to their heads, and such a commotion I never 
 heard. 
 
 "Our main object now was to get the Camp- 
 bells and their chicken wagon, which was paint- 
 ed all over with poultry pictures, away from the 
 
48 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 front of the hotel, where the folks was laughin* 
 at some jokes a smarty made about ' The Chan- 
 ticleers.' Mrs. Campbell wanted to go with me 
 to my room for my hat, but I wouldn't have run 
 the gauntlet of them folks on the porch for 
 anything. I rode down the street, for the first 
 time in my life, bareheaded. 
 
 "They didn't attract near so much attention 
 on the Pike, for there you see all kinds, an ' your 
 Uncle was so relieved at gettin' them away from 
 the hotel that he treated them to lemonade an' 
 cornecopas with a lavish hand. I felt awful 
 sorry for Caliope, for he didn't have a cent to 
 spend, and I could see he felt bad to see your 
 Uncle standin' all the treats. I heard him plead 
 with her like a beggar for jest a quarter, but 
 she shut up her little pocketbook with a snap, 
 sayin' for him to use the quarter he took out of 
 the chicken money last month. 
 
 " 'Bout noon we left 'em at a cafeterry, your 
 Uncle claimin' he had to go back an' take his 
 bitters, promisin' to meet 'em in front of the 
 bath-house on the Pike, which we did. 
 
 "We found Mrs. Campbell awful excited over 
 somethin', an' when she got over her mad long 
 enough to talk without chokin' she told us she 
 
THE CAMPBELLS' ARBIVAL 49 
 
 bad been trapped, robbed or held up, as it were, 
 in the caf eterry where they ate their lunch. 
 
 "It seemed, from her story, that they hadn't 
 had any green corn on the cob since last roast- 
 in' ear time, the year before, in Nebraska. So 
 when they see green corn marked ten cents on 
 the bill of fare card, an' comin' from a country 
 where corn was cheap, they naturally thought 
 it meant ten cents a dozen, instead of a single 
 ear. So they ordered eighteen ears five apice 
 for Caliope an' Mrs. Campbell, an' four apiece 
 for the twin boys. When Mrs. Campbell see 
 her check (one-eighty for corn, an' forty cents 
 for the rest) she nearly had hysterics then an' 
 there, an' attracted such a crowd by her loud 
 talk that a policeman had to clear the sidewalk 
 in front of the caf eterry. 
 
 "Well, she paid to keep from bein' arrested, 
 an' she's got it figgered out that at that rate a 
 bushel of corn would cost ten dollars. The 
 Campbells used to be poor, but now that they 
 are rich she can't seem to get over bein' as 
 stingy as ever. To get Mrs. Campbell's mind 
 off the corn episode, your Uncle proposed we 
 go up an' see the big whale in the Park Library 
 Museum. Caliope thought your Uncle Hiram 
 
50 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 was playin' a joke on him, an' wouldn't be- 
 lieve 'twas the bones of a real whale fish till he 
 called on several strangers to make affidavits to 
 the fact. 
 
 4 * After sizing it up from all sides an' measur- 
 in' it from head to tail, he owned up he'd never 
 doubt again that a whale could swallow a man. 
 'Yes, siree,' said he, gettin' excited, 'such a 
 whale could swallow ten men, an' still have room 
 to let.' 
 
 "After seein' all the sights uptown, we 
 went down on the beach again. Mrs. Campbell 
 wouldn't let Caliope have the price of a bathin' 
 suit, so he took off his shoes an' stockin's, fixed 
 his trousers up so they wouldn't get wet, an' 
 waded in as fur as he dared. I don't know 
 whether 'twas the cold water or eatin' so much 
 green corn, or what give Caliope so much cour- 
 age, for usually he was the meekest of men ; but 
 all to once he made up his mind he was goin' to 
 ride in that crazy whirligig they call a spiral 
 airship. 
 
 "Mebby there's nuthin' new under the sun, 
 but that airship was new enough fur me, swing- 
 in' folks round up in midair at the rate of forty 
 miles a minute. Well, your Uncle had been 
 
THE CAMPBELLS' AEEIVAL 51 
 
 threatenin* to ride it ever sence he first saw it, 
 an' when he see Caliope was goin' he said aside 
 to me that if such a weak-kneed, hen-pecked 
 specimen of humanity as Caliope Campbell 
 could ride the spiral, 'twas high time a man who 
 was a man among men got a move on himself. 
 
 "Mrs. Campbell looked on in stern disap- 
 proval when she saw Caliope was bound to go. 
 She had been in a gloomy mood ever since the 
 corn episode, an' when the twins nagged to go 
 along with their pa she cuffed their ears till a 
 woman who wore club badges said: 'The hu- 
 mane society ought to be informed.* 
 
 "Your Uncle an' Caliope started off in high 
 good humor, jokin' an' shakin' hands all round, 
 an' jesting with the crowd gathered round to 
 see 'em off. 
 
 "All at once Caliope turned pale an' come 
 back down the steps to where me an' Mrs. 
 Campbell was a-standin'. He had forgot to ask 
 her fur money to buy his ticket, an' was scared 
 to death for fear he would have to back out 
 goin' before all the crowd. For a wonder she 
 give it to him, but this comin' back an' forget- 
 tin' somethin' meant bad luck, an' bein' as su- 
 perstitious as a darky, nothin' would do her but 
 
52 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOBNIA 
 
 Caliope must set down an' break the spell. The 
 fact that there was nuthin' to set on but the 
 sand didn't matter to her, so down he set in 
 front of all that jeering crowd before he got his 
 money. 
 
 "Well, my heart went pit-a-pat when they 
 clumb up into their seats, and it nearly scared 
 me stiff when it swung away out in the sky, 
 goin' higher an' higher, an' faster an' faster. 
 Mrs. Campbell, who see it work for the first 
 time, was roused out of her gloom over the corn 
 episode at last, an' called on 'em to stop, an' 
 tried to climb over the railin', hollerin' till you 
 could hear her all over the Pike : 'He'll be kilt ! 
 He'll be kilt! Oh, Caliope, if I only had you 
 back! He's the best man alive! 7 
 
 "I was wrought up, too, an' I said: 'Yes, 
 Hiram Harrison is a good man.' 
 
 "Who's talkin' about that little peppery 
 whiffet ? Caliope 's got the disposition of a lamb 
 'longside of him/ 
 
 "Then all at once some one shouted: 'Some- 
 thing's broke, and them men are liable to tum- 
 ble down any minute ! ' 
 
 "An, sure enough, that airship was caught up 
 there in the sky, an' would neither come nor go, 
 
THE CAMPBELLS' AEEIVAL 53 
 
 an' your Uncle and Caliope was prisoners in 
 that scary-lookin' thing that might dash 'em to 
 pieces any second. They wasn 't killed, but they 
 had to stay up there for hours, till a mechanic 
 from Los Angeles come down an' tinkered it up. 
 
 "Your Uncle told me afterwards that a curi- 
 ous change come over Caliope while they hung 
 up there between heaven an' earth. All at once 
 he set up straight, drew a long breath, an' with 
 shinin' eyes said: 
 
 " 'Harrison, for the first time in years I see 
 clear. Yes, sir,' says he, 'it seems like's if I've 
 been in a long sleep, an' my life unrolled before 
 me seems like a dream. From this minut for- 
 'ard I'm a free man I've turned a new leaf, 
 an' by gum she's a-goin' to stay turned! I've 
 been a weak-kneed fool, an' from this time for- 
 'ard I boss my own house er know the reason 
 why! Incidentally, I've begged that woman 
 that's carryin' on down there about me fur 
 money fur the last time, so help me cornecopa. 
 She's been bit with the money-makin' microbe, 
 an' brags 'bout how she's goin' to run things 
 since women vote in California. But I see clear 
 once more, ' says he. * This rarified air has made 
 a man of me again, an' I'll tell you what I allow 
 
54 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 to do : I'm goin' to sell part of my land an 9 buy 
 me a house as close to the beach as I kin, an' 
 carryin' my own pocketbook I'm a-goin' to 
 march up an' down that Pike seein' movin' pic- 
 ture shows, an' drinkin' lemonade, an' eatin' 
 wineworst sandwiches to my heart's content. 
 My family's got to dress right, an' we'll get an 
 auto, and a fine piano and live up to date like 
 other folks who have money. No more beggin' 
 quarters an' raising chickens fur me. I've had 
 a vision, Harrison. Shake ! ' 
 
 "Well, to humor him, your Uncle shook, 
 thinkin' the whirlin' or the root beer, or some- 
 thin', had gone to his head. But the funniest 
 part of it is, Mandy, that Caliope done every- 
 thing he said he would while settin' up in the 
 sky in that flyin' machine; an' Mrs. Campbell 
 is as meek as a lamb, an' joined the anti-suffra- 
 gettes, an' is that proud of Caliope she nearly 
 busts." 
 
ANSWEEING LETTEES FEOM BACK 
 HOME 
 
 { y^^v NE of the troublesome things 'bout 
 If livin' in Calif orny, Mandy," said 
 Aunt Phoebe Harrison, "is how to 
 answer letters from folks back home, wanting to 
 know about things out here, an' askin' for ad- 
 vice which they never take. 
 
 "Your Uncle got this sort of a letter from old 
 Mr. Hillderbrantder, wantin' to know all sorts 
 of things, an' it took him a whole day to answer 
 it, so as to tell the truth an' not give Calif orny a 
 black eye at the same time. The letter read : 
 
 " 'MISTER HIE AM HARRISON: Knowin' you to 
 be a truthful man ('cept 'round 'lection time) 
 me and some of your other former nabers, 
 searchin' fur the truth, the whole truth, an' 
 nothin' short of the truth, 'bout Calif orny, here- 
 by subscribe our hand, and seals, to a kind of a 
 
 55 
 
56 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 round robin letter to ask you a few pertinent 
 questions, regardin' the aforesaid country. 
 
 " 'In the first place, we are inturrested in 
 Eeal Estate, both town an' country. I have a 
 chanct to sell my home in Grainville, consistin' 
 of house, a acre of ground, corn cribs, cow pens 
 and cyclone cellur, fur a thousand dollers. This 
 place is only two blocks frum the court house 
 square, an' I wanta know if I kin get holt of 
 sich a piece, that nigh your court house square 
 fur the same money. My son has a offer on his 
 quarter section a mile and a half frum the court 
 house square, of seventy-five dollers per acre. 
 Could he git holt of a good payin' orange grove, 
 that distance frum yore court house for the 
 same price or a leetle less? 
 
 " 'Some goin' to Calif orny are thinkin' of 
 tryin' the chicken bizness. Which is the most 
 popular in that country incubated er henned 
 chickens ? 
 
 " 'Did the eggs Miss Campbell toted through 
 by hand ever hatch? "What is the length of 
 ropes allowed fur larrietin' out cows in Los 
 Angeles? 
 
 " 'A Chamber of Commerce book from Pasa- 
 dena I got holt of said a man could make a livin' 
 
ANSWERING LETTERS 57 
 
 on a acre out there. A acre of what? Do they 
 burn corn or wood out there? 
 
 6 i t Caliope Campbell wrote back to his wife 's 
 pap that he hadn't any use fur the follerin' ar- 
 ticles he took along : artick shoes, buffalo robe, 
 corn sheller, sled, ear mufflers, and big barl to 
 scald hogs in. 
 
 " 'I kin easy understand, how as Los Angeles 
 is in the Tropified belt, you might do without all 
 the artickles annumerated, 'cept the barl fur 
 scaldin' hogs in. How in creation you git the 
 hair off the hogs 'thout a-scaldin' of 'em is past 
 me. 
 
 " 'Do you have to git out a permit to bild a 
 corn crib in the city limits'? This town is all 
 split up over a story Mayor Thorndyke told 
 when he got back frum tourin' Calif orny. He 
 claimed he see with his own eyes a missionary 
 nearly two hundred years old. Now what do 
 you know about that? The Mayor has allus bin 
 considered a truthful man, but he's tellin' some 
 queer yarns sence he toured the West, an' if he 
 sticks to this yarn, it looks like he'd haf to hand 
 in his resignation, which is all made out an' 
 ready. 
 
 " 'It hain't for me to mention names, but I 
 
58 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 know of a party that's a much fitener man fur 
 the office if I'd except. 
 
 " 'Comin' down frum polatecks to love af- 
 fairs, the Widder Whipplegate has had an idee 
 in her head fur some time that she had rumatiz 
 in her left knee j'int, an* now she's trompin' 
 round claimin' it's in both knees, an' no thin' 
 short of being jounced out to Calif orny on the 
 cars will cure it. Her childer thinks it's all put 
 on, fur when the elefant got loose at the circus 
 th' other day, she was home an' in the cyclone 
 celler before the rest of the folks reached the 
 front gate. Be that as it may, she's got the Cal- 
 if orny bee in her bunnit, an' has had ever sense 
 she 'herited them thousand dollers from her 
 pap. What's hurtin' the childer is that they 
 have heard a widow who as 'erited a thousand 
 dollers hain't safe in Calif orny from fortin'- 
 huntin' husbands. Mary Jane Whipplegate 's 
 that homebly that one would think she might be 
 safe in Timbucktoo, but you can't allus tell. 
 Some men prefur a wife they don't have to lose 
 any sleep jealosin' about; an' besides there's 
 them thousend dollers she's just 'herited. I 
 hain't mentionin' no names, but there's a stiddy 
 widerer with a house and a acre of Ian', etc., 
 
ANSWERING LETTERS 59 
 
 who's offered hisself, but she says the novilty's 
 all wore off Nebraska husbands fur her; she's 
 got the Calif orny husband bee in her bunnit bad, 
 an' like as not she'll land him, fur Mary Jane's 
 a master hand at landin' what she goes after. 
 If all they say about men marryin' fur money 
 in Calif orny is true, a good stiddy widerer with 
 a house, an' lot, in Nebraska, might do a little 
 bizness in that line hisself. Mary Jane has got 
 holt of a Nebraska Society's book that gives all 
 the names an ' addresses of former Nebraskans. 
 Now what she lays out to do is to visit all her 
 old nabers a week er jest as long as they will 
 let 'er stick 'round. Then she counts on a few 
 days with ever 'one frum her county, an' a meal 
 er two frum folks frum any old place in the 
 State. In this way she expects to cut down her 
 board bill considerbil. 
 
 " 'What's the outlook fur office in Los An- 
 geles fur a seasoned Republican that never run 
 fur office but twice, an' never was beat but twice, 
 except that last time when I was beat by a Pop, 
 which didn't count! 
 
 ' ' * What 's the age limit f I 've got some crack- 
 in' good idees 'bout runnin' a town if I only had 
 a chanct to work 'em out. Did gettin' the ballet 
 
60 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOKNIA 
 
 make the wimen run up bigger store bills than 
 usual? Is there any truth in the report that 
 there's somethin' in the Calif orny climate that 
 makes wimin wanta gad all the time? Your an- 
 swer will of course be treated confidential, fur 
 I hain't one to raise fambly disturbances; the 
 rest of your letter may be used fur publication 
 see? 
 
 " ' Please anser as soon as you kin, fur it may 
 save me layin' in my winter flannils an' fuel. 
 
 " 'JACOB HlLLDEKBKANTEB AND OTHERS.' 
 
 "Well, your Uncle set about answerin' this 
 letter early next mornin' an' worked on it, with- 
 out hardly gittin' up from his desk all day. 
 'Twas a long day to me as well as him. I'll 
 wager that he tore up twenty commencements 
 and half a dozen finished letters before he got 
 one to suit. 
 
 "He'd read 'em out loud to me, an' if I said 
 it was all right, he'd fly all to pieces, an' say I 
 didn't take any interest or care what sort of an 
 epistle come out in the paper above his name. 
 An' if I criticized it he'd say I never could see 
 anything smart about anything that come frum 
 Ms pen. 
 
ANSWEEING LETTERS 61 
 
 66 'The editor always fixes it up,' says I, 'an' 
 mebby it won't be printed anyway,' but lie an- 
 swered back as mad as a hornit: 'Name the oc- 
 casun, Madam, when Hiram Harrison, Esq., ever 
 was handed a lemin in the form of a rejection 
 slip from an Editor; but a prophit is not 'thout 
 honer 'cept with his own wife. ' 
 
 "Well, we fussed, off an' on, all day 'bout 
 Jake Hillderbranter's old letter, but toward 
 night he decided on this: 
 
 ' ' ' ME. JACOB HILLDEEBEANTEE AND OTHEES : I 
 take my pen in hand to answer your questins, 
 both pertinent an' impertinent, to this country. 
 But before I go a step further I want it under- 
 stood here an' now that I am for Calif orny 
 first, last an' all the time, an' everybody out here 
 is in the same fix. 
 
 fi 'Folks out here are so in love with the coun- 
 try they jest naturally hate to spare the time it 
 takes to tour other countries. The fact is when 
 you've seen Calif orny you've seen it all, an' it's 
 kind of embarrissing to have to tell folks in 
 other parts, over an' over again when they are 
 tryin' to show off their country, "I've seen that 
 in Calif orny I've seen that in Calif orny." 
 
62 UNCLE HIRAM. IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 One womin told me when she come home f rum a 
 visit to New York that the only thing she see 
 back there, that she hadn't seen in Calif orny, 
 was good-lookin' men, an' of course she was a- 
 jokin' about them. A couple tried for a year to 
 find a time between seasons to slip back East on 
 a visit without incountering a cyclone or a bliz- 
 zard, but they had to give it up; not that I'm 
 insinuating anything against your country, for 
 she's got her good points. 
 
 " ' Incubated chickens, they are all the rage 
 out here; in fact, settin' is almost a lost art 
 amongst the Californy hens. A poulterman 
 f rum over Pasadena way told me had had a pen 
 made and shut up his hens when they showed 
 signs of settin', and he tells me that they are 
 so well trained that they come up of their own 
 accord to be shut up, jest as soon as they hear 
 theirselves a-clucking. 
 
 " 'Of course, Miss Campbell's eggs she toted 
 through by hand hatched sure, personly I don't 
 like her, but bein' a just man I must admit 
 she's a master hand at poultry, an' can hatch 
 out anything short of a hard-boiled egg. 
 
 " 'Yes, there's sich a thing as milk-fed chick- 
 
ANSWERING LETTERS 63 
 
 ens, though how they manage it with milk 15 
 cents a quart an' soarin' I don't know. 
 
 " 'As for makin' a livin' on a acre I dunno; I 
 reckon it all depends on what you call a livin'. 
 A man I know is tryin' it, an' sells everything 
 he raises and buys olive oil and breakfast feed. 
 He argues with me thet a man livin' on sich a 
 diet might live to a great old age. "Sure he 
 might," I answered, "but who'd want to?" and 
 he snapped back that "there's none as blind as 
 them that won't see," an' I come back at him, 
 sayin', "thet there's none so hungry as them 
 that don't gitt enough to eat." Mebby I'm 
 wrong, but the folks that are makin' good livin's 
 off an acre of ground are mostly rich cranks 
 whose stummicks has gone back on 'em. 
 
 " 'I will pass on to the Mayor. I think I can 
 straiten out that little misunderstandin' you are 
 havin' by sayin' he likely meant Mission instead 
 of Missionary; or a building instead of a man. 
 
 " 'As for Mary Jane Whipplegate, the only 
 thing to do is to let 'er come one woman more, 
 er less, don't count out here where the coun- 
 try's alive with 'em. One man told me when he 
 bought the lease to a roomin' house here, he 
 fell heir to twenty-eight lone wimin along with 
 
64 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 the good- will of the place. So let 'er come an' 
 join 'em, an' marry if she will, and her husband 
 won't be the first man that's banked his wife's 
 money. Mary Jane's a good-hearted woman, 
 and she wouldn't be so bad-lookin' when she 
 fixed up, if she wa'n't so blamed ugly. But 
 ugly won't keep her frum marryin'. 
 
 " 'As fer your political asperations, the biz- 
 ness is overdone out here now, and as a friend 
 I'd advise you to forgit it and cut it out. 
 
 " 'As for the age limit, anything under a hun- 
 dred goes out here. I hain't pursonly acquaint- 
 ed with the city fathers, but I see a bunch of 
 'em once, years ago, a-ridin' round in a carriage 
 in a Fiesta parade, wearin* plug hats an' white 
 vests, an' prancin' around (the horses, I mean) 
 as big as cuffy. I tho't at first 'twas some sort 
 of a tableau entry, representin' "Age Before 
 Beauty," er somethin'. I ask a man who stood 
 on the curb with me what sort of an entry it 
 was, an' he said they was the political bosses of 
 the city. 
 
 " 'In concludin' this letter, I want to say a 
 word to the tired, an' retired, business men an' 
 farmers who have made their pile an' come to 
 Calif orny to live: this retired business hain't 
 
ANSWERING LETTERS 65 
 
 what it's cracked up to be, an' I'd advise every 
 man who can walk a block to git himself into 
 some kind of a job even if he loses money hold- 
 in' it down. There was a time not very far 
 back when Hiram Harrison, Esquire, being ac- 
 tively ingaged in helpin' to shape the business 
 affairs of his community, was a man amongst 
 men; but out here, the best he can say of his- 
 self (an' there's a lot of other fellers in the 
 same boat) is that he is a man amongst wimin. 
 
 " * There's a small army of men, moseyin' 
 round in Calif orny (havin' done all the sights) 
 that was men of affairs back home, who have de- 
 generated into machines for pickin' weeds out 
 in the lawn, an' interferin' with what's goin' on 
 in the kitchen. Them that hain't doin' that are 
 scuddin' 'round, carrying paper bags from a 
 delicatessence store to an apartment house, with 
 a sheepish look on their once open countenances. 
 
 " *A naber of ours from back there, who was 
 a prominent man an' shipped train loads of 
 grain an' stock to Chicago every year, found 
 time hangin' so heavy on his hands (not being 
 eligible to join a woman's club) that he was 
 nearly tickled to death when Monday come 
 around and he could turn the ringer an' washin' 
 
66 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 machine for the hired girl and feel hisself of 
 some use once more to his fellow men. Wednes- 
 day was a red-letter day too for him, as he got 
 the three county papers; but the rest of the 
 week oh, my! With the wimin it's so differ- 
 ent. I never see a woman that didn't take to 
 Calif orny like a duck to water. It's amazin' the 
 places she can find to go to, an' betwixt times 
 she trots from one department store to another 
 wonderin' how she'd look in every bloomin' hat 
 an' dress she sees in the store windows. 
 
 " 'As for the wimin running up bigger store 
 bills on their husbands since they have the Suff- 
 rage I can't say, but I do know that the men 
 who had a sneaking notion that if they got them 
 interested in politics they would be so carried 
 away with it that they would forget that fhe 
 Spring styles was in, was mightily disappoint- 
 ed; and to be fair all around, them anti's who 
 predicted that the mixing a mess of biscuits 
 would be a lost art if the wimin was allowed to 
 go to the polls had another guess coming. 
 
 " 'In fact, my wife celebrated the day she cast 
 her first vote by getting up the tastiest little 
 supper for me after coming home from the polls 
 I'd tasted in many a day. 
 
ANSWEEING LETTEES 67 
 
 " 'As for the wimin being on the go all the 
 time, it's no use denyin' a fact. The tourist who 
 said he didn't half get to see Los Angeles for 
 looking at the women told the truth. But what 
 are you going to do about it? 
 
 " 'One man locked his wife up in the house 
 and got put in jail for his smartness, so there's 
 nothing to do but let them run themselves down 
 like an eight-day clock and blame it like they 
 do everything else out here onto the climate. 
 
 " 'As for the climate, I've lived in Calif orny 
 too long to commit myself. Come and try it for 
 yourselves. 
 
 " 'If this letter is too short I will come again. 
 
 *' 'HiBAM HABEISON.' 
 
SAN DIEGO 
 
 ( fT Tt T ELL, if you want to hear about our 
 y y trip to the San Diego Exposition, 
 Mandy," said Aunt Phoebe Har- 
 rison, "I may as well commence at the very be- 
 ginning. 
 
 "For weeks before the opening I'd worked 
 and planned to have everything ready and in 
 apple-pie order 'gainst the opening day, and in 
 fancy I saw myself seated, comfortably early, 
 in the observation car, chatting with your Uncle 
 or mebby answering the questions of some curi- 
 ous tourist, 'Seeing California' for the first 
 time, and enjoying the sights and scenes to my 
 heart's content. 
 
 "But, my! things never turn out like you ex- 
 pect, and if I'd taken a sudden notion to go to 
 the Exposition the day before it opened, I'd 
 have been just as well off. 
 
 68 
 
SAN DIEGO 69 
 
 "The first in the train of mishaps was the 
 tailor shop burning up your Uncle's new suit, 
 and he nearly drove me wild fixin' up his old 
 one; then the woman who was going to take 
 care of my angora cat took a sudden notion, the 
 last minute, to go herself, and I had to bother 
 with that, and to cap the climax, our auto had 
 an accident and we had to change bag and bag- 
 gage into a jitney bus, where a ten-year-old boy 
 wiped his muddy feet on my new tailor suit and 
 almost ruined it ; so when I finally climbed into 
 the car it didn't improve my temper to find a 
 big, good-natured-lookin' man about forty-five 
 years old occupyin' my seat. We told him, as 
 polite as we could, that the seat was mine, along 
 side your Uncle 's, but he said he 'd been warned 
 before leaving home that he'd have to learn to 
 hold his own while touring California, and he 
 didn't propose bein' done out of the two dol- 
 lars he'd just paid a young fellow wearin' a 
 blue cap for a seat on the ocean side of the 
 car. 
 
 "Your Uncle told him he'd been * worked,' 
 but he answered back that he'd come clear from 
 Illynoise to see the ocean, and he was satisfied, 
 providin' the ocean showed up and dashed 
 
70 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 ocean water against the window panes like the 
 fellow said it would. 
 
 "A gentleman, hearin' the argument, got up 
 and offered me his seat, saying he was going 
 back into the smokin' car for an hour or so; 
 and I went back and set in his seat till the con- 
 ductor came for our tickets. Then your Uncle 
 set down with the man from Illinois, who asked : 
 
 " 'Goin' to San Diego, I reckon?' 
 
 " 'I am,' answered your Uncle shortly. 
 
 " 'Do you know,' he observed, squarin' him- 
 self around more comfortable-like for a talk, 
 'this California Exposition business is consid- 
 ered a big joke in the East?' 
 
 "Your Uncle was so taken back that he near- 
 ly choked before he answered: 'Well, all I've 
 got to say is, that any man who can look upon 
 the beauties of nature and art, as blent to- 
 gether at the Exposition, and call it a joke has 
 about as much humor as a mule.' 
 
 "The man from Illynoise looked at your 
 Uncle in surprised amazement, and continued : 
 
 " 'You don't mean to say, stranger, that this 
 little side show could hold a candle to the Chi- 
 cago fair, do you?' 
 
 " 'Not in size, mebby,' argued your Uncle; 
 
SAN DIEGO 71 
 
 'a Cecil Bruner rose hain't in it in size when 
 compared to a cabbage rose, but there's lots of 
 folks who like the Cecil Bruner best.' 
 
 " 'Oh, well,' said the man patronizingly, 
 'you're young yet. Now Chicago's different. 
 I belong to one of the F. F. of C. myself.' 
 
 " 'What's that a lodge?' 
 
 " 'No, it means First Families of Chicago. 
 My grandfather hunted rabbits on State Street 
 and our meat market sign had read "SMIDTH 
 & SONS" for four generations. I was born 
 durin' the Chicago fire. Some record, that! 
 Our meat market had the honor of butcherin' 
 the cow that kicked over the lamp that started 
 the big blaze. Got her horns mounted on vel^ 
 vet, and goin' to hand 'em down as heirlooms. 
 Now if you Calif ornians had had such a noted 
 cow, her horns would 'a' been on sale at every 
 curio store from San Francisco to San Diego.' 
 
 " 'What! I thought the cow was lost in the 
 fire,' said your Uncle. 
 
 "'Not on your life!' answered the man. 
 'Ever know a cow, or a woman either, for that 
 matter, that let loose and kicked up a row and 
 got a lot of folks into trouble, ever gettin' a 
 scratch herself?' 
 
72 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 "Before your Uncle could answer this dis- 
 paragin' remark on womenkind, he continued: 
 'I guess they tell the tourists out here some 
 pretty big whoppers. Now this young fellow 
 who sold me this seat on the ocean side of this 
 car said somewhere 's down betwixt here and 
 San Diego I'd see an old missionary called Cap 
 somethin' or other who was nearly two hun- 
 dred years old. Must be an Indian or Mexican 
 or something. Guess he was stringin' me. I 
 don't believe any man ever lived that long.' 
 
 "Your Uncle laughed. 
 
 " ' What's the sell!' asked the man from II- 
 lynoise, lookin' puzzled. 
 
 " 'Oh, nothing,' answered your Uncle, 'only 
 he meant a building, not a man. The Mission 
 Capistrano is one of the oldest missions in Cal- 
 ifornia. "We have sure got Chicago beat on an- 
 cient history a few years.' 
 
 " 'That's it,' said the man; 'everything out 
 here is either old or new, big or little. ' 
 
 "Just then I come across the aisle to speak 
 to your Uncle, and the man, lookin' me over, 
 continued : ' Even your women seem to run odd 
 sizes. You have some of the runtiest women 
 and some of the biggest women extant.' 
 
SAN DIEGO 73 
 
 "He kept on lookin' at me again; I was dis- 
 gusted, and, turnin' on my heel, I walked with 
 what dignity I could, considerin' the train was 
 roundin ' a curve, back to my seat. What more 
 he had to say about the California women was 
 cut short by the conductor, and I was soon 
 seated by your Uncle on the ocean-side of the 
 car, enjoyin' my trip at last. 
 
 "On arrivin' at the grounds, history repeat- 
 ed itself, for me and your Uncle commenced 
 thrashin' over old straw by arguin' about which 
 building we would see first, just the same as we 
 argued at every Exposition we ever attended. 
 We compromised by his going with me to the 
 California Building. We registered and paid 
 our respects to the managers, and then your 
 Uncle left me, saying : 
 
 " 'You look around amongst the things that 
 interest wimen, while I run over and see the 
 machines. Now, Phoebe,' says he, 'you stand 
 right in front of them folks who are demon- 
 stratin' that salad dressin' right in front of the 
 post, so's I can see you from the door. I'll be 
 back in half an hour. 7 
 
 "Half an hour later I come and stood in front 
 of the post ; then I wandered 'round again ; fif- 
 
74 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOBNIA 
 
 teen minutes later I stood in front of the post 
 again and every ten minutes for two hours, I 
 stood there lookin' for your Uncle. People be- 
 gan to look askance at me. I heard one woman 
 say, if she likes salad dressin' that well, she'd 
 buy a bottle and be done with it. 
 
 "An old man walked clear 'round me, eyin' 
 me curiously, and then remarked to his wife, 
 who was hard of hearin' that he thought mebby 
 I was carryin' some sort of an advertisement 
 on my back. I was so mortified that I could 
 hardly keep back the tears, but I dassent leave 
 for fear we 'd get lost from each other. 
 
 "Then I got to thinkin' mebby your Uncle 
 was hurt or dead, and I was vergin' on hyster- 
 icks when he come calmly up and asked if he 
 was late. I made a vow then and there I'd never 
 wait for that man again if we lost each other for 
 a week. 
 
 " 'What in the world happened?' I asked. 
 
 " 'Oh, nothin'; I met old Jimmy Graves from 
 Nebraska down on the Isthmus and he was feel- 
 in' awful good because he just had a telegram 
 sayin' they got the top notch war price for his 
 ten thousand bushels of wheat he'd raised this 
 year. He was feelin' so good he offered to pay 
 
SAN DIEGO 75 
 
 my way into every side show on the Isthmus. 
 I was so astonished you could a knocked me 
 down with a feather, seein' how he's usually so 
 close. But we had a rather good time. Had 
 our fortune's told and now he's worryin' about 
 sellin' his wheat too soon. Fortune teller said 
 it was goin ' higher before long. Guess I '11 take 
 a little flyer on the wheat market myself to 
 square up these Exposition jaunts.' 
 
 "We stayed out to the Exposition grounds 
 pretty late, and when we got back to our hotel 
 some policemen were guardin' the door entrance 
 and keepin' open a pathway for some of the big 
 guns who was comin' to the entertainment goin' 
 on there. We couldn't get in nor out so we 
 stood with the others waitin'. A. little news- 
 boy, not much higher than your Uncle's knees, 
 was near us. He had big brown eyes and was 
 just as sweet as could be. He wore a little thin 
 shirt and blue jumpers, and his little brown feet 
 were bare. I know he was cold. He looked up 
 into your Uncle's face and says: 'What's the 
 matter, mister?' 
 
 "Your Uncle patted his head and said, 
 'Young man, in about fifteen minutes you'll see 
 the President's proxy.' 
 
76 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 "The little fellow wiggled his bare toes on 
 the pavement and said, * Aw what-che givin' me. 
 My ole man says there ain't no such things as 
 spooks. ' 
 
 "Just then the President's proxy came 
 marchin' through the open path we made for 
 them, into the hotel. 
 
 " * Who's the gent with the funny nose? Saw 
 folks rubberin' him once before to-day?' asked 
 the little newsie. 
 
 " ' That's the President's proxy,' said your 
 Uncle, 'the honorable Mr. McAdoo.' 
 
 "Before any one sensed what he was about 
 to do, the little fellow flapped his arms, and 
 craning his neck for all the world like a ban- 
 tam rooster, crowed out: 'Mac-Adoodel-doo, 
 Mac-Adoodel-doo. * 
 
 "A policeman ma'de a graft at him, "But He 
 slid behind a post and hopping across the pave- 
 ment jumped onto the running board of a pass- 
 ing jitney, still crowing Mac-Adoodel-doo. The 
 policeman was only human, so he laughed with 
 the rest of us." 
 
SEEING SIGHTS IN SAN DIEGO 
 
 OE 
 THE EEAL EAMONA. 
 
 T If TE hadn't much more'n got com- 
 \ \ f ortably settled in our hotel down 
 at San Diego, a few years ago, be- 
 fore your Uncle took a notion to see the real 
 Eamona of Helen Hunt Jackson fame. 
 
 "We had been readin' Hiawathy, Eamona 
 and old stories of the early missionary days, 
 and our minds were full of all sorts of roman- 
 tic fancies regarding dons, Indian braves, and 
 beautiful Indian maidens, when we started out 
 to get a guide to show us the real Eamona. 
 
 " 'I expect she talks good English by this 
 time,' observed your Uncle, 'and if she really 
 is as fetchin' as the author made out she was, 
 I'd like to talk to her a while/ said he, referrin' 
 to Eamona. 
 
 " 'I've made up my mind to write a pome 
 on every object of interest I see while attendin' 
 
 77 
 
78 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 1 
 
 these Expositions. Such a collection of pomes, 
 reflectin' the local color that California has lent 
 to these Expositions might make them worth 
 their weight in gold a hundred years from now. 
 'T would be quite a feather in my cap' says he, 
 'to have the papers (when they get to arguin' 
 about the real Ramona) to have them quote ex- 
 tracts from my pome regardin' my interview 
 with her today. You bet I sign my real name 
 and address to them good and big, so as not to 
 have some other man bobbin' up and claimin' 
 them, like Bacon did them Shakespear pieces.' 
 
 "You soon contract the habit of tellin' your 
 troubles to a policeman at Expositions, so your 
 Uncle approached a policeman and asked him 
 where we could hire a guide to show us Ramona. 
 
 " 'Don't give us any of the young smarties, 
 who are doin' this sort of thing to pay their ex- 
 penses, whip takin' in the Fair,' cautioned your 
 Uncle. ' What we want is a seasoned guide, who 
 knows San Diego 's history from the landing of 
 the first ship in the harbor, down to the land- 
 ing of the latest tenderfoot, doin' California for 
 the first time. ' 
 
 "The policeman looked at nothing for a min- 
 ute and then pointing to a man seated in 
 
SIGHTS IN SAN DIEGO 79 
 
 buggy across the street, said: ' Dakota Smith 
 over there ain't got the latest thing in the auto 
 line to show you 'round in, but if you can put 
 up with his means of locomotion, he'll tell you 
 more about San Diego's ancient and modern 
 history than all the guide books ever published 
 in California.' 
 
 " 'Dakota Smith,' says he, 'was an old set- 
 tler before San Diego had her first boom.' 
 
 11 ' Dakota Smith's my man then,' said your 
 Uncle, and the policeman after wriggling his 
 little finger at Dakota made a megaphone out 
 of his hand and hollered, 'two fairs,' Dakota 
 seemed to understand, and after wriggling back 
 at him, answered, 'In jest a minute.' 
 
 "Then he jumped out of his buggy awful spry 
 for a man of his years and went into a build- 
 ing. A minute later he came out again, wiping 
 his mouth on a big red handkerchief. 
 
 "We went over to him and he took off his 
 wide rimmed hat, an' waving it 'round, he put 
 his two heels together and bowed almost to the 
 sidewalk. 
 
 "Putting your two heels together and bowing 
 so low ain't no easy trick. Your Uncle tried 
 it when we got back to our hotel and nearly fell 
 
80 UNCLE HIBAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 over hisself, and got mad because I laughed at 
 him. 
 
 "But to get back to Dakota; he had the big- 
 gest moustach and the nearest nothing of a 
 chin I ever saw on mortal man, and I couldn't 
 help thinkin' he could 'a' evened up matters a 
 bit, if he had growed more hair on his chin and 
 less on his upper lip; however, his looks didn't 
 seem to be worryin' him any. 
 
 "We all climbed in and after cluckin' up his 
 horse he leaned back over the front seat he was 
 settin' in and talked to us real sociable-like. 
 Only pausing now and then to fill his mouth with 
 cloves and apples, till his breath smelled like a 
 mince pie with too much brandy in it. 
 
 "By and by, bein' so busy talkin' mebby that 
 he didn't sense what he was doin', he throwed 
 a handful of them cloves into his mouth in such 
 a hurry that most of them stuck in his throat 
 and the man come near choking to death. 
 
 "Honestly I was scairt, for he coughed till 
 you could have heard him over to Coronado, 
 and turned all the colors from orange green, to 
 putty yellow, and back again. 
 
 "In the excitement your Uncle grabbed the 
 lines in one hand and both of us beat him on 
 
SIGHTS IN SAN DIEGO 81 
 
 the back till lie must have been black and blue, 
 tryin to dislodge the cloves. 
 
 "In the meantime, we bein' so engrossed with 
 Dakota the horse was ambling along at his own 
 sweet will, taking a short-cut through the flower 
 beds in front of one of them fine tourist hotels. 
 
 "Your Uncle brought him up with a jerk just 
 as a Jap gardener come running toward us with 
 a broom in his hand, talkin' and babling about 
 the ruined flower beds. 
 
 "Your Uncle, to get out of the mixup as soon 
 as possible, hit the horse a sharp cut with the 
 whip, which sent him (the horse, I mean) tear- 
 ing out into the street where we upset a tall 
 lanky lady, who wore glasses and cotton in her 
 ears, and was leading a dog. Whatever her 
 other afflictions were, there wasn't anything the 
 matter with her tongue. 
 
 "By this time, Dakota, who had either 
 coughed up or swallowed his handful of cloves 
 and was drawing a natural breath once more, 
 grabbed the lines, and continued telling about 
 the big real estate boom that was coming, right 
 where he left off, just as though nothing un- 
 usual had happened. 
 
 "By and by Dakota drew rein in front of a 
 
82 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 queer-looking house, which Dakota said was 
 the oldest adobe building in San Diego County. 
 
 "An old Indian woman with the complection 
 of a mahogany sideboard and wrinkles that 
 would have driven a beauty doctor to despair, 
 set on a bench near the open door sunning 
 herself. 
 
 "She was smoking a pipe, and was wrapped 
 up in striped red and yellow blanket. 
 
 "She wore a beaded moccasin on one foot 
 and a carpet slipper on the other. 
 
 " 'This,' said Dakota, waving his hat at her 
 by way of an introduction, 4s the only, and orig- 
 inal Eamona.' 
 
 "Your Uncle, his mind still full of beautiful 
 Indian maidens, was nearly struck dumb, but 
 at last managed to gasp out, 'That!' 
 
 " 'Yes, that,' echoed Dakota in accents that 
 showed very plainly he was a little miffed by 
 your Uncle's attitude toward the erstwhile 
 beauty. 
 
 " 'Yes, yes, now I remember,' said your 
 Uncle Hiram, looking at the old woman in a 
 dazed manner. 'I remember the book did say 
 that when Alessenodro saw Eamona kneeling 
 at the brook washing clothes he said, "Great 
 
SIGHTS IN SAN DIEGO 83 
 
 Scott !" er something an nearly collapsed and I 
 don't wonder at it a bit.' 
 
 " 'Phoeba,' said he, leaning weak-like over 
 the buggy seat, 'this havin' your ideals shat- 
 tered at one fell blow is tumble; someone ought 
 to be sued.' 
 
 " 'Well you tourists brought it onto your- 
 selves,' said Dakota, scowling at Eamona, who 
 was feeling over him and saying 'bacca.' 'Yes 
 sir,' said he clucking up the horse, 'you tourists 
 readin' that Eamona yarn let your imagina- 
 tions run away with you. In the first place any 
 one who has ever lived amongst 'em knows there 
 hain't any such thing as a purty injun, Hia- 
 wathy, Minniehaha and Ramona notwithstand- 
 ing. We old settlers knowed Eamona was a fic- 
 tion from the first but the tourists wouldn't 
 have it so. The first ones that come acted like 's 
 if we was hiding Eamona and insisted on see- 
 ing her. It bein ' an unwritten law in Calif orny 
 that the tourists shall have anything they are 
 willin' to pay for, the demand for Eamonas 
 was soon supplied. The squaws made so much 
 money posing for Eamona that an Irish wash- 
 erwoman right here in San Diego left her tub 
 and colorin' her face with walnut juice an' buy- 
 
84 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 in' a black wig an' a red blanket an' beaded 
 moccasins went into the Eamona business for 
 herself. One day a near-sighted professor from 
 Pasadena came down to San Diego, huntin' data 
 for a new book, in which he was trying to prove 
 that there was two missin' links, instead of one, 
 as some man named Darwin claimed. One link 
 was betwixt the ape and the cliff dwellers and 
 the other link betwixt the cliff dwellers and the 
 Injuns. When he see the Irish Eamona he was 
 dumfounded, for while she had some of the 
 characteristics of the whole bunch, he couldn't 
 for the life of him decide which bunch she linked 
 together. He stood for hours studyin' her an' 
 makin' notes about her till it got on her nerves, 
 an grabbin' a ripe tomato she banged away and 
 hit him square between the eyes; in the mixup 
 her wig come off and with her red hair flyin', 
 she chased that professor clear to the depot, 
 where he scairt nearly stiff at the sudden stren- 
 uousness of his missin' link, hid in a freight car 
 till the train come along for Pasadena.' 
 
 "On the way back we passed a patch of 
 ground called Eamona Acres and Dakota told 
 us another story about Eamona saying, 'the rea- 
 son it is called Eamony Acres is because Ea- 
 
SIGHTS IN SAN DIEGO 85 
 
 mony 's uncle chased a jackrabbit across it once/ 
 'Well, what become of the jackrabbit?' I asked, 
 and he answered: 
 
 " 'Well, to make a short story long, I'll tell 
 you about it. A couple of Wall Street fellers, 
 doing Californy from the East, ordered a deer 
 supper up at Hotel Alexandria in Los Angeles. 
 Now it was off season for deer so they decided 
 "to feed 'em on sage brush jacks from San 
 Diego, which tastes mighty like deer, and never 
 let on. When the order come from Los Angeles 
 for sage-seasoned jacks, Ramona's uncle got 
 busy to earn a few bits, and with his dog he 
 chased a jack acrost these acres ; just as the dog 
 was about to grab the rabbit, it clum upon the 
 roof of that old adobe house you see over yon- 
 der, jumped down the chimney, out of the door 
 into the front yard, where he squeezed through 
 a palm fence; then seein' he was safe he set 
 down in the road and waved his ears and winked 
 his eyes at the dog as much as to say: "Meet 
 me at Hotel Alexandria." ' 
 
 " 'Ruther intrusting,' said your Uncle, 'but 
 what's the sequel?' 
 
 " 'The only sequel I ever heard of,' answered 
 Dakota, 'was that the sage jacks all got away 
 
86 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 and the Wall Street bunch et canned jackrabbit 
 from Fresno, and thought it was deer.' 
 
 " 'It was dear, if they eat it at the Alexan- 
 dria,' observed your Uncle drily." 
 
PHOEBE >S AND UNCLE HIBAM'S 
 TEIP TO MOUNT LOWE 
 
 YES, we went to Mount Lowe, after 
 all, Mandy," said Aunt Phoebe Har- 
 rison to her niece, "but nuthin' short 
 of force would ever get me there again. 
 
 "My goin' was as usual a little un-expected 
 for when your Uncle went out into the back yard 
 that mornin' to trim the geraniums and pick 
 out devil grass, he hadn't the least idea of going 
 up there; but about twenty minutes later he 
 come's rushing up-stairs where I was sewing 
 like as if the house was afire, sayin', 'We might 
 as well go through it today as any other day, 
 an' shut their mouths on the subject. I tho't 
 maybe 'twas kind of blowed over,' he went on, 
 'but I see I'm a-goin' to be hectored an' hound- 
 ed an' have insinuations that I'm a coward 
 throwed into my teeth till my dying day if I 
 don't go.' 
 
 87 
 
88 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 " ' What on earth are you a-talkin' about any- 
 way! ' I asked an' he hollered back at me frum 
 the depths of the big stair closit where he was 
 a-rummagin' fur his clothes: 
 
 " l What in creation are we a-talkin' about but 
 that cable trip up that Mountain Lowe ! I tho 't 
 after riskin' my neck a-goin' to Cataleny an' 
 doin' all of them summer resort towns an' 
 nearly every other place on the map of Calif or- 
 ny, maybe nobody would notice our not doin' 
 Mount Lowe. But, no; it seems like a fellow 
 knows by intuetion as soon as he sets eyes on 
 me that I hain't bin hoisted up that pesky 
 mountain. 
 
 11 'Even that tourist family that's settled for 
 the winter next door are a-goin' just as soon as 
 they get settled, and the first thing he said to 
 me over the back fence this mornin' when I went 
 out to wrastle with that blamed devil's grass 
 was, "Been up to Mount Lowe, of course!" 
 accent on "of course," an' when I said I hadn't, 
 he looked at me like as if I was a freak an' went 
 off mutterm' to himself 'bout folks livin' in the 
 very shadow of such a noble mountain an' never 
 goin' up her. 
 
TRIP TO MOUNT LOWE 89 
 
 " 'So, Phoebe,' he continued, 'we'll mount 
 Mount Lowe today, even if they have to blind- 
 fold us an' back us onto them cable cars, like 
 I've seen 'em do with horses goin' on a boat; 
 so hurry up an' git ready, for it's like havin' a 
 tooth pulled; if you don't do it on the spur of 
 the minute, you're apt to lose your nerve and 
 not do it at all. ' 
 
 "Well, of course, I laid away my sewin' an' 
 getting ready in a hurry, we caught the last 
 forenoon car. 
 
 "Your Uncle had everybody lookin'' at him, 
 for he wore what he called his Alpine suit, which 
 consisted of a pair of wide yellowish corderoy 
 pants, stuffed into high boots, and a coat that 
 looked like a mother hubbard wrapper cut off 
 around the hips; a peaked hat, and a crooked 
 end stick, completed his costume. 
 
 " 'You certainly do look queer,' says I when 
 I see the folks we passed lookin' back at him, 
 
 an' he says, 'You expect to look if you 
 
 look English.' 
 
 "If it hadn't been for the cloud in the shape 
 of that cable-car climb up Mount Lowe hangin' 
 over my head, I would have enjoyed the ride 
 through the orange groves and poppy fields to 
 
90 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOBNIA 
 
 Bubio Canyon first rate. I tried to put it out of 
 my mind, but jest as soon as I caught sight of 
 that tipsy looking car that was goin' to hoist 
 us up into space, my knees got weak under me 
 and I made a scene then and there by settin' 
 down on one of them seats an' refusin' to budge. 
 
 "Your Uncle was so put out fur fear he'd 
 loose the carfare that he nearly had a fit when 
 he sees the car agoin' off without us. Two men 
 was settin' on benches not far away, an' when 
 they sees how wrought up an' disappointed your 
 Uncle was one of them said to the other, 'I've 
 studied wimen an' I've studied mules, that bein' 
 my business, most of my life, an' I must admit 
 fur pure ever day contraryness, the wimen have 
 the mules beat ten to one.* 
 
 " 'I don't believe in divorces,' chimed in the 
 other man, * therefore findin' myself tied to sich 
 a wife, I'd ride up in that car a ways, an' jump 
 over an' break my neck.' 
 
 "Your Uncle heard every word, an' as usual 
 took the opposite side of the argument, an' lay- 
 in' his hand on my arm, he faced about on 'em 
 an' said real dramatic like, ' Gentlemen, my wife; 
 right or wrong, my wife. 7 
 
 "I felt real proud of your Uncle for standin' 
 
TRIP TO MOUNT LOWE 91 
 
 up for me in spite of his disappointment, and 
 I rewarded Mm an' surprised the others by 
 takin' the next car that was jest a-startin'. The 
 car started upward, so gently, yet swiftly, and 
 shuttin' my eyes I could almost imagine how it 
 would feel to have wings. I wanted to shut my 
 eyes at the steepest places but the beautiful pan- 
 aramy of clouds, mountains and sea held me 
 spellbound by the beauty of the scene. I had 
 read a good many descriptions of the trip, but 
 they all seemed weak and flat compared to this 
 glorious reality. 
 
 " ' Clouds, mountains, valleys and sea,' said 
 your Uncle, standin' up in his seat to view the 
 inspirin' sight, 'haint this a pictur to recollect 
 a lifetime ?' he asked of a tourist-lookin' man 
 settin' near. 
 
 1 ' The man glanced over the scene with a bored 
 look on his face an' said, 'It does very well fur 
 the West; I'm from New York City.' 
 
 "His tones nettled your Uncle who answered 
 him back, 'I'm from Nebraska, but that don't 
 keep me frum seein' a scene when I see it.' 
 
 "My, but some of them deep gorges the car 
 swung over looked scary and dangerous. I 
 heard a man they called Doctor' tellin' some 
 
92 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 others that for years he had been experimental' 
 on crazy folks with suicidal manias by bringin' 
 them on this trip an' by pretendin' he wasn't 
 watchin' give 'em a chance to jump overboard. 
 'But,' says he, 'you couldn't 'a' pushed one of 
 'em off, an' not one of 'em ever tried to commit 
 suicide again. Strange,' says he, 'but truth is 
 allus stranger than fiction.' 
 
 "Me and your Uncle was more wrought up 
 in our feelings at the beauty of the trip than 
 we had been in any of our travels before, 'less 
 'twas the first time we see the ocean. We was 
 brought back to earth again by a young man 
 who dumb around reckless-like on the other side 
 of the car askin' your Uncle fur his name to 
 be printed in a paper published a mile above 
 the sea. 
 
 " 'Sure,' said your Uncle, pleased with the 
 idea. 'Since we have risked life an' limb to 
 get here, an' you have risked your neck climbin' 
 round to get our names we may as well let the 
 world know we've bin to Mount Lowe at last.' 
 Then your Uncle gave the young man our Los 
 Angeles address, an' added, 'formerly frum Lin- 
 coln, Lancaster County, Eural Free Delivery 
 Eoute No. 2, Nebraska.' 
 
TEIP TO MOUNT LOWE 93 
 
 "He went on to give some other pointers 
 about hisself, but the young man halted him 
 sayin', 'See here, if you want your autobiog- 
 raphy printed, you will have to hand it in up at 
 the Tavern. It will cost you fifteen cents for 
 your name alone.' 
 
 " * Fifteen cents!' echoed your Uncle, in as- 
 tonishment. ' Such prices is scandelous, Pheba ; 
 just think, about a cent a letter ! Why, young 
 man, I've had a lost-hog notice printed in a 
 Nebraska paper once for that ! ' 
 
 "The young man passed on makin' some sort 
 of a joke to the rest of the passengers about 
 the lost hog bein' found on Mount Lowe, but as 
 we caught a glimpse of the tavern through the 
 trees just then, nuthin' more was said. 
 
 " 'We can get our names in the paper by 
 registerin' an' payin' a dollar fur a meal,' said 
 your Uncle, as we went up the steps to the tav- 
 ern; 'may as well let the world know we have 
 been here after all this hubadoo and expense.' 
 But, bless you, they wouldn't even let you regis- 
 ter less you took a room and stayed a spell. 
 
 "At the table where we ate there was an actor 
 an' actress eating, or more truly speakin' drink- 
 in'; the actor put in most of his time watchin' 
 
94 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOBNIA 
 
 us an' jottin' down things in a note book. I 
 heard him tell the girl he was a-writin a Rube 
 play an' he was gettin' some 'local colerin,' 
 whatever that is, at 'first hand.' 
 
 "The dinner was real tasty an' after we got 
 through we walked up a trail to a place called 
 'Inspiration Point,' where we could see Pasa- 
 dena, Los Angeles, and the ocean plain as day 
 through our field glasses. 
 
 ' ' On our way up we see a tree with thousand 
 of cards with names on 'em tied to it, so your 
 Uncle wrote ours and stuck it on and then hur- 
 ried away fur fear some one would tax him fif- 
 teen cents fur it. I never see the like of squir- 
 rels as there was up there, cute little fellows and 
 as tame as could be. There was bears, too, that 
 I wouldn't care to meet alone in the woods. 
 
 "The tavern is built right in amongst the big 
 trees, the branches reachin' over the roof where 
 the squirrels chatter and run about even goin' 
 into the tavern to get peanuts from the board- 
 ers. I will never forgit the commotion one little 
 squirrel caused. A man was layin' stretched 
 out at full length on a bench asleep when one of 
 the squirrels got scared at somethin' an' run up 
 his pants leg. The man woke up with a yell an' 
 
TRIP TO MOUNT LOWE 95 
 
 fallin' on the ground he rolled over holdin' onto 
 his leg an' hollerin' that a rattlesnake or some 
 reptile was eatin' him up. 
 
 " i Clear case of delerium tremains,' said the 
 Doctor who rode up with us, while a woman 
 frum Pasadena started for the tavern on the 
 dead run hollerin, 'mad dog.' After a bit the 
 man happened to stand up again an' shake his 
 leg and out run the squirrel pretty badly mussed 
 up, but still alive, which was a wonder. The man 
 was so ashamed, he grabbed his hat and started 
 down the railroad track and we didn't see any- 
 thing more of him till he boarded the car at 
 the searchlight station. 
 
 " Going home we clim a steep hill with a lot 
 of other folks and looked through a telescope 
 at a star. The star looked brighter an' nearer, 
 but it didn't look as big as a barn as I expected 
 it would frum the size of the magnifyin' glass. 
 Then we started down the trail slippin' an' 
 slidin' along. 
 
 "After seein' the biggest searchlight in the 
 world we was let down again in the cable car 
 and the wonderful trip to Mount Lowe was over. 
 That night as your Uncle laid his head on the 
 pillow, he said, 'The first thing I do in the morn- 
 
96 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 in' is to ask that tourist man next door if he 
 has been to Mount Lowe yet, an' I'd keep it np 
 till he either goes er takes water.' " 
 
A BOOK EEVIEW OF SAN FRANCISCO 
 HISTORY 
 
 { TT^ HOEBE,' said your Uncle Hiram, 
 in a shocked tone of voice, 'I'm 
 readin' a California book written 
 by a tourist from the East, and while he booms 
 San Francisco with a fifty-page write-up, he 
 devoted less than one page to Los Angeles, say- 
 ing, ' * If a tourist has lots of time on his hands, 
 he might be interested in lookin' over the old 
 Plaza and elimbin' the hill to see the Southwest 
 Museum, out Garavanza way." 
 
 " 'Now what do you think of that?' he con- 
 tinued. 'I've lived here ten years and done 
 some pretty good sightseein' myself, yet there 
 are dozens of interestin' places, like the big 
 moving picture plants, that Mission Play at San 
 Gabriel, and lots of other interestin' things I 
 have never had time to see; yet accordin' to 
 this author, unless you belong to a class of tour- 
 ists who enjoy rubberneck wagons, Los Angeles 
 has nothing of interest to see. 
 
 " 'Now, listen,' said he, turning over a few 
 leaves. 'This travel writer says it sounds cheap 
 
 97 
 
98 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOBNIA 
 
 to say " 'Frisco" and intimates it's just as well 
 to let them think you think the fire caused the 
 earthquake, instead of the other way round. He 
 also refers to San Francisco as "The Metropo- 
 lis of California." He says there is a sameness 
 about all cities except San Francisco and New 
 York, and compares them to San Francisco's 
 credit. 
 
 " 'He says not to ride in the rubber neck 
 wagons in San Francisco, for there you will only 
 meet the tourists, while the natives are what 
 you are after. So, as you are not supposed to 
 crowd yourself into their private conveyances, 
 obviously the proper thing to do is to corral 
 them in the street car. 
 
 " 'He thinks it's lots of fun coastin' down the 
 hills on the cable cars. He surmises that China- 
 town has lost much of its foreign flavor since 
 it has been modernized after the fire.' 
 
 " 'It could spare some of it the last time I 
 was there, ' says I, and he observed : 
 
 " 'Here's somethin' interesting in the way of 
 ancient history: 
 
 " ' "Portsmouth Square is the site of the old 
 Plaza of early San Francisco, and in 1846, when 
 they still called San Francisco Yerba Buena, 
 
SAN FEANCISCO HISTOEY 99 
 
 Captain Montgomery, of the United States sloop 
 of war Portsmouth, raised the American flag." 
 
 " 'Good for him!' says your Uncle, and then 
 he quotes on : 
 
 " ' "There's also a monument here to Eobert 
 Louis Stevenson, containing some good advice 
 which nobody ever takes. The Mission Dolores 
 was founded in 1776. Here the first (but not the 
 last by any means) California book was written 
 by Padre Palous: 'The Life of Junipero 
 Serra.' " 
 
 " 'Then the writer tells about suburban San 
 Francisco's rides and drives, but he doesn't say 
 a word about what, to my mind, is the prettiest 
 of all the one through the Niles Canyon, Sunol 
 Glen, and past the Phoebe Hearst estate to 
 Pleasanton. 
 
 " 'He booms the San Francisco restaurants, 
 namin' Taits, The Poodle Dog, Franks' and 
 others. Not a word about Los Angeles restau- 
 rants, but he takes a crack at the cafeterias, and 
 adds insult to injury by sayin' that the proper 
 way to pronounce cafeteria is Caf e-ta-ree-a. ' 
 
 "Your Uncle looked at me over the top of his 
 spectacles and book at the same time and said 
 'Shucks!"' 
 
THEEE BOOMEES 
 
 6 6 "" ^ your Uncle Hiram hadn't been in such 
 
 a presimistic mood," observed Aunt 
 
 Phoebe, "it's not likely he would have 
 
 gotten himself into a fuss with a San Francisco 
 
 man by standin' up for Los Angeles. 
 
 "Now your Uncle likes San Francisco first 
 rate, an' if the San Francisco man, who said 
 his name was Mr. Pearson, had taken the other 
 side of the argument, he would have stood up 
 for the Bay City just as strong as he did for 
 Los Angeles. 
 
 "But his Los Angeles paper was all sold out 
 when he got down to the lobby that mornin' and 
 they didn't have his favorite cigars at the cigar 
 stand. So, as I said in the beginnin', he was 
 already in a presimistic mood when he took a 
 chair ranged alongside the lobby wall near this 
 Mr. Pearson, who took his cigar out of his 
 mouth long enough to observe : 
 
 " 'I'm a sort of a character reader, and it's 
 a sort of a hobby of mine that I can tell some- 
 
 100 
 
THREE BOOMERS 101 
 
 thin' of every man's past life I happen to meet. 
 Now, I'll wager a cigar that you are a one-time 
 tourist from the middle west, now settled down 
 in Los Angeles mo win' the lawn and tinkerin' 
 with an automobile for exercise on week days, 
 and ridin' the foothill and beach boulevards on 
 Sunday. ' 
 
 " 'How do you know so much,' snapped back 
 your Uncle, and Mr. Pearson answered : 
 
 " 'By signs. A man never gets riled up be- 
 cause he can't get a paper two days old, unless 
 it's his home paper. The only papers worth 
 reading are the San Francisco papers anyway,' 
 he added. 
 
 " 'Seattle papers beat them both,' put in a 
 young man settin' in between them. 
 
 "Ignorin' the Seattleite, Mr. Pearson con- 
 tinued : 
 
 " 'No man who has acquired the real Cali- 
 fornia tourist habit ever acts normal again. 
 They come up here in droves to see that won- 
 derful Panama Exposition we had up here a few 
 years ago. Instead of puttin' in their time gaz- 
 in' in awe-struck wonder at the paintings, stat- 
 utes and archetectural beauty of the buildings, 
 and wonderin' at the genius of the men who had. 
 
102 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 transformed a barren waste into the nearest ap- 
 proach to a Garden of Eden ever seen on earth, 
 they haunted the Chamber of Commerce to see 
 big vegetables, patronized the rubberneck wag- 
 ons, eat at cafeterias and crowded the movin' 
 picture shows.' 
 
 "When your Uncle could speak without chok- 
 in', he retorted: 
 
 " 'One reason we didn't fall all over each 
 other to look, was because all the worth while 
 things was sent up from Southern California 
 and we was tired of lookin' at 'em down there.' 
 
 " 'Been up to that wonder of wonders, Mt. 
 TamalpiasT inquired Mr. Pearson, changin' the 
 subject. 
 
 " 'No, and I don't intend to,' was the ungra- 
 cious reply, 'couldn't possibly see anything 
 grander than Mt. Lowe down ' 
 
 " 'Ever take the Snoqualamia Falls trip?' 
 timidly inquired the Seattleite. No one an- 
 swered him, and Mr. Pearson said : 
 
 ' ' ' The city of San Francisco stands in a class 
 all by itself. Nob Hill was known the world 
 over and had an aristocracy all its own, their 
 deeds having gone down in history half a cen- 
 *tury before they plowed up barley fields to build 
 
THEEE BOOMEES 103 
 
 the white plastered houses that look like pub- 
 lic buildings, for the tourist millionaires, down 
 in Los Angeles. There is no more local color 
 in modern Los Angeles than there is in Pan 
 Handle, Texas.' 
 
 "Your Uncle was too astonished at this re- 
 mark to answer, and Mr. Pearson continued: 
 'You could blindfold me, and travel me around 
 the world, and yet I'd know I was in San Fran- 
 cisco atmosphere the minute my feet touched the 
 ferry depot.' 
 
 " 'Sure, sure!' replied your Uncle sarcasti- 
 cally. 'There's a smell from the Bay you could 
 never forget ; and I never knew before what bed- 
 lam let loose meant till I heard them hotel run- 
 ners and the steamboat whistles ' 
 
 " 'Guess you never heard the Walla Walla,' 
 eagerly chipped in the man from Seattle. 
 
 " 'I suppose you will be denyin' next,' ob- 
 served Mr. Pearson, peering 'round the Seattle 
 man at your Uncle, 'that there are no towerin' 
 mountains up this way.' 
 
 " 'Some,' was the reply, 'but to my mind the 
 grandest mountain in the world is old Baldy 
 after a snow storm.' 
 
 " 'Exceptin' Mt. Eainier when the sun is shin- 
 
104 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 in' on it ' commenced the Seattle man, but 
 
 the San Francisco man turned the subject to In- 
 dians, sayin': 
 
 " 'Then the foreign element lends a cosmo- 
 politan flavor to this city that is lackin' in Los 
 Angeles. Besides, it would pay you to go out 
 to the Indian camp and see the last remnant of 
 our northern California Indians. Indian lore is 
 another hobby of mine. ' 
 
 " 'It's not a hobby I care to study at very 
 close range,' said your Uncle, 'but if there was 
 ever any other Indian woman who attracted any 
 more attention than Eamona, I'd like to know 
 her name. ' 
 
 " 'Now, the Princess Angelina 9 com- 
 menced the Seattle man, 'was the daughter of 
 Chief Seattle, who saved the ' 
 
 "Mr. Pearson withered him with a look and 
 turning the subject from Indian to white 
 woman, said: 
 
 " 'The real San Francisco women have a 
 poise and style all their own. I love to see them 
 movin' stately and serene along our streets, as 
 modest as the violets nestlin' amid the rich, dark 
 furs of their tailored suits. The San Francisco 
 women remind me of a bed of stately lilies, while 
 
THKEE BOOMERS 105 
 
 the Los Angeles women on parade on Broadway 
 remind me of a Dutch garden. They are like 
 everything, mixed, down there, even society. At 
 a reception down there I was introduced to a 
 Japanese singer, a patent medicine millionaire's 
 widow, and a Congress-woman, not to mention ' ' 
 
 ' ' ' They all look good to us, ' stoutly defended 
 your Uncle, 'and I'm proud of every one of 
 them.' 
 
 "Then Mr. Pearson commenced on the men, 
 saying: 'Then the tourist men down in Los An- 
 geles, after they get through taking all the trol- 
 ley trips, find time hanging so heavy on their 
 hands that the policemen have to use clubs to 
 keep them from falling into every new hole that 
 is bein' excavated for a new building; espe- 
 cially about plowing time in the middle west. 
 They long for the smell of new turned sod, and 
 hang around to see the mother earth a la natural 
 once more.' 
 
 " 'Well,' retorted your Uncle, 'I don't see but 
 it's a better way to kill time than to sit in a hotel 
 lobby knockin' other parts. If this blamed 
 wind'd quit blowin', I'd go over and see how 
 badly our Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce 
 has got San Francisco one beaten.' 
 
106 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 i 
 : 'Ever see the Alaska Exhibit up in the ' 
 
 commenced the man from Seattle. 
 
 " ' You will be savin' next/ said Mr. Pearson, 
 ignorin' the Alaska remark, 'that you have big- 
 ger crowds on Broadway, Los Angeles, than we 
 have in this city.' 
 
 ' ' ' Sure, ' conceded your Uncle. Haven't seen 
 a square foot of bare sidewalk on Broadway for 
 years on account of the crowds. ' 
 
 "Well, they argued back and forth till Mr. 
 Pearson dared your Uncle out on Market street 
 to settle the question. So they started out, the 
 Seattle man taggin' along to see the finish. Fif- 
 teen minutes later they come back, leanin' on 
 the Seattle man, glarin' at each other and 
 limpin'. 
 
 " 'What's the matter!' I asked in alarm. 
 
 " 'Oh, nothing,' answered the man from Seat- 
 tle, 'only they got to arguin' in the middle of 
 Market street and got run into with a motor- 
 cycle and a jitney bus. ' 
 
 "As your Uncle and Mr. Pearson never spoke 
 to each other again the question was never 
 settled." 
 
AUNT PHOEBE GOES TO SAN 
 FRANCISCO 
 
 HIBAM'S PLUNGE 
 
 ( f^C 7*ES, we went by the Valley route from 
 Los Angeles to San Francisco," said 
 Aunt Phoebe Harrison to her niece 
 Mandy, "and the sun was just settin' behind 
 the green field when we reached Niles Canyon. 
 It was a beautiful country, and we nearly twist- 
 ed our necks off tryin' to see the scenery on 
 both sides of the car at the same time. 
 
 " 'Now,' said your Uncle Hiram, 'we will see 
 the country that Jack London made famous in 
 his novel and movin' picture play called "The 
 Valley of the Moon." ' 
 
 " 'Well,' says I, 'here's the valley but where 's 
 the moon?' ' Eight up in the sky,' said your 
 Uncle, pointin' upward, and sure enough there 
 it was, a new moon shinin' down over our right 
 shoulders, as if to wish us good luck on our 'see- 
 in' San Francisco' tour. 
 
 " On we flew through the green fields, orchards 
 
 107 
 
108 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 and gardens, and darkness found us on the ferry 
 boat, watchin' the twicklin' of a million lights 
 around the bay. We had both been consider- 
 ably wrought up in our feelin's over the beauty 
 of the sights and scenes through which we had 
 just passed, but we was brought down to earth 
 again, figuratively speakin', when we reached 
 the ferry depot, by the most unearthly noise that 
 ever greeted mortal ears. 
 
 " ' Where's the fire?' inquired your Uncle of 
 a man, who answered, 'Fire nothin', it's them 
 pesky hotel runners, biddin' for trade.' 
 
 " 'What on earth will we do?' says I, wishin' 
 we was back in our happy home and not tryin* 
 to do expositions in a strange city at our age. 
 
 " ' Don't act so green,' snapped your Uncle; 
 'what should we do but find the St. Francis bus 
 and climb in like the rest of the folks. You hold 
 onto me and I'll hold onto the satchels, and we 
 will see if we can run the blockade of hotel run- 
 ners, without losin' life or limb.' 
 
 " 'Ain't the St. Francis awful high-toned and 
 expensive?' said I, holdin' back. 
 
 " 'Phoebe Harrison,' says he, leanin' the suit- 
 case on end against a post and settin' down on 
 it, 'we may as well settle who's runnin' this trip 
 
AUNT PHOEBE GOES TO 'FEISCO 109 
 
 here and now. When I sold that 400-acre farm 
 for $200 an acre I promised ourselves one trip 
 in our life, that I'd always dreamed of, but never 
 could afford to carry out. 'Twas a trip where 
 we went first-class from start to finish and no 
 questions asked about expenses. We are takin' 
 that trip now, and we are goin' to do this old 
 town in a first-class style from that Mountain 
 Tamelpious to the Poodle Dog Restaurant or my 
 name hain't Hiram Harrison.' 
 
 ' ' ' Won 't it cost ' ' I've counted the cost, ' 
 
 he broke in, 'and come prepared for any emer- 
 gency; a man who had just finished doin' the 
 exposition told me down in Los Angeles, that he 
 had to change ten-dollar bills up here as often 
 as a woman changes her mind.' 
 
 " 'But my clothes,' I protested. 'Mrs. New- 
 coby spent nearly a thousand dollars on hers 
 because they were goin' to board at the St. 
 Francis this summer.' 
 
 " 'Clothes, clothes,' mimicked your uncle; 
 tell a woman you are goin' to take her to jail, 
 or the hospital, or any old place and the first 
 thing she thinks of is clothes. What ails that 
 tailor suit you just paid $75 for?' 
 
 " 'Nothing,' I admitted, 'it's all right in its 
 
110 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 place; Mrs. Newcoby got a black evening 
 dress 9 
 
 " 'Enough,' says your Uncle, interruptin' me. 
 'I can afford to clothe my wife as good as old 
 Newcoby any day. I'll give you a check in the 
 mornin' and don't let me hear any more about 
 it. There's the St. Francis bus now.' 
 
 "Over the cobblestone-paved streets we rode, 
 past a pretty little park and up to the front 
 door of the big hotel. The pages came runnin' 
 out and strippin' us of our luggage and every- 
 thing that was loose. At the desk your Uncle 
 asked how much they would tax us for a suite 
 of rooms frontin' on the park, and when the 
 clerk named a price that would have bought out- 
 right a small bungalow with built-in features, 
 your Uncle took it for a month, and ordered ice 
 water immediately. 
 
 "The clerk called a page, sayin, 'show them 
 to 341, the suite with the twin beds.' 'Hold on,' 
 said your Uncle, 'we hain't got a kid of any 
 kind with us, let alone twins.' When they said 
 the twin beds was for us, he was tickled, sayin', 
 'Mebby now I won't have to stick my feet out of 
 bed to keep 'em away from your "Greenland's 
 icy mountains. " * 
 
AUNT PHOEBE GOES TO 'FBISCO 111 
 
 "The page who brought us ice water ad- 
 dressed him as Colonel, which pleased your 
 Uncle so he gave him a dollar tip then and there. 
 
 " * Wouldn't it have been cheaper to have 
 taken only the rooms and eaten our meals 
 wherever ' 
 
 " * There you go,' he interrupted, before 1 
 could finish my speech. 'In Eome you must do 
 as the Eomans do, and San Francisco will stand 
 for anything but a tightwad. It's a feelin' 
 handed down from the days of 'forty-nine pe- 
 riod when a man was considered small potatoes 
 if he waited for the change from a five-dollar 
 bill.' 
 
 " 'I thought mebby a good cafatery would be 
 a change,' I argued; but he wouldn't hear to it, 
 sayin', ' There is places in California where 
 slingin' a cafatery tray wouldn't put you out of 
 runnin' with the smart set entirely, but you can't 
 get away from it in Frisco. A fellow spends his 
 last dollar in this town like a king, and if he 
 has to go to the poorhouse later on, he goes like 
 a gentleman.' 
 
 "Seein' 'twas no use to argue, I gave in with 
 a sigh and went to bed. The next morning noth- 
 ing would do your Uncle Hiram but to have 
 
112 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 breakfast in our room, and I must admit it is 
 one luxury I do enjoy. 
 
 "After breakfast I had my hair dressed, and 
 then I started down street to buy some new 
 clothes. I got along alright until I come to Mar- 
 ket Street, which runs catacornered through the 
 city. Instead of waitin' until a lot of people 
 formed into a mass for mutual protection like 
 we do in Los Angeles, I found folks runnin' 
 here, there, and everywhere dodgin' jitneys, and 
 getting in front of street cars, till at last they 
 landed on a little platform where the cars stop 
 to take on passengers. It looked as excitin' as 
 playin' * pussy wants a corner.' While standing 
 there tryin' to make up my mind to make the 
 plunge, who should come up but your Uncle, 
 who took in the situation at a glance. He asked 
 me to stay there a few minutes and went on 
 down the street. In a few minutes a taxicab 
 drew up and seated inside was your Uncle 
 laughin' at the joke he played on me. 
 
 "When I got back from shoppin' a la taxi, 
 and went to my room to dress for lunch, I found 
 an immense bouquet of American Beauty roses. 
 I scolded him for bein' so extravagant, but like 
 every other foolish woman I was mighty 
 
AUNT PHOEBE GOES TO 'FKISCO 113 
 
 pleased. Your Uncle put on his best clothes, 
 and I put on the new things I had bought, and 
 we went down in the elevator feelin' pretty well 
 pleased with ourselves. 
 
 "But our triumph was short lived, for when 
 we stepped into the dinin' room, who should we 
 see but Caliope Campbell, Mrs. Campbell and 
 the twin boys, Silas and Sammy, former neigh- 
 bors from back home, honest enough folks, but, 
 oh, so green! We tried to let on like we didn't 
 see 'em, but Caliope waved his napkin, made a 
 megaphone out of his hand, and called to us 
 across the dinin' room. Everybody looked at 
 him, and then looked at us, till we had to go to 
 him to stop the commotion he was raisin'. Noth- 
 would do but the waiters must crowd in two 
 more chairs with them and I wished I had never 
 heard of the St. Francis, or the Campbells, one 
 or the other. 
 
 "I read in a paper once where the old aris- 
 tocratic families of New York City form parties 
 to go down to the hotels and hear the newly rich 
 eat soup, and I couldn't help but think that see- 
 in' the Campbells throw back their heads and 
 eat asparagus with their fingers, had the soup- 
 eaters, to use a slang expression, 'beaten a city 
 
114 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 block.' The way Caliope 's Adam's apple run 
 up and down his neck while performin' that feat 
 was somethin' awful. Then Caliope got to tell- 
 in ' us about the money a seventh cousin had 
 died and left him, and he got so excited he swal- 
 lowed a sand dab bone and came near chokin' 
 to death. Just as we was goin' to call a doctor, 
 Mrs. Campbell happened to think of a good old 
 remedy, and landed a blow on Caliope 's back 
 that did the business in a jiffy, and probably 
 saved him to eat fish another day. 
 
 "During all the hullabaloo the waiter's face 
 never changed expression any more than one of 
 them graven images we see out at the exposition. 
 He filled Caliope 's glass with ice water, and re- 
 moved the remains of the unfortunate sand dab 
 in funereal silence. 
 
 "Things hadn't much more'n quieted down 
 from the fish-bone episode till the twins com- 
 menced to fuss over which one was a-goin' to 
 get the wish-bone of the fried chicken, and in 
 the squabble they upset a big silver pitcher of 
 hot milk, which flooded the table and run down 
 on my new silk dress. In a way I was glad it 
 happened for the waited changed us to another 
 table. 
 
AUNT PHOEBE GOES TO 'FBISCO 115 
 
 "Your Uncle was so mortified he could hardly 
 finish his lunch, sayin' it was just his luck when 
 he was tryin' to do something a little extra once 
 in his life, to have some country jake follow him 
 up and spoil everything. 'Mebby they won't 
 stay long,' says I, tryin' to comfort him. 'Yes, 
 they will,' he groaned; 'they'll make us the 
 laughin '-stock of this hotel, and spoil our outing 
 with their greenness.' 
 
 "Now that I had time to look, I see that Mrs. 
 Campbell was gotten up regardless, in a black 
 and white dress with checks so big she could 
 hardly show off the pattern. Being still of an 
 economical turn of mind in spite of the fortune 
 the Scotch relation had left 'em, she had utilized 
 the overflow from her own dress to make Sammy 
 and Silas, the twin boys, each a pair of pants 
 not to mention an auto cap and a butterfly neck- 
 tie worn by Caliope hisself. 
 
 "When they finished eatin' they took seats in 
 the ladies' parlow. Next to Caliope on the 
 couch sat a proud, stiff-lookin', middle-aged wo- 
 man, dressed in the latest style and holdin' her- 
 self aloof as if she was from Boston and was 
 sizin' up the crowd before thawin' out and bei/i* 
 sociable. 
 
116 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 "Caliope, no doubt feelin' relieved that he had 
 come out of the sand-dab accident so well, and 
 feelin' kindly toward all the world, struck up a 
 conversation with her, sayin' : 
 
 " 'How do you like the cookin' here! ' She 
 faced about, an' trainin' her eyeglass on him, 
 stared a minute and said, 'Sir!' Caliope tried 
 it again, sayin', 'Some of them names for vict- 
 uals printed on the bill was regular jaw-break- 
 ers. Thought I was orderin' some kind of a 
 French wine, when I ordered that demitasse, but 
 I got jest plain coffee. Did it fool you, too?' 
 But the eyeglass lady, with a look of horror on 
 her face, had fled, and Caliope, turnin' to his 
 wife, remarked calmly, 'I guess she was deaf, or 
 fureign, or somethin'.' By and by Caliope went 
 to arrange about his room, and to our relief, we 
 heard the clerk tell him the hotel was full. 
 
 "Feelin' a little ashamed of ourselves about 
 the Campbells (who were honest, but, oh, so 
 green), we promised to meet 'em next day out 
 on the Zone, which we did." 
 
A SLEEPING-BAG EPISODE 
 
 down and rest a while," said Aunt 
 Phoebe to her niece Mandy, "and I'll 
 tell you about your 'Uncle Hiram's 
 latest fad. It's a sleeping bag this time. 
 
 "He tried it out last night and give the neigh- 
 bors something to talk about the rest of their 
 lives. 
 
 ' ' What put the sleeping bag idea into his head 
 was attending a lecture, given by Prof. Lin- 
 strom about 'the Esquimau's in the far North,' 
 up at Seattle years ago. After telling about 
 them living on a diet of whale oil, he told how 
 they slept in fur-lined bags made from the skins 
 of the polar bears, which they killed with spears. 
 Then he went on and told how he himself had 
 slept in a sleeping bag for a year and got so 
 big and strong he could hardly get a bag big 
 enough to cover him. 
 
 " 'Anyone,' said he, 'who got the sleeping bag 
 
 117 
 
118 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 habit, would never go back to a bed, and put up 
 with insommy, cold feet and doctor's bills.' 
 
 "Well he went on like that for an hour or 
 more tellin' how the bags were made and every- 
 thing. However, I was only mildly interested, 
 for living as we do, in a mild climate a fur sleep- 
 in' bag was about the last thing I was pining 
 for; so I let his talk go in one ear and out at 
 the other like lots of other things I hear. 
 
 ' ' But not your Uncle. The seeds sown by that 
 lecturer fell on fertile ground as it were, and 
 needed only a cold snap to make 'em sprout and 
 bring forth fruit, in the shape of the doings we 
 had here last night. 
 
 "But to get back to my story. About two 
 o'clock yesterday your Uncle came trampin 
 into the sewing room where I was fixing some 
 sash curtains. On his shoulder he carried two 
 big buffalo robes that had been packed away in 
 the garage ever since we lived in Californy. 
 Your Uncle dumped 'em down on the floor say- 
 in, 'All things comes to them that wait, even a 
 cold snap in Californy. 
 
 " 'Paper warns 'em to get out smudge pots 
 in the orange belt, and here I am, Johnny on the 
 spot with materials for a sleeping bag. No more 
 
A SLEEPING BAG EPISODE 119 
 
 insommy or your cold feet while this weather 
 lasts.' 
 
 " 'Well, of all things, ' says I, 'do you want 
 to fill the house with hairs and fleas!' 
 
 " 'Fleas nothing/ he answered, 'don't you 
 know a Californy flea is a discriminating crit- 
 ter? It 's a scientific fact that he can tell a fresh 
 touch-me-not tourist from Boston from a native 
 Calif ornian with both eyes shut. Ever hear any- 
 body but a tourist complain of fleas ? Ketch 'em 
 roostin' in this old hide when there's a fresh 
 tourist hoppin' off the train every minute. 
 
 " 'Them buffalo hides brings back old times,' 
 says he gazing affectionately at them, 'and if I 
 was in a renimiscent mood I could spin a yarn 
 about that buffalo hunt that would make the 
 magazine editors and Teddy Eoosevelt set up 
 and take notice. 
 
 " 'But to business. I'll put one skin down 
 on the floor and I'll lay down on it, while you 
 take the garden shears and snip off the robe 
 here and there, so as to make it conform some- 
 what to the general coastline of my anatomy. 
 Don.t need any Butterick pattern fer a job like 
 this, according to that lecturer. Leave an open- 
 ing at the top for my head; two for my arms, 
 
120 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 and two for my feet. Stitch up the sides, put in 
 a draw string 'round the neck, and there you 
 are. Will have to suit the bag to the climate, 
 though, and leave the hairy side out. ' 
 
 "I sighed. He looked up annoyed like and 
 said: 'If you're a-goin' to pull a long face like 
 that and sigh like a vacuum cleaner, over a few 
 stitches, I'll take it down town and have it done. 
 I could do it myself if I could manipulate a 
 thimble.' 
 
 "I see he was hurt, so I didn't argue any 
 more ; besides, I'd just finished readin' an article 
 in a magazine that advised all married wimen to 
 humor their husbands in all their little idiotic 
 notions, and then get even by having their own 
 way about something that amounted to some- 
 thing. 
 
 "So I said real eheerful-like, 'Well, stand up 
 or lay down, and get measured for your new 
 suit.' 
 
 "Well, we cut and sewed and fussed and 
 worked until finally your Uncle clim into th& 
 bag and I pulled the puckerin' string around his 
 neck, leavin' only the top of his head sticking 
 out. When he pulled his skull travelin' cap 
 down over his ears nothing showed but his nose 
 
A SLEEPING BAG EPISODE 121 
 
 and a bunch of whiskers. (This has nothing to 
 do with the story, but the magazine advice to 
 women was all right. After the bag was fin- 
 ished he handed me a twenty-dollar bill, saying 
 for me to go and get that beaded extention 
 mouth bag that I was hintin' for before Christ- 
 mas.) 
 
 11 After supper, Tillie's (the house maid) 
 Swede beau, who lives in San Francisco, tele^ 
 phoned from the depot that he was on his way 
 to San Diego and was stopping off on Los An- 
 geles between trains and comin' by to see her. 
 
 "I opened the door for him and a more bash- 
 ful man I never saw. 
 
 "He fell over a rug and stepped on the An- 
 gora cat's tail and bowed to everything in the 
 room but me, till Tillie came to his rescue, and 
 took him off to a picture show. 
 
 "No sooner had they gone than your Uncle 
 donned his sleeping bag. He was going to sleep 
 on the bare floor, but I persuaded him to try a 
 pillow and mattress and helped him fix it in a 
 corner of the up-stairs back porch. I peeped 
 out on him an hour later and found him fast 
 asleep. 
 
122 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 "Perhaps an hour later I was awakened out 
 of a doze by someone sayin', 'Lena, Lena.' 
 
 "From the light in Lena's window I could see 
 it was her beau throwing pebbles at her window 
 and saying something in broken English what 
 sounded like ' overcoat.' 
 
 "Lena, tramping around getting ready for 
 bed, did not hear, but I understood he had left 
 his overcoat in the kitchen. 
 
 "Then he spied a ladder leaning up against 
 the porch and thinking to reach her room that 
 way, with the quickness of a cat he ran up and 
 vaulted over the porch railing right onto your 
 Uncle, who doubled up like a jack knife and 
 grabbed the terrified Swede around the legs, 
 bearing him to the floor. 
 
 "Up and down the length of the porch they 
 rolled now one on top now the other. Your 
 Uncle shouting 'burglar,' and the Swede saying 
 something that sounded like 'Lena' and 'bear.' 
 
 "At last the Swede gained his footing and 
 sprang for the ladder, but your Uncle grabbed 
 him by the coat tail and he hung suspended over 
 the railin' callin' on Lena for help. 
 
 "By this time the nabers were roused out and 
 when somebody said 'fire' they turned on the 
 
A SLEEPING BAG EPISODE 123 
 
 hose, causin' your Uncle to loose his hold on 
 the Swede who tumbled down the ladder and if 
 some bourgon-villia's hadn't broke his fall he 
 might have been killed. 
 
 "By this time the fire department and two 
 policemen were on the scene, not to say any- 
 thing of the neighbors, wearing every thing from 
 pajamas to evening clothes. 
 
 "I was nearly ready to collapse with shame 
 not knowin' how in the world we was goin' to 
 explain matters to the staring crowd that over- 
 flowed the lawn and street. But your Uncle, 
 dressing in a hurry, only smiled and said : 
 
 " 'Cut out the hysterics, trust Hiram Harri- 
 son to rise to any emergency. I'll fix 'em.' 
 
 " 'You'll do wonders,' says I; 'I'll never hold 
 up my ' 
 
 "But he cut me short by taking me by the 
 arm and marchin' me with him out onto the 
 front porch, where he switched on the light, 
 bowed to the audience below for all the world 
 like a President at the White House. 'Ladies 
 and gentlemen, and nabors,' he said, 'this has 
 been a night of surprises. You surprised me 
 by your presence, and I surprised you by al- 
 lowing my moving picture friends to stage a 
 
124 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 little comedy on my back porch, in which a tame 
 bear was one of the actors. Anything else that 
 has seemed strange about these premises just 
 charge it up to the movies. And any one who 
 goes to the "Lyric" down by the park in the 
 next twenty minutes gets a ticket for to-morrow 
 night's performance free. I'll telephone them 
 while you are on the way. Good-night.' 
 
 "The crowd, which was trampin' down the 
 grass and flowers, hurried toward the theater 
 and the nabers, laughing and saying the joke 
 was on them and that they never would get 
 used to this moving picture business, went 
 home. 
 
 "By this time Lena had the half frozen 
 Swede in the kitchen thawing him out by the 
 gas oven. 
 
 "She was explaining things to him, but I 
 guess he didn't really understand for when 
 your Uncle appeared suddenly in the kitchen 
 door bearing the sleepin' bag on his shoulder, 
 he jumped nearly a foot and come near scald- 
 ing himself with hot coffee. 
 
 "As we was gitting ready for bed your Uncle 
 said boastingly: 'It hain't every husband who 
 could get himself and wife out of a scrape like 
 
A SLEEPING BAG EPISODE 125 
 
 I did to-night. Own up, now, Phoebe, wasn't 
 yon surprised?' 
 
 " 'I was indeed,' says I. 'I never suspected 
 before that I'd been a-livin' all these years 
 with snch a natural-born ' 
 
 " * Diplomat,' he interrupted. 
 
 " 'Well, let it go at that,' I answered sleepy- 
 like; but diplomat wasn't the word I intended 
 to use." 
 
THE CAMPBELLS IN VAUDEVILLE 
 
 \ 
 
 IT HAPPENED IN SAN FKANCISCO 
 
 (4 T GUESS I never told 
 
 said Aunt Phoebe, " about the chance 
 
 Caliope Campbell and Mrs. Campbell, 
 an' the two twin boys Silas and Sammy once 
 had to go onto the vaudeville stage. 
 
 "Well, it happened in San Francisco when 
 they were taking in the Panama Exposition at 
 the same time we were; and right here let me 
 digress a little and say that the Campbells are 
 like a lot of other people in this world: they 
 have no originality an' follow public opinion 
 like sheep followin' the leader. In this respect 
 the daily press is a great factor for good, for 
 they are generally on the right side of common 
 sense and humanity and mold the opinions of 
 millions of persons who haven't any of their 
 own. Take the optimistic or smilin' fad that 
 had a run a few years ago. Salesladies and 
 society women who never knew before what a 
 
 126 
 
THE CAMPBELLS IN VAUDEVILLE 127 
 
 spontaneous laugh was, went around with their 
 mouths stretched clear across their faces in an 
 imitation smile even when they had a tooth 
 ache, or their new shoes were hurting a pet 
 corn. The effect was ghastly. Then some folks 
 who had been kickin' little kittens and puppies 
 around went to the other extreme and fed them 
 out of silver spoons when humane week was in- 
 augurated and everybody was talking about 
 kindness to dumb animals. 
 
 "Then the baby fad, when folks who had gone 
 along all their lives thinking them a necessary 
 nuisance, suddenly sat up and took notice 
 because Eoosevelt sidestepped politics long 
 enough to air his views on the subject. Men and 
 women got hysterical and filled our daily papers 
 with columns of baby talk till 'tis said Koose- 
 velt himself got sick of the subject; but I no* 
 ticed that the folks who did the most talkin' 
 about * angelic childhood' went along serenely 
 unconscious of the little lame newsboys leanin' 
 on their crutches looking with tired, pathetic 
 eyes at the fine folks in their limousines who 
 never offered them money to go to a hospital to 
 have their crooked backs and twisted limbs 
 straightened out by expert medical skill. They 
 
128 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 were too busy talkin' to practice what they were 
 preachin'. 
 
 "But to get back to the Campbells, they were 
 just like that. The exposition had been goin' on 
 for months and they never thought of going 
 until me and your Uncle went, and when they 
 got there they had to come to the Saint Francis 
 because we happened to be there. But thank 
 goodness the hotel was full and they went to 
 the Palace, and after they got used to it they 
 liked it, and Mrs. Campbell argues to this day 
 that it is a sweller place than the St. Francis, 
 on account of that long parade-like entrance 
 where you can show off your new clothes. Be 
 that as it may, I was glad they liked it for rea- 
 sons best known to myself. We didn 't see them 
 very often after that for they were dreadfully 
 afraid to cross Market Street, as well they 
 might have been, for to my thinkin' crossing 
 Broadway in Los Angeles is like walking in 
 your back yard compared to crossin' Market 
 Street in San Francisco. 
 
 "But at last Caliope hit on a scheme; he 
 bought four sizeable flags, and after that each 
 one of them carried a flag over their head every 
 time they crossed a street 
 
THE CAMPBELLS IN VAUDEVILLE 129 
 
 "He said they hadn't been run into by a jit- 
 ney after they adopted the flag system, and even 
 the street cars set up and took notice of them; 
 and I don't wonder, for with the twins dressed 
 like little Indians and wearing a sort of harness 
 to keep them from straying away, and prancing 
 along playing they were horses, they made quite 
 a unique little parade. 
 
 "A policeman halted them, but Caliope, who 
 is very patriotic, said: 'If any one dast touch 
 their flags he would shoot 'em on the spot.' 
 
 " Caliope 's that tender hearted he hates to 
 use a fly-swatter, but the bluff worked all right. 
 So having solved the problem of crossing Mar- 
 ket Street, they bore down on us, flags, twins 
 and all, the night before they went home from 
 the Fair. 
 
 t ' There was a musical entertainment going on 
 at the St. Francis that evening, much to the 
 Campbells' delight, for in spite of their green- 
 ness they are good musicians, Mrs. Campbell 
 playing the piano first rate, and Caliope certain- 
 ly can sing good for a man. Even back home, 
 years ago, when they were so poor they couldn't 
 afford anything but an old fiddle and a second- 
 hand organ, they managed to take music les- 
 
130 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 sons from the best teachers to be had, and many 
 a discouraged preacher in a little country 
 church has welcomed Mrs. Campbell to play the 
 organ, and many a homesick homesteader was 
 saved from giving up his claim and going back 
 East by spending an evening now and then with 
 the musical Campbells. And the twins, too, sing 
 like birds. 
 
 "When we came down from our rooms they 
 were already there sitting up close to the piano 
 near the performers ; but alas ! you could have 
 knocked me down with a feather for they were 
 rigged out in their wedding clothes of some 
 twenty years before from head to foot. It 
 seems in the heyday of their honeymoon they 
 had made a vow to each other to wear them on 
 their wedding anniversary, no matter where 
 they happened to be, and now that I see them I 
 remembered the custom, having seen them thus 
 arrayed on three previous occasions: once at 
 a county fair, once at a church supper, and the 
 last time at a Bryan political meetin'. 
 
 "The twins were babies then, and Caliope 
 carried them both so Mrs. Campbell could hold 
 up her crinoline-lined, white landsdown train. 
 So there they sat with her big sleeves and bask 
 
THE CAMPBELLS IN VAUDEVILLE 131 
 
 waist, boned after the style of the day, down 
 below her hips, making her waist look about two 
 feet long. I must admit she has kept her figure 
 better than most of us, or she never could have 
 gotten into that bask after all these years. And 
 the hat it was awful ! But I remember having 
 one just like it, a short backed sailor set upon a 
 six-inch bando, pitched to an angle of forty-five 
 degrees, and a lot of mussy-looking flowers 
 sewed under the brim behind. In spite of all 
 this, I must say she looked real pretty. Caliope, 
 in his high silk hat, Prince Albert coat and high 
 collar, didn't look so bad; which leads me to re- 
 mark that women dress more ridiculous than 
 men in season, and out, or their clothes wouldn't 
 look so ridiculous after they are out of style. 
 
 " Anyway, the women present couldn't keep 
 their eyes off Mrs. Campbell, and when one 
 woman laughed another stylish woman nudged 
 her and said, * Don't laugh too soon; perhaps it 
 is a forerunner of some new Paris styles re- 
 member how we got fooled when that Countess 
 wore her dress short and neck cut V-shape ; this 
 costume looks rather Frenchy to me.' 
 
 "Then the program commenced. A young- 
 ish, long-necked man, who had shaved his mus- 
 
132 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 tache off at each end till what was left looked 
 from where I sat like a black button under his 
 nose, did the singing. I didn't see much of the 
 lady that played the piano but her back; and I 
 never knew before that a woman could show so 
 much back and still wear a waist. 
 
 "By and by the man with the button mus- 
 tache bowed himself out, and a girl dressed like 
 Pocahontas sang an awfully sweet song about 
 'The Land of the Sky Blue Water.' 
 
 "Another dressed in a Spanish costume with 
 a red rose in her hair sang ' Juanita,' and an- 
 other girl sang about the * Rosary.' 
 
 "I never took but twelve music lessons, and 
 those from a teacher who wasn't certain of all 
 the notes herself at first sight, so I've never set 
 myself up for a musical critic, therefore having 
 no doubt been able to enjoy a lot of music I 
 might have missed if I had known more 
 about it. 
 
 "So I sat there enjoying the program real 
 well, and was somewhat surprised to hear a man 
 sitting behind me say in a bored tone of voice 
 to his companion: 'Same old stuff; pretty 
 enough, but tame. Overrun with such artists at 
 the office.' 
 
THE CAMPBELLS IN VAUDEVILLE 133 
 
 ' ' ' Surely, ' answered his companion, ' what we 
 are on the outlook for all the time and don't 
 find it once a year is some good musical comedy 
 stuff not the alfalfa-whisker, rube stuff, but 
 
 something Oh, I can't explain what, but 
 
 I'd know it if I saw it. Now the last skit we 
 put on ' 
 
 "I knew by this time they were theatrical 
 men, but what further they said I never knew, 
 for at this instance Caliope rose to his feet and 
 proposed the * Star-Spangled Banner.' The 
 twins too waved their flags, while he drug Mrs. 
 Campbell to the piano; and while Mrs. Camp- 
 bell fairly made the piano talk, the twins and 
 Caliope sang the old song till I'm sure you could 
 have heard them down to the ferry. When they 
 finished folks clapped their hands and called for 
 more, and they sang 'The Shade of the Old Ap- 
 ple Tree' and <A Hot Time in the Old Town To- 
 night' and 'Annie Laurie,' in which Mrs. Camp- 
 bell joined. 
 
 "A lady sitting by me said she never heard 
 the high notes in 'Annie Laurie' taken any 
 smoother; and still they applauded and called 
 for more. After singing some of the very late 
 songs, they sang some queer Indian songs; not 
 
134 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOBNIA 
 
 real songs, but sort of Indian lullabys Caliope 
 had learned from the Indians first-hand. Then 
 he imitated a raw Swede singing 'A Perfect 
 Day 7 and a Jap singing 'I Love You, Califor- 
 nia, ' which fairly brought down the house ; then 
 wavin' the flags, he asked them all to join in 
 singing 'America,' which we all did with a 
 hearty good- will, thus closing the Campbells' 
 impromptu program. 
 
 "When the music stopped Caliope waved his 
 silk hat in acknowledgment of the applause, and 
 Mrs. Campbell ducked her head toward the 
 piano keys. 
 
 ' ' Then I heard the theatrical man behind me 
 saying, 'By George! if that don't beat the dick- 
 ens ; they certainly put that little skit over like 
 finished artists. Something classy at last. Let's 
 go up and nail them at any price. ' 
 
 "When the theatrical men made Caliope and 
 his family an offer to go on the vaudeville stage 
 Caliope was raging mad, and, shaking his fist 
 under their noses, told them he would go back 
 to the farm and raise hog and hominy before 
 he'd let his wife go on the stage and wear act- 
 ress things and maybe break up a happy home. 
 'No siree,' said he, shaking his fist some more, 
 
THE CAMPBELLS IN VAUDEVILLE 135 
 
 'I'll give you to understand that my wife ain't 
 that kind, and, besides, she might get her death 
 of cold dressing for the stage.' 
 
 "Finally the theatrical man gave up talking 
 to him and went away, remarking to his com- 
 panion that it was 'too bad that most artists in 
 any line let drink get them.' 'A little booze,' 
 said he, 'no doubt helps them to put over a live- 
 ly skit, but it don't put them in a proper frame 
 of mind to talk business after the performance 
 is over. We will see him in the morning.' 
 
 "And while the Campbells were horrified at 
 the idea of going on the stage, ever since that 
 night Caliope has imagined himself a second 
 Caruso, while Mrs. Campbell, when she speaks 
 of it, has a self-satisfied smile on her face which 
 says plainer than words that Mrs. Schumann- 
 Heink has nothing on her." 
 
THE CONTEST; OE, "POETKY WHILE 
 YOU WAIT" 
 
 f g fTl HEEE 'S a new occupation for women 
 I never heard of before coming to Cal- 
 if ornia," said Aunt Phoebe Harrison. 
 "She is called a professional entertainer, and 
 most of the big apartment houses and hotels 
 have one. The proprietor, acting on the prin- 
 ciple that everybody's lonesome when they go to 
 a strange place, hires her to keep the guest 
 amused; and believe me she earns her money. 
 
 "The entertainer is usually a good-looker 
 who knows how to use her tongue and eyes at 
 the same time. 
 
 "She sees all about the weekly dances and 
 card parties, and as it sometimes happens there 
 are ladies in the house who neither play bridge 
 nor tango, she makes them think they are not 
 slighted and are gettin' their money's worth by 
 appointin' them hostesses to pour tea for each 
 other in the amusement room once a week. But 
 
 136 
 
POETRY WHILE YOU WAIT 137 
 
 where she really shines is on introducing, and 
 the only way to escape this ceremony is to take 
 the freight elevator or the back stairs. We 
 stayed in a big apartment hotel last winter for a 
 couple of months while we were having our 
 house remodeled. 
 
 "I was sitting in the hotel lobby the first 
 night I was there, watching the folks come and 
 go, and who should come in but Squire Lindsey, 
 an oldish widower from back home. He is as 
 tight as the bark on a tree, also an anti-suffra- 
 gette, and has it figured out in black and white 
 that a woman can dress modestly and well on 
 thirty dollars a year; besides all that, he is 
 homely and grouchy. When the entertainer saw 
 him registerin' she swooped down on him, and 
 as soon as he let go the pen she caught him by 
 the arm, and swinging him around, glanced at 
 his name on the register and proceeded to in- 
 troduce him to a pretty movie picture actress 
 who was getting her door key from her letter 
 box. 
 
 "The actress, who was always on the outlook 
 for odd characters for scenario types, chatted 
 gayly to him for a few minutes, and the squire, 
 whom I had known most of my life, was so 
 
138 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 dazed and tickled he walked right past me to 
 the elevator without recognizing me with a 
 sheepish 'it-wasn't-so-bad' look on his beaming 
 countenance. 
 
 " There is another type of woman in every 
 apartment house I've ever been in; generally 
 middle-aged, sour-faced, and she makes it her 
 business to enlighten all newcomers on the 
 shortcomings of the rest of the guests in the 
 house. "Well, one of that kind was sitting by 
 me on a couch, and after witnessin' the Squire 
 episode with stern disapproval, she said, 'That 
 woman' (meaning the entertainer) * would in- 
 troduce the President of the United States to 
 the elevator boy; she's got introducing on the 
 brain, and the worst is she never remembers 
 any one for five minutes. When I first came 
 here she introduced me five times to the same 
 old fellow, and he got so he would run through 
 the lobby like the house was afire if he see either 
 of us. She introduced the wine merchant from 
 Chicago to a temperance lecturer, telling them 
 they looked so congenial; the men were game, 
 though, and talked to each other quite a spell. 
 It don't matter much, though,' she continued, 
 *for most of the folks h^re in these apartment 
 
POETEY WHILE YOU WAIT 139 
 
 houses are winter tourists from the Middle 
 West, and what they are too green to catch onto 
 don't hurt them any.' 
 
 " At this disparaging remark I bridled up and 
 said, 'Madam, I am from the Middle West my- 
 self, and ' 
 
 " 'Sure,' she interrupted me; 'no need to tell 
 me that; any one could see that a block away/ 
 
 "Before I could answer back, she grabbed my 
 arm and, looking back over her shoulder, said, 
 'There comes that entertainer now, bringing 
 some old codger to introduce to me; I am go- 
 ing ; ' then she went. 
 
 "By this time the entertainer was by my side, 
 saying, 'You look so lonely! I've forgotten 
 your name, but I want to introduce you to Mr. 
 Harrison, who is looking for a partner to play 
 cards. ' We bowed to each other, and never let 
 on, but we smiled so much at each other across 
 the card table we had to tell the others to keep 
 them from thinking we were laughing at them. 
 
 "Just the same, we had an awful good so- 
 ciable time at that apartment house. One even- 
 ing it would be dancing ; another cards ; another 
 a musical, not to mention dramatic readings and 
 once an old-fashioned spelling bee. Your Uncle 
 
140 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 spelled down all but one, and lost a prize when 
 he spelled ' San Joaquin' wrong. 
 
 "One evening it rained so hard folks didn't 
 dare cross the street to a picture show, much 
 less go downtown; folks are so used to good 
 weather in California they are awful restless 
 and peeved if they are kept in by the rain, and 
 the entertainer was at her wits' end how to 
 amuse them. After cudgeling her gray matter 
 for some time, she hit on the idea of holding a 
 verse-writing contest. 
 
 "A Mrs. Grayson, a woman who lived at the 
 hotel and had made quite a hit as a local poet- 
 ess, offered to take one side, and a pretty little 
 woman, a Miss Leewood, who was just transient 
 in the house for a few days, took the other side ; 
 the prize was one of them new-fashioned silver 
 flower holders filled with California poppies. 
 
 "It was to go to the one who wrote the most 
 and best verses in one hour; they were to write 
 two kinds of poetry : sentimental and humorous. 
 To settle this point, they drew straws ; the sen- 
 timental poetry falling to Mrs. Grayson and the 
 humorous to Miss Leewood. They both looked 
 pleased and took their seats at the two writing 
 
POETEY WHILE YOU WAIT 141 
 
 desks, the entertainer rang the desk bell, and 
 the race was on. 
 
 "The rest of us settled down to play cards, 
 and almost before we knew it the bell rang 
 again and the hour was up. Mrs. Grayson read 
 her poetry first; poor woman! she was almost 
 scared stiff, and had to hold her paper with both 
 hands, she trembled so. She called her first 
 poem, <A POPPY LEGEND; OR, THE BEAUTIFUL 
 HILLS OF MONTEREY': 
 
 " 'In the early days of the West so golden, 
 
 Where men for the love of gold were mad, 
 There lived a beautiful Spanish maiden 
 
 Who loved a handsome sailor lad. 
 But the sea to him was ever calling, 
 
 And 'ere he answered and sailed away 
 These lovers met where the golden poppies 
 
 Bloomed sweet on the hills of Monterey. 
 There they lived their beautiful love dreams 
 over 
 
 As they wandered far 'mid flowery dells, 
 And they parted not till the purple twilight 
 
 Brought the music sweet of mission bells. 
 
 " 'A year passed by and found her waiting; 
 Then another lover, both old and gray, 
 
142 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 Came laden with gold to tempt this maiden 
 
 From the beautiful hills of Monterey. 
 But this maid was true to her sailor lover, 
 
 In spite of her father's greed for gold; 
 To a convent cell, so sad and dreary, 
 
 Went this pretty maid for her lover bold. 
 From across the seas came a message telling 
 
 Of the lover's death so far away, 
 And soon she slept where the flowers were 
 
 blooming 
 On the beautiful hills of Monterey. 
 
 " 'Once a year, it is said, when the moon is 
 
 shining 
 
 And the gold-hued poppies hold their sway 
 You can see two phantom lovers strolling 
 O'er the beautiful hills of Monterey.' 
 
 "There was considerable clapping, and the 
 movie actress said 'twas almost a synopsis for 
 a scenario. Then she read the other poem writ- 
 ten in sort of dialect style. She called this one 
 'THE SONG or THE WHIPPOEWILL': 
 
 " 'Some folks can't bear to hear the sound 
 Of the restless, murmuring sea ; 
 
POETEY WHILE YOU WAIT 143 
 
 And some, they hate the wood dove's moan, 
 
 But it 's just this way with me : 
 There's nothing quite so lonesome-like 
 
 As the song of the whipporwill 
 When it floats out on the dusky night 
 From its home on the wooded hill. 
 
 'It makes me think of the summer nights 
 
 When me and my brother Jim 
 Sat on the steps of the old farmhouse 
 
 'Mid the shadows dark and grim. 
 We were only kids, and our little hearts 
 
 Would beat with a nameless fear, 
 And we nestled closer to mother's feet 
 
 While she whispered " Mother's near." 
 
 'That was years ago; we've wandered since 
 
 Far, far from our childhood's home, 
 Across the dreary wastes of snow 
 
 To the storm-lashed shores of Nome. 
 There we counted o'er our golden store 
 
 And we talked of home until 
 The roar of the waves seemed to mingle with 
 
 The song of the whippoorwill. 
 
 < We reached our home on a summer night, 
 Found a stranger at the door, 
 
144 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 Who told in words so cruel, cold 
 That our mother was no more. 
 
 Too stunned to move, we sat us down 
 On the steps in the moonlight still, 
 
 And floating up from a bush near by 
 Came the song of the whippoorwill. 
 
 " 'Was it only the moonbeams bright 
 
 Got mixed up with our tears, 
 Or did we see her sitting there 
 
 As in the bygone years ! 
 Was it an echo from the past, 
 
 Or did we really hear 
 A voice, as the night wind passed us by, 
 
 Which whispered, " Mother's near"?' 
 
 "There wasn't quite so much clapping when 
 Mrs. Grayson finished reading this poem, but I 
 noticed several of the older ones who had heard 
 'The Song of the Whippoorwill 'in their child- 
 hood wiping their eyes, and one old lady said it 
 carried her back to her old home in the East, 
 and made her so homesick that she was going 
 back next summer if the mosquitoes ate her up 
 and a cyclone blowed her into the next county. 
 
 "Then Miss Leewood read her poems. She 
 
POETEY WHILE YOU WAIT 145 
 
 didn't tremble any, but smiled and gestured, 
 and had them all laughing before she finished 
 the first verse of her poem entitled, 
 
 "'Two GIRLS' 
 
 " i There was a girl lived in our town 
 
 And she was wondrous wise 
 On every subject 'neath the sun, 
 From votes to knitting ties. 
 
 " 'For magazines and papers, too, 
 
 She would write a page or more, 
 And at the biggest Women's Clubs 
 She always had the floor. 
 
 " ' Another girl lived in our town, 
 
 She could neither write nor preach; 
 But when she passed by with a smile 
 The men said, "What a peach!" 
 
 " 'Now the moral to this little tale 
 
 I've pointed out with pains : 
 The last thing that a man requires 
 In his lady-love is brains.' 
 
 "Everybody laughed and applauded, and she 
 read on; this piece she called 
 
146 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 " 'THE SPLIT IN THE PAKTY' 
 
 " 'Now pretty Miss Styles for Congress would 
 
 run; 
 
 She was clever and witty not flirty, 
 But her party it split on one little thing, 
 And that was the slit in her skirty. 
 
 " 1 A committee upon this fair lady did call, 
 
 And gave her some pointers to wit : 
 While the public admired both her beauty 
 
 and brains, 
 It never would stand for that slit. 
 
 " 'But at the next meeting they greet her with 
 
 smiles, 
 
 And cheer for their choice long and hearty, 
 For she had been busy with needle and 
 
 thread 
 And had closed up the split in the party. 
 
 " < "If elected," quoth she, "I will dress as I 
 
 please," 
 (And she laughed to herself good and 
 
 hearty) ; 
 "With a pair of sharp shears I'll get busy at 
 
 once 
 And reopen the split in the party." ' 
 
POETEY WHILE YOU WAIT 147 
 
 "Everybody laughed again, and the movie 
 actress said it would make a good little skit (if 
 set to music) for the Orpheum. Squire Lindsey 
 said the Suffergetts would be the undoing of 
 California yet, and everybody else said it was 
 cute and ought to be sent to Eoosevelt ; and then 
 she read her last one, which to my mind was 
 the best of all. It was entitled, 
 
 " <OUT CALIFOKNIA WAY' 
 " 'I used to tell old Uncle Ben 
 
 Big yarns I'd heard or read; 
 But now my biggest, wildest tales 
 
 Just fall as flat as lead, 
 For he took a tourist trip out West, 
 
 Come back most wise and gay, 
 An' talks, an' talks " 'Bout what he see 
 Out Calif orny way." 
 
 ' ' ' One night I talked till it was late, 
 
 A-tryin' to explain 
 'Bout a sort of airship I see once 
 
 Back in the State of Maine. 
 When I got through, he laughed and asked 
 
 If I took him for a jay 
 He see a Frenchman fly for hours 
 
 Out Calif orny way. 
 
148 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 " 'When I'd brag of early garden sass 
 
 With the frost all out the ground, 
 He'd smile and say they had sich things 
 
 Out there the whole year round. 
 Of the biggest and the littlest things 
 
 He'd tell about all day 
 Till he had them seven wonders beat 
 
 Out Calif orny way. 
 
 " 'So I laid to and lied a streak 
 
 'Bout things I'd heard and read; 
 He listened with a twinklin' eye 
 
 Then lit his pipe and said : 
 "Fur an amatoor, them yarns hain't bad 
 
 I used to think 'em gay ; 
 But I've heard some classy lyin' sence 
 
 Out Calif orny way.' ' ' 
 
 "Then amid lots of hand clapping and laugh- 
 ing and talking a committee of three was ap- 
 pointed (your Uncle being one) to vote on the 
 poetry. 
 
 "Of course Miss Leewood got the prize, and 
 everybody made over her and copied her poems 
 off, as she was takin' the boat for San Fran- 
 cisco next day. 
 
POETEY WHILE YOU WAIT 149 
 
 "Mrs. Gray son stood around for a while, and 
 nobody but myself and the old lady who cried 
 about the whippoorwill poem offered her any 
 congratulations on her poems. 
 
 "When we were safely up in our apartment. 
 I taxed your Uncle with voting against Mrs. 
 Grayson; he is crazy about humorous verses, 
 and has an idea that he himself would be a sec- 
 ond Walt Mason if he 'd take up the business of 
 writing humorous verses seriously. 
 
 " 'I felt sorry for Mrs. Grayson,' says I; 'all 
 her poems needed was polishing up; it took 
 Gray fourteen years to polish up his "Eligy in 
 a Country Churchyard." ' 
 
 " 'Excuse me,' says your Uncle, 'from sitting 
 around in a graveyard fourteen years polishin' 
 up any pome. Nice living I would make in these 
 days of high livin', sellin' a poem every four- 
 teen years!' 
 
 " ' 'Twas the reading of them that took the 
 prize. If Miss ' 
 
 " 'Now, Phoebe,' says he, interrupting my 
 speech, 'how long since did you qualify as a lit- 
 erary critic? Maybe you could get a job on one 
 of the big Eastern magazines. I heard a lec- 
 turer say once that it was just as a magazine 
 
150 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 editor happened to feel, whether a book looked 
 good to him or not. He said a critic friend of 
 his tore a "New Thought" book all to pieces 
 once because his mother-in-law had bored him 
 to extinction on the subject during a recent 
 lengthy visit. Another time after he had been 
 practicin' "Eat and grow thin" on weak soup 
 and turnips for a month, another book that 
 wasn't worth the paper it was written on hap- 
 pened along advisin' folks to eat three square 
 meals a day. That magazine editor was so hun- 
 gry for just victuals, he boomed that book to 
 the skies. Now because you happen to like Mrs. 
 Grayson personally you think any sentimental, 
 gushy thing she writes is better than those snap- 
 py little things that Miss Leewood dashed off.' 
 
 " 'Well,' says I, 'you must admit Mrs. Gray- 
 son acted the lady about it when she lost. If 
 you could see how some of the society women 
 
 act toward each other over bridge prizes ' 
 
 but your Uncle, who had copied Miss Leewood 's 
 poems, was reading them over and wasn't lis- 
 tening to me at all, so I quit talking and went 
 to bed. 
 
 "I thought the poetry contest incident closed, 
 but the next evening Mrs. Grayson came smiling 
 
POETEY WHILE YOU WAIT 151 
 
 into the lobby, carrying in her hand a small 
 volume of humorous verses which some one had 
 collected from different authors and printed in 
 a book; and there were the dashed-off humor- 
 ous verses Miss Leewood had claimed as her 
 own, the real writer being a friend of Mrs. 
 Gray son's living out Wilshire way. The most 
 wonderful part of it was Mrs. Grayson knew it 
 all the time, while everybody was petting Miss 
 Leewood for her original verses. " 
 
CTJKIOSITY, THY NAME IS WOMAN 
 
 THE FORBIDDEN GARDEN 
 
 T COULD spend a week in that Golden 
 Gate Museum in San Francisco and not 
 see all the curious and interestin' things 
 then," said Aunt Phoebe Harrison. 
 
 "The statues in white marble of women that 
 adorned the entrance was beautiful if not ex- 
 actly true to nature. Why the average artist 
 will stand up for nature a la natural and call 
 his figures 'Studies from Life,' and then pre- 
 sent to an admirin' world a female statue of a 
 woman with a face about as big as a teacup, 
 narrow shoulders and broad hips all out of pro- 
 portion with the rest of the figure, is beyond me. 
 But that is what they invariably do. 'The 
 proper study of mankind is man'; so, applyin' 
 that principle to the subject at hand, I compared 
 the statue with the real live flesh-and-blood 
 woman who stood admirin* her. 
 
 "Standin' at my side and gazin' at the marble 
 figure in stern disapproval, stood a woman. Her 
 
 152 
 
CUEIOSITY, THY NAME IS WOMAN 153 
 
 hips came up to the artist's specifications, all 
 right, but to balance them she had broad shoul- 
 ders and the jaws of a prize fighter. 
 
 "The next one had a little teacup face, but 
 no hips to speak of, and her height wasn't 
 more'n half that of the statue's. And so it went. 
 I spoke to your Uncle about it, and he said: 
 
 " 'The trouble is, every woman thinks the 
 statue's wrong if it don't happen to be an exact 
 copy of her own figger. Now, how would 
 you ' 
 
 " 'Let's go and see the mummies,' says I; 
 'there's a mummy woman in there more than 
 three thousand years old.' 
 
 "She was awfully well preserved, and gazin* 
 at her, your Uncle said: 
 
 " 'Three thousand years old and ain't afraid 
 to tell it, neither. Another thing, ' he continued : 
 'she's the first woman I ever see that I could 
 truthfully tell she didn't look half her age and 
 not lie. I heard a man at that big reception tell 
 a woman with an enameled face and a three-ply 
 chin and a dress cut V behind and before, that 
 she didn't look half her age. This mummy 
 hain't got any more wrinkles, and ' 
 
 " 'Never mind the wrinkles, come and look al 
 
154 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 this old sleigh they used in olden times with 
 just room for one passenger.' 
 
 " 'One passenger, nothin'!" laughed your 
 Uncle Hiram. 'Young folks were young folks 
 in them days, too, and I'll wager the old sleigh 
 has carried double many a time and could tell 
 some tales if it could talk. Them old rockin'- 
 chairs they had when we was young were not 
 made to carry double, either, but one that hadn't 
 at some time or other done so would be a fit 
 subject for a museum.' 
 
 "Then we looked at pistols, guns, knives, 
 clubs, suits of armor, and goodness knows what 
 all connected with war. 
 
 "I'll bet some of them fellows engaged in 
 them European wars would like to have had 
 some of them armors between themselves and 
 the bullets, if it wasn't a disgrace to wear such 
 things nowadays. 
 
 ' * Then we saw Japanese vases, Chinese gods, 
 coronation chairs, old Colonial furniture, and 
 then we went upstairs to see the natural history 
 part. My! I never knew there was so many 
 birds in my life before. One case of hummin' 
 birds was beautiful, and the pea fowls and 
 pheasants were gorgeous. 
 
CURIOSITY, THY NAME IS WOMAN 155 
 
 " 'Same old story,' said your Uncle; 'the 
 males are the prettiest everywhere.' 
 
 " 'Exceptin' men,' says I. 
 
 "And the eggs; hummin' bird eggs as big as 
 a pea, and a giant egg that the card said would 
 hold two gallons of water. 
 
 " 'Ought to make a good one-egg cake you're 
 always readin' about,' says your Uncle, marvel- 
 ing at its size. 'I'd like to see the hen that 
 laid it.' 
 
 "After we had been lookin' around the Mu- 
 seum for a couple of hours, your Uncle took a 
 sudden notion to go out to the Fair grounds, 
 arguin' that the Museum was there for all time, 
 but if we wanted to see the wonders of the Ex- 
 position, we must 'do it now.' So we went out 
 and had our lunch at the Inside Inn. While 
 settin' on the verandah smokin', your Uncle fell 
 into conversation with a man from Pasadena. 
 He was a good-lookin' man about forty years 
 old, and he told your Uncle he was gettin' a 
 long-needed rest, 'doin' the Exposition all by 
 himself. ' 
 
 " 'I reckon you're a bachelor or a widower?' 
 queried your Uncle. 
 
 " 'Not that any one can notice,' replied the 
 
156 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 man. 'I've got my third wife and her two 
 grown daughters, and my two grown daughters 
 and a mother-in-law livin' with me. They are 
 all perfectly good women, too. I hain't sayin' 
 a word against them, but I'm tired of women, 
 for besides havin' so many of my own, Pasa- 
 dena's overrun with them. I hear they have a 
 Forbidden Garden right in the heart of the Ex- 
 position grounds, copied from the Forbidden 
 Garden at the Santa Barbara Mission ; no wom- 
 an ever set foot in that Garden, and never will. 
 I'm a-going to make that Garden my headquar- 
 ters,' said the man from Pasadena. 
 
 " I know it was weak and foolish, but try as I 
 would, I couldn't get that 'Forbidden Garden,' 
 standin' in the center of that women-crowded 
 Exposition City, out of my mind. I mentioned 
 it casually to your Uncle, and he said : 
 
 " ' Phoebe, I thought you was one woman 
 without any morbid curiosity in your system. 
 But I see you are like all the rest ; because poor 
 man has taken this one last stand against wom- 
 an, you would rather take a peep into this one 
 Forbidden Garden than to see all the rest of the 
 Exposition. Hain't I right?' 
 
 11 'You are,' I answered; 'but that's not get- 
 
CUEIOSITY, THY NAME IS WOMAN 157 
 
 tin' me in, and you surely won't think of goin* 
 without me.' 
 
 "Well, to get my mind off the subject, we 
 went in to see the Panama Canal. A man 
 showed us how to step into the movin' seats 
 without breakin' our necks, and then he told 
 your Uncle to hitch a couple of ear trumepts 
 that were fastened to the seats onto his ears. 
 
 " 'I'm not so all-fired deef that I've got to 
 be double-trumpeted,' said your Uncle, highly 
 insulted. 
 
 "I looked about me to see what folks would 
 think of such talk, and to my surprise every- 
 body had the double trumpets over their ears, 
 listening. When we see our mistake, we put 
 them on, too, and we could hear a lecture on the 
 Panama Canal as plain as day, like a telephone. 
 I reckon it was grand the vice-president said 
 so, and your Uncle said so, and the spieler on 
 the outside said so, too but my mind wan- 
 dered, and for the life of me I couldn't get that 
 * Forbidden Garden' out of my head. I put my 
 ear trumpets down to ask your Uncle if he sup- 
 posed they made the men who entered it take a 
 vow not to tell even their wives what was in 
 the Garden, but he had his ears glued to them 
 
158 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 things with an expression on his face that told 
 plainer than words that the lecture listened good 
 to him. 
 
 " 'Where next?' said your Uncle, when we 
 reached the Zone again. 
 
 " Eight across the street was a big sign which 
 read: ' LAUGH AND GROW FAT,' and while the fat 
 part of didn't appeal to me, the laughin' part 
 did, for then mebby I'd forget about that ' For- 
 bidden Garden.' 
 
 " 'What ails you, Phoebe?' said your Uncle, 
 noticin' my abstracted air. 
 
 " 'Mebby you might bribe the doorkeeper,' 
 said I. 
 
 "Your Uncle looked at me in amazement, 
 thinkin' I meant the doorkeeper at the 'LAUGH 
 AND GROW FAT' concession. When he found out 
 I meant the keeper at the gate of the 'Forbid- 
 den Garden,' he was scandalized to think he had 
 a wife who would harbor such a thought. 
 
 " 'I don't reckon,' says he, 'that they are any 
 more interestin' than the Marine Gardens at 
 Catalina, Busch's Garden in Pasadena, or even 
 the German Beer Garden in Grand Island; but 
 just because it says "Forbidden" you women 
 
CUBIOSITY, THY NAME IS WOMAN 159 
 can't rest about this one. "Curiosity, your 
 
 name is woman." 
 
 "The racket that was goin' on inside of 
 Laughland was enough to make one forget even 
 their own name, let alone a Forbidden Garden. 
 Because he paid to get in and didn't want to be 
 done out of his money, your Uncle tried to do 
 things he never would have dreamed of doin' 
 any place else, and there was plenty more just 
 like him. I refused to risk any such foolishness 
 as walkin' rollin' logs, jumpin' trap-doors, and 
 climbin' revolvin' stairs, so I sat down calmly 
 on a stool that didn't do a thing but jump up 
 and whirl around, and scairt me so they all 
 laughed. I watched a nice, plump, middle-aged 
 woman patiently climb the stairs where the 
 steps jerked somethin' awful. She had nearly 
 reached the top when your Uncle started in, and 
 bein' nimble on his legs, he went up two steps 
 at a jump till he reached the step above the 
 woman. Just as he passed her the stairs gave 
 an extra hard jolt, and losin' her holt on the 
 railin', she grabbed your Uncle by the leg and 
 they both came thump-a-te-thump down the 
 stairs together. By the time I reached the stairs 
 
160 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 they were settin' on the floor glarin' at each 
 other and rubbin' their bruises. 
 
 " 'If you had a spark of manhood about you, 
 you'd apologize/ she scolded, shakin' her bro- 
 ken umbrella under his nose. 
 
 "Your Uncle grabbed his hat and my arm and 
 startin' for the door, said, 'Some women are too 
 blamed unreasonable to argue with. ' 
 
 "By and by we gave way to let a parade of 
 cowboys and girls, Indian squaws, and what-not 
 pass by. It looked interesting so we went in to 
 see what was goin' on inside. I can't say 
 whether the show was a real or imitation picture 
 of life on the plains in the early days, but I do 
 know that no lover of horses should have missed 
 it. About a hundred horses danced, waltzed and 
 tangoed. Where we stayed in an apartment 
 house last winter your Uncle took dancin' les- 
 sons for fun, and learned all the latest dances in 
 no time, of which he is real proud, so to tease 
 him, I said : 
 
 " 'I don't think tangoin' is such an awful 
 trick if a horse can learn it. ' 
 
 "Before he could answer back, an old over- 
 land stage was held up by Indians, and a horse, 
 a little beauty, let on as if it was shot and then 
 
CURIOSITY, THY NAME IS WOMAN 161 
 
 got up and limped away. When the smoke had 
 cleared away, a lot of Indians brought out a 
 Buffalo robe, and spreadin' it on the ground, set 
 a buffalo head on it, like as if 'twas just killed. 
 Then they had a buffalo dance. Some of the In- 
 dian men sashaed around a little bit, but the 
 squaws jumped up and down. The little pap- 
 pooses were the cutest. A buffalo hunt conclud- 
 ed the entertainment. 
 
 " *I guess I'll have time to see the Forbidden 
 Gardens/ said your Uncle, lookin' at his watch 
 as we left the show. 'You can go as near as 
 women are allowed and wait for me. ' 
 
 "By and by we come to a place all walled 
 round with cedar trees and vines. I tried to 
 peep through, but your Uncle was so ashamed of 
 my actions that I gave it up, but my mind was 
 active picturin' the inside. It hurt my feelings 
 to think all the wonderful sights and strange 
 deeds that had transpired within the walls of 
 this 'Forbidden Garden' was a sealed book to all 
 womankind. 
 
 "When we come to the place with the notice, 
 * Forbidden Garden, ' written over it, your Uncle 
 motioned me back, an important 'lord-of -crea- 
 tion' look on his face. Then I heard a woman's 
 
162 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 laugh. I caught a glimpse of a woman's gown, 
 and in a second I brushed by your Uncle, an' 
 stood looking not at the mysterious wonders my 
 mind had conjured up, but at an innocent little 
 flower garden, walled in with livin' green. 
 
 "Then who should I see comin' down one of 
 the flower-bordered walks but the woman-tired 
 man from Pasadena. When he see me he gave a 
 start, and with a smile on his face he drew the 
 pretty woman who was hangin' onto his arm 
 into a rose arbor and I heard him say : 
 
 ' ' ' There she is ; you pay for the dinner. Bet- 
 tin' on a woman's curiosity is a sure thing. I'll 
 try it on some other woman to-morrow.' 
 
 "I learned afterward that he had charge of 
 the ' Forbidden Gardens,' and just played that 
 joke on the women to help pass the time away, 
 but just the same I call it a real mean trick." 
 
SEEING SEATTLE 
 
 //A FTEE me and your Uncle finished our 
 
 /-% visit in San Francisco," said Aunt 
 
 Phoebe, "he took a sudden notion to 
 
 go visitin' to Herman Harrison's, who had 
 
 moved to Seattle from the Oak Knoll county 
 
 some years ago. 
 
 * ' Say, we just had another wonderful trip, and 
 I got another crick in my neck from tryin' to see 
 the wonderful panorama of forest, waterfalls, 
 and snow-clad mountains, spread out on each 
 side of the car windows, at the same time. 
 
 "If I could write a scenario, I'd write a 
 Christmas fairy tale, and lay the scenes amid 
 the big evergreen forests of Washington. I could 
 just imagine Santa dashin 'around among those 
 trees with his reindeers, and the fairies playin' 
 hide-an'-seek behind the big ferns. 
 
 "In the section next to us on the Pullman was 
 a couple from Seattle who had been spendin* the 
 winter in California. The man had a bad cold 
 
 163 
 
164 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 and was in a presimistic mood. Your Uncle 
 helped him settle his baggage, after the porter 
 made up his berth, and offered him part of his 
 California Eucaliptus cough tablets, so they fell 
 into conversation and, incidentally, into an ar- 
 gument. 
 
 " 'From California, I reckon?' inquired your 
 Uncle, openin' up the conversation. 
 
 "The Seattle man glared at him, and an- 
 swered in a croakin' whisper, 'Not on your life; 
 I'm sick/ 
 
 "What on earth bein' sick had to do with his 
 not bein' from California, I dont' know, but af- 
 ter a pause he continued, 'I'll be all right when 
 I get up where the atmsophere is washed. ' 
 
 " 'Washed!' echoed your Uncle, lookin' 
 puzzled, and the Seattle man continued : 
 
 " 'Yes, washed! If some one would patent 
 something to take the dust out of the air and put 
 it on the ground, you'd have better crops in Cal- 
 ifornia. Now, up in Seattle the rain keeps the 
 dust on the ground where it belongs. ' 
 
 " 'Speakin' of rain,' smiled your Uncle, 're- 
 minds me of a story I heard about Seattle the 
 other day. A drunk man landed there one rainy 
 evening and stood on a street corner leanin' 
 
SEEING SEATTLE 165 
 
 against a lamp post, watching the crowds cross 
 the watery street ; after a bit a policeman come 
 along and took him by the arm to take him to 
 jail. The drunk man pulled back, and pointing 
 to the flooded street, said: " Never mind me, 
 save the wimen and children first ; I can swim. ' ' ' 
 
 "The Seattle man and his wife never cracked 
 a smile, and he sarcastically remarked that it 
 was a 'cheap joke.' 
 
 " 'Sure,' agreed your Uncle, 'I'm not charg- 
 in' you a cent for it.' 
 
 "To change the subject from climate, that 
 stirs up more fusses than prohibition, woman 
 suffrage and Billy Sunday all put together, I 
 asked them if they had ever met the Harrisons. 
 The woman lifted her eyes up languidly from 
 the magazine she had pretended to be readin' 
 when your Uncle was tellin' his joke, and an- 
 swered : 
 
 " 'I think not are they in society?' 
 
 "I was about to admit that I didn't know, 
 when your Uncle, swelling with pride, chimed 
 in: 
 
 " 'I reckon they are. They led the smart set 
 in the Oak Knoll district when they lived down 
 there.' 
 
166 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFOBNIA 
 
 " 'Oh, indeed!' was the noncommittal answer. 
 'But I never heard of them in Seattle society/ 
 
 " 'Yes,' continued your Uncle, nettled at the 
 interference, 'the Harrisons are pretty apt to be 
 mingling with the swell set wherever they are. 
 Only last week Herman wrote that he had been 
 to a banquet the night before and met Mayor 
 Fish/ 
 
 " 'Fish!' echoed the Seattle man, looking as- 
 tonished. 'I guess that banquet must have gone 
 to your friend's head. Never heard of a Se- 
 attle Mayor named Fish, and I've known them 
 all from Harry White down to Hiram Gill ' 
 
 " 'Gill!' interrupted your Uncle; 'that's the 
 name. Knew it was something about fish, any- 
 way.' 
 
 " 'What was the name of that noted woman 
 Herman's wife said a party of 'em went to see, 
 and she gave them her photo and they had it 
 copied in oil for the den. Had a title of some 
 sort. Do you remember, Phoebe!' asked your 
 Uncle. 
 
 " 'The Princess Angilina,' I answered. 
 
 "Where the joke came in I couldn't for the 
 life of me see, but the Seattle couple fairly held 
 their sides with laughter. And they wouldn't 
 
SEEING SEATTLE 167 
 
 tell us, saying we would find out when we got to 
 Seattle. 
 
 " After they went to lunch I said, 'Mebby the 
 Princess was a little gay or something but 
 your Uncle poohooed the idea, and said the gay- 
 er the better, if she only had a handle to her 
 name. 
 
 " *A real live Prince, or Princess,' said he, 
 'like a King, could do no harm that would keep 
 them out of society. As George Ade says, "I 
 bet they never was in smelling distance of roy- 
 alty. " Trust Herman's wife to know who's 
 who.' 
 
 "By this time the Seattle couple had re- 
 turned, and in the excitement of crossing the 
 California line into Oregon, the Princess Angi- 
 lina episode faded from our minds. As the 
 train stopped on the border, I saw a man stand- 
 ing near a little tent where they sold sand- 
 wiches, with a suit case full of pint bottles 
 marked ' Tea. ' He acted suspiciously, and when 
 the men passed him on their way to the sand- 
 wich tent he would wink at them and say ' Tea ' ? 
 
 "The train only stopped ten minutes, but the 
 tea man did a rushing business at a dollar a 
 pint. One man bought three bottles. Your 
 
168 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOKNIA] 
 
 Uncle took a sudden notion and nearly tramped 
 every corn I had off my foot in his haste to get 
 a bottle too. 
 
 " 'Why,' says I, astonished at his behavior, 
 'you always hated tea. What makes it so 
 high!' 
 
 " 'The war!' he snapped back at me, as he 
 sped down the aisle. 
 
 "He nearly missed the train, but cautiously 
 extracting the bottle from his pocket he slid it 
 into the suit case, remarkin' in a low voice that 
 he was fixed now if he had one of his coughin* 
 spells in the night in a prohibition State. 
 
 " 'Cold tea's a new remedy for ' I com- 
 menced, but he tramped on my foot and said : 
 
 " 'Some folks never catch on until they're 
 
 ) 9 
 
 "A commotion from the man who had bought 
 three bottles cut short your uncle's remarks. 
 He was standin' in front of the open window 
 and was firing one bottle after another at the 
 man who had sold them to him. One bottle hit 
 the man on his head and knocked off his hat; 
 the other two bottles went wide of the mark, for 
 the fellow, empty suit case in hand, was a quar- 
 ter of a mile away and runnin' for dear life. 
 
SEEING SEATTLE 169 
 
 The men all looked sheepishly at each other, 
 and it dawned on me at last that they thought 
 they were buying something better for a cold 
 than strong tea. 
 
 "Your Uncle looked so ashamed tliat I felt 
 sorry for him and saved the day by telling him 
 to take the thermo bottle to the diner and get 
 me some hot water for my tea. With a grate- 
 ful look at me, he hastened to do my bidding. 
 As he passed along the aisle, every man who 
 had bought a bottle of tea winked at him. By 
 and by a man proposed they have a Boston Tea 
 Party and throw the bottled tea overboard, in 
 which they all joined and threw it overboard 
 with hearty good-will. 
 
 "Well, Herman and his wife met us at the 
 big station in Seattle. They seemed awful glad 
 to see us, and Herman's wife complimented me 
 on my new traveling suit (relations are glad to 
 see you in any old clothes, no doubt, but I no- 
 tice it never makes them mad if you are dressed 
 up pretty well). 
 
 "They were just bubblin' over with the Se- 
 attle spirit (not spirits), and both talked at 
 once, and pointed out all the places of interest 
 on our way to that beautiful hotel, the New 
 
170 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 Washington, where Herman and his wife were 
 makin' their home. 
 
 " After restin' up a while, we started out to 
 see the sights, sometimes alone and sometimes 
 with Herman. "We went sailin' on that lovely 
 bottomless Lake Washington; we spent hours 
 in the evergreen parks, and let me say right 
 here the parks of California can't compare with 
 the parks of Seattle, where nature and art are 
 combined. But, after all, it's the soft, gentle 
 rains, that every Seattleite goes around with a 
 chip on his shoulder about, that makes them so 
 beautiful. 
 
 "Then we took a trip to Snoqualmia Falls, 
 more wonderful, in a way, than Niagary, and 
 admired the green hills covered with giant 
 ferns. Then Herman took us up in an elevator 
 in what seemed to me the highest building in 
 the world, and showed us a snow-clad mountain 
 gleaming pink in the sunshine. He said it was 
 Mount Eanier, and a funny thing about it is 
 that a man whom we knew to be very truthful 
 told us it was Mt. Tacoma. 
 
 "As my San Francisco clothes were new, 
 Herman's wife and I went out a good deal in a 
 social way. We met all kinds of women pro- 
 
SEEING SEATTLE 171 
 
 fessional, club and society but I never saw or 
 heard of the woman who came up with us on 
 the train. Neither did I catch as much as a 
 glimpse of the Princess Angeline. Several 
 times I was on the point of askin' Herman's 
 wife about her, but something, I guess the way 
 the Seattle couple on the train laughed, held me 
 back. 
 
 "One day I was in a book store looking over 
 some post cards and booklets. On the outside 
 of one pretty little booklet was the picture of 
 an old wrinkled Indian woman with a red hand- 
 kerchief tied over her head. The name under 
 the picture was ' The Princess Angelina, daugh- 
 ter of Chief Seattle'; then it flashed over me in 
 an instant the reason the Seattle couple laughed 
 so heartily. 
 
 "I bought the booklet to show your Uncle, 
 and this is what it says about her : 
 
 " 'PKINCESS ANGELINA 
 
 " 'Concerning a Noted Character of the Siwash 
 
 Tribe 
 
 11 'I shall never forget the first time I saw 
 the Princess Angelina. She was seated flat on 
 
172 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 the stone pavement on one of the principal 
 streets of Seattle, contentedly chewing a banana 
 and stoically regarding the curious glances of 
 the passing throng. 
 
 " * A quaint figure was the princess as she sat 
 there ; a dull red shawl was worn over her shoul- 
 ders, and a bright red cotton handkerchief tied 
 tightly under her chin adorned her head. A 
 few gray locks, blown by the gentle breezes of 
 Puget Sound, played about her face, a face 
 once said to be comely, according to the Indian 
 standard of beauty, but now furrowed and aged 
 by the hand of time. A small gaily-colored sack, 
 or bag, woven from reeds and grasses by some 
 cunning hand of the Siwash tribe, hung sus- 
 pended over her shoulders. Into this bag she 
 put whatever articles of food or wearing ap- 
 parel she might covet from the stock displayed 
 for sale by the merchants, and without pay, for 
 the Princess was a privileged character in this 
 city by the sea. 
 
 " 'It was during a visit to one of the famous 
 hop ranches, near Seattle, that I again saw An- 
 gelina. She had wandered away from the busy 
 streets of the city to visit her dwindling tribe, 
 who had come to work in the hop fields. 
 
SEEING SEATTLE 173 
 
 " 'It was a lovely summer morning; the long 
 rows of hop vines, green and fragrant, seemed 
 to be stretching away to meet the first rays of 
 the sun, now reflecting rosy and pink the snow- 
 clad heights of Mount Banier. 
 
 " 'Angelina's face was turned toward the 
 mountain, and her fading sight was looking 
 upon a scene familiar to her for more than half 
 a century. The Indians men, women, and lit- 
 tle copper-colored children were soon busy 
 with their fragrant task, and with the exception 
 of an old man, half white, half Indian, I was 
 alone with the Princess. 
 
 " ' Whether she resented my questioning her 
 or whether her mind was busy with the past, I 
 do not know, but she did not answer by word or 
 sign, and never withdrew her gaze from the 
 wonderful scene of transfiguration which was 
 being enacted among the clouds and mists of 
 Mount Eanier. 
 
 11 'The old man soon told me it was useless 
 to talk to Angelina in her present mood, so af- 
 ter some persuasive words and a few coins he 
 himself told me her story. 
 
 " ' " Years before the coming of the white 
 man," he said, "the Siwash tribe of Indians 
 
174 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 lived in peace along the beautiful shores of Lake 
 Washington and Puget Sound. 
 
 " ' "Then the white man came and built his 
 home upon the hills near by. The Indians 
 looked on in fear at first, but soon decided, in a 
 council of war, to make a night attack and kill 
 the sleeping inhabitants of the little village. 
 
 " ' " Angelina and her father Sealth, or Chief 
 Seattle, as the white men called him, knew of 
 the plan, and determined to save the lives of 
 the white men, even at the risk of their own. 
 
 " * "One night a canoe glided across the wa- 
 ters and soon warned the people of their dan- 
 ger. In the fight that followed, Angelina's 
 lover, a young Siwash brave, was killed, and af- 
 terward she was forced to marry another, who 
 beat her because she, a princess, would not work 
 in the fields to get the white man 's firewater for 
 him. It is sometimes whispered around the 
 camp fires that Angelina afterward regretted 
 saving the lives of the white folks at the ex- 
 pense of her lover's life; but, true or not, it is 
 known to all that Angelina has never been 
 known to smile since her lover's death. 
 
 " ' "But the pioneers of half a century ago 
 
SEEING SEATTLE 175 
 
 remembered the brave deed, and Angelina has 
 been to them the ' Daughter of Seattle.' " 
 
 " 'A year later I stood beside her grave in 
 the beautiful cemetery which overlooks the 
 quiet waters and woodland dells near by. 
 
 " *A carved stone, resembling a trunk of the 
 forest trees she loved so well, marks her last 
 resting-place. A smooth place on one side of 
 the roughened stone bears the legend: 
 
 ANGELINA, 
 
 Daughter of Chief Seattle. 
 
A HUMAN DOOE-MAT 
 
 ffOI you like my furs, too, do you, 
 L^ Handy?" said Aunt Phoebe to her 
 niece. "Well, they are handsome 
 much handsomer than anything in the way of 
 furs that I ever expected to own. I'll have to 
 tell you how your Uncle happened to open up 
 his heart and his pocketbook at the same time 
 and buy 'em for me. Well, it all come from him 
 tryin' another one of them new fads not ex- 
 actly a health fad, but something along them 
 lines. Now, there's nobody believes any more'n 
 I do in folks gettin' out of old ruts into new, 
 but all the same I go a little slow on tryin' out 
 everything I see in print; spoiled a whole bas- 
 ket of the nicest pears you ever see last fall by 
 following a recete I found in a woman 's column 
 of a paper. Common sense told me nothin' 
 short of a merical could keep pears that hadn't 
 been heated up from spoilin'; but I'll know 
 next time that sugar and cold water poured 
 
 176 
 
A HUMAN DOOR-MAT 177 
 
 over raw fruit don't keep it much more'n over- 
 night. 
 
 "No, Mandy, with due regard to the papers, 
 I must say I don't swallow everything I see in 
 print like your Uncle does. For the last year 
 I think he must have averaged a fad a month, 
 taken from some paper or magazine. He tried 
 that Fletcherizin' food fad till it got on my 
 nerves. Nine chews and a swallow, nine chews 
 and a swallow. I didn't mind it so much when 
 he was eatin' solid victuals, but nine chews and 
 a swallow when he was eatin' soup was a little 
 too much. 
 
 "Then that bathin' fad he took up with, to 
 keep from takin' cold; holdin' onto his left ear 
 with his right hand, or holdin' onto his right 
 ear with his left hand, to create an electrical 
 circuit through his body, was about the silliest 
 idee I ever heard tell of. If I'd 'a' suggested 
 it, he would have told me to mind my own busi- 
 ness. Then he read in the health department 
 about goin' back to nature for health hints, giv- 
 in' as an example the tired work horse who, in- 
 stead of takin' a drink of licker or somethin' to 
 brace him up after a hard day's work, proceeds 
 to roll over and over as soon as the harness is 
 
178 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 taken from his back. Well, your Uncle tried 
 even that; he was ashamed to try it in the bed- 
 room before me, so he sneaked out in the livin' 
 room. I heard a queer thrashin' noise, and lis- 
 tened. Then I heard an awful crash and groans. 
 I rushed out and switchin' on the light I saw in 
 a second what had happened. He had kicked 
 the pedestal over and knocked a heavy statue 
 that was settin' on it over onto himself and 
 nearly crushed the breath out of him. I got him 
 into bed, and rubbed him with arnica, but he 
 was cross and stiff and sore for a week. He 
 didn't take up with any more nature cures for 
 a while, although you couldn 't hardly blame the 
 man who wrote it, for him kickin' the pedestal 
 over. 
 
 "The last fad he tried out wasn't exactly a 
 health fad, although the author claimed that 
 happiness is health, and health is happiness. 
 Such a theory, though, accordin' to my reason- 
 ing, is open to debate, for some of the healthiest 
 folks I ever saw went round with the longest 
 faces, and some frail ones radiated sunshine 
 wherever they went. 
 
 "Be that as it may, the piece I am referrin' 
 to was an article headed, 'How to Be Happy by 
 
A HUMAN DOOE-MAT 179 
 
 Makin' a Human Door-Mat of Yourself.' It 
 went on and told how you could change your- 
 self over frum a grouch to the happiest mortel 
 on this green footstool by followin' the writer's 
 advice for one day; said advice bein' as follows : 
 " 'Start out in the mornin', as soon as you 
 wake up, by makin' a resolution that for this 
 one day you will make a human door-mat of 
 yourself. If you have been plumin' yourself all 
 along that you have certain inailnable rights 
 that others are bound to respect forget it. Get 
 the thought that for this one day the whole end 
 and aim of your existence is to be tolerated by 
 the nabers, and to be bossed around by your 
 wife. Set down an' think, what have you ever 
 done, anyway, to deserve a wife and treat her 
 accordin'. Stop thinkin' that any one ought to 
 be good to you, and get a move on yourself be- 
 in' good to others, even to helpin' your servant 
 you are payin' out good hard cash to. What 
 right have you to a servant, anyway? Speak 
 gently, kindly, to every one, even to the fellow 
 who is standin' on your pet corn in a street car. 
 and if you go a step further and pay his car- 
 fare, observe the joyous sensation chasm' up 
 and down your anatomy. If a youngster in- 
 
180 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 sists on standin' up in the car seat to look out 
 of the window, and wipes the mud and tar off 
 his shoes onto your pants, just home from the 
 cleaner's, turn the other leg and give him a 
 clean place to wipe on. 
 
 " 'By thusly makin' a door-mat out of your- 
 self,' said the writer, 'you would be reduced to 
 such a state of ecstatic bliss by bedtime that 
 you wouldn't know whether you was sleepin' on 
 a couch of hummin' birds' down or an apart- 
 ment house foldin'-bed.' Well, your Uncle set 
 up far into the night readin' and studyin' that 
 'Human Door-Mat' piece, and all unbeknownst 
 to me makin' resolutions to try it on himself 
 the very next day. When I called to him, 'Ain't 
 you never comin' to bed?' he answered back as 
 cranky and natural as life, 'If I had two bits, 
 Phoebe, for every time you've asked that fool 
 question, I'd be a bloated millionaire by now. 
 I guess the bed hain't a-goin' to run away.' 
 Hearin' him talk so natural the last thing be- 
 fore I fell asleep, and bein' in the dark about 
 what he was readin', I was entirely unprepared 
 when he come smilin' into the breakfast room 
 the next morning, and, bowin' low, said, 'Good 
 mornin', Pheba. I hope you rested well.' I 
 
A HUMAN DOOR-MAT 181 
 
 was so surprised I come nigh lettin' the coffee 
 pot of hot coffee spill onto the cat, and my first 
 thought on landin' it safe on the table was that 
 your Uncle had taken an overdose of bitters, 
 and my second thought was that they dasent put 
 licker into it any more. What my third thought 
 was I don't reckolect, for your uncle, still smil- 
 ing come on across the room toward the break- 
 fast table, makin' a detour so as not to disturb 
 the cat, which he usually assisted out of his way 
 with his foot. Beauty, sensin' something un- 
 usual in your Uncle's actions, quit washin' his 
 face and with one paw arrested in midair 
 watched him suspiciously. I must have looked 
 my astonishment at his unusual consideration, 
 for your Uncle, glancin' in his direction, quoted : 
 
 " 'For ever' critter I show my love, 
 Be it a pussy, or be it a dove.' 
 
 "We had griddle cakes for breakfast that 
 morning. Maggie, the hired girl, never could 
 bake 'em to suit him, so to keep down a fuss and 
 mebby lose her, I baked his while he ate, and 
 then Maggie done the same for me. But this 
 mornin', after placin' a chair for me, he says, 
 
182 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 'Now, Pheba, you set down and eat with me 
 while Maggie bakes for us both.' A wild idee 
 that mebby 'twas our annaversary er somethin' 
 came into my head, but when he added, 'Then 
 I'll take holt and bake for her ; turn about 's fair 
 play,' all sorts of idees about sudden insanity 
 and such things came surgin' through my brain. 
 To hide my agetation, I took the coffee pot and 
 started back to the kitchen, where Maggie, who 
 had been hanging onto the dining room door 
 jam listening, sidled up to me and said, *I foncy 
 the moster is putting some joke hover us.' 
 
 "Just as I got back to the dining room, the 
 doorbell rung. Your uncle answered it ; a half- 
 grown boy was gettin* subscribers for a paper; 
 your uncle signed for it several years ahead, 
 and the overjoyed boy was so excited he left 
 part of his papers on the table. Your Uncle 
 Hiram run out after him with them, but the boy 
 took to his heels when he see him, no doubt 
 thinkin' he was a-goin' to countermand his 
 order. 
 
 "True to his promise, he went to the kitchen 
 and insisted on bakin' cakes for Maggie. He 
 filled the griddle full to overflowin' with the 
 batter, an' callin' on us to look, tried to turn it 
 
A HUMAN DOOR-MAT 183 
 
 by a sleight-of-hand trick he see some one at a 
 show do once, by throwin' the cake into the air, 
 expecting of course, to ketch it batter side down 
 on the griddle. Instead, it landed batter side 
 down on the floor, and Maggie, who had been 
 watchin' the performance in fear and wonder, 
 fled to her room and locked the door after her. 
 Leaving the kitchen, he went out and got the 
 paper and for the first time in his life offered 
 me the front page. He hadn't much more'n got 
 his specks out and settled in his morris chair 
 with the paper than he spied old Miss Reming- 
 ton's old speckled hen scratchin' up some choice 
 bulbs in the flower bed. 
 
 "For a year an' more there had been bad 
 feelin's between your Uncle and Miss Reming- 
 ton on account of said hen flyin' over the hedge 
 and scratchin' up his flowers, so at last he give 
 her fair warnin' that if he ever caught her 
 scratchin' round again, he'd wring 'er neck 
 (the hen's, of course) and take 'er by the legs 
 and sling 'er over the hedge back home. So 
 when I see him makin' for the hen, I was ready 
 for almost any sort of a scene between 'em, an' 
 so I guess was Miss Remington, who come hur- 
 ryin' across the lawn to tiie ten's rescue. When 
 
184 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 she got there she found your Uncle humming, 
 'Oh, hen, you're a beautiful creature,' and feed- 
 in' her sunflower seeds. 
 
 "Grabbin' the hen in her apern, and lookin' 
 at the sunflower seeds as if they'd been soaked 
 in poizen, she hurried back home, scratchin' her 
 thin hair under her false transformer and doin' 
 some hard thinkin'. Whatever she figgered out 
 about your Uncle's curious actions I don't 
 know; but this I do know: Old speck had her 
 tail and wing feathers clipped off clost up be- 
 fore she was an hour older, and Miss Reming- 
 ton spent most of her time for days afterwards 
 watchin' your Uncle out of her kitchin winder. 
 
 "As for me, I was pretty badly worried by 
 this time, not knowin' whether to send for the 
 doctor or what. As I set there thinkin', by 
 some happy chance my eyes fell on the open 
 pages of the magazine he'd been readin' the 
 night before. The truth, that he was just try- 
 in' out another fad, flashed over me in an in- 
 stent, and so great was my relief I laughed 
 right out loud, settin' there all by myself, and 
 Maggie, who had returned to her griddle cakes, 
 glanced in through the door at me suspiciously, 
 
A HUMAN DOOE-MAT 185 
 
 no doubt thinkin' the whole family was getting 
 queer. 
 
 "My mind relieved of an awful suspecion, it 
 reverted to a subject that had been uppermost 
 in my thoughts for a week, namely, furs. I'm 
 not close-mad like some, but I'd set my heart 
 on a set of furs in a downtown fur store. I'd 
 looked at them time an' again, and finally I 
 went in an' asked the price. Honestly, Mandy, 
 I thought the clerk was a-jokin' when he told 
 me. It was enough to keep a poor family a 
 year. I felt ashamed of myself for wanting 
 them, but after the clerk fastened them around 
 my neck and put the muff in my hands I wasn't 
 so ashamed but I 'd 'a ' taken 'em if your Uncle 
 would stand for it, they was such beauties. 
 
 "So when he come smilin' in from the hen 
 episode, hummin' 'Make some one happy ever' 
 day,' I says to myself, 'Now's the time, the 
 place, an' the man.' 
 
 " 'I wonder,' says I, apropos of nuthin' ex- 
 cept leadin' up to the subject of furs, 'if we will 
 have another cold snap this winter like we did 
 last?' Usually he keeps on readin' when I talk, 
 but this time he stopped and holdin' his finger 
 
186 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 on his place, gazed at me genially over his pa- 
 per and said, * Wouldn't wonder; why I 9 
 
 " 'Oh, nuthin',' says I, glancin' at the fur a<3 
 in the paper, 'only if you think it's goin' to be 
 a cold winter, I'd better be a-looldn' out for 
 my weak throat on chilly days. I saw a set of 
 furs down at the store that suited me to a T, 
 but the price was somethin' ' 
 
 " 'Price nuthin V says he, interruptin' me? 
 'I'd hate to think the wife of Hiram Harrison, 
 Esquire, had to risk pneumonny because of a 
 pair of furs. Name the figure, and I'll make 
 out a check. I named the price, thinkin' he'd 
 put the check book back in his pocket, because 
 he grumbled only the week before about me get- 
 tin' so many gloves, but he didn't, only remark- 
 in' as he handed it to me, 'I made it out for a 
 hundred more. I see a woman comin' out of 
 one of them big hotels the other day wearin' a 
 nice pair of furs. The cape would 'a' made her 
 look top heavy, 'twas so big, if it hadn't been 
 for the muff balancin' up things. Honestly, 
 Pheba, 'twas 'most as big as a baby calf. 'Twas 
 a nobby-lookin' suit, take it all in all, with the 
 little fur head, tails, and what nots sewed all 
 over her dress. But she spoiled it all for me 
 
A HUMAN DOOE-MAT 187 
 
 by wearin' one of them "dabootanta slouches" 
 IVe been readin' about.' 
 
 " 'A what!' says I. 
 
 " 'Oh, one of them queer poses the smart set 
 is effectin' now: stickin' their chins out and 
 drawin' their spines in, and slouchin' their 
 shoulder for'ard, for all the world like that 
 foolish Peggy Green used to stand. She'd be 
 right in style now, but folks used to make fun 
 of her in them strait-front and Grecian-bend 
 days. Get all the fur things your a mind to, 
 Pheba,' says he, 'but don't go to effectin' any 
 of them society poses if you want to walk the 
 streets with Hiram Harrison, Esquire.' 
 
 "Needless to say, I promised not to 'slouch,' 
 and taking the advice of a motto hangin' over 
 the writing desk to 'Do it now,' I was soon on 
 my way to the fur store rejoicing." 
 
THE MAN FEOM SEATTLE 
 
 f~*\ N leaving San Diego and the Exposi- 
 If tion," said Aunt Phoebe, "we found 
 our train was late, so we sat in the 
 station quite a spell waitin' for it to come. 
 
 "A fine-looking fellow, about thirty-five I 
 should judge from his looks and about eighty 
 from the way he was dressed, was waitin' for 
 the Los Angeles train, too. He wore a silk rub- 
 ber overcoat with a light pair of foot rubbers 
 tucked into a pocket and carried a silk um- 
 brella. 
 
 "Your Uncle eyed him curiously for a few 
 minutes, and then observed, 'From Seattle, I 
 reckon 1 ' 
 
 ' ' The fellow looked at him in blank astonish- 
 ment, and then answered back: 
 
 " 'I am; but how in creation did you know 
 it? Since you are such a good guesser, perhaps 
 you can tell me what I've got in my pockets.' 
 
 "Thus put to, your Uncle hazarded this 
 guess : 
 
 188 
 
THE MAN FEOM SEATTLE 189 
 
 " 'A pair of rubbers in one, a lot of Exposi- 
 tion postal cards and a return ticket with stop- 
 over privileges in Los Angeles and Frisco in 
 the others, and mebby, to keep from getting 
 homesick, you have a picture card of old An- 
 geline and Mt. Eainier tucked away somewheres 
 about your baggage. 9 
 
 " * Eight again/ said the man from Seattle, 
 his wonder growing. 'You must be a regular 
 mind reader. How in creation did you know I 
 was from Seattle V 
 
 " ' Pshaw!' replied your Uncle, well pleased 
 at his own shrewdness, 'any one except a blind 
 man could see that. Who but a man living 
 north of the Oragon State line ever wore a rub- 
 ber coat and carried an umbrella when the dust 
 was flying in the streets ?' 
 
 " 'Well,' returned the Seattle man, 'the indi- 
 cations all point to rain. Last night the stars 
 shone brightly, and to-day the sun shone all day 
 long. In Seattle, after such a day, it would 
 rain.' 
 
 " 'Of course it would, and make up for lost 
 time in the bargain,' agreed your Uncle 
 readily. 
 
 ' ' The Seattle man looked at him suspiciously, 
 
190 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 and knowing from experience that one is skatin' 
 on thin ice when discussing the weather with a 
 Seattleite, I adroitly turned the subject by ask- 
 in, 'How did you like the Exposition?' 
 
 "'Great show!' he answered enthusiastic- 
 like. 'I wouldn't dare say so up home, but be- 
 tween ns three it compared very favorably with 
 the Alaska- Yukon Exposition. Of course, Se- 
 attle had more natural advantages in the way 
 of climate and scenery, but San Diego is not to 
 blame for that.' 
 
 "Your Uncle was astonished at such talk. 
 He is getting to be a regular Calif ornian in that 
 respect; if strangers from other parts dare to 
 intimate that they, too, have a climate and scen- 
 ery, it always gives him a jolt. 
 
 "I never saw a place yet that didn't have 
 some sort of a climate, and mebby there are 
 people who like it. There's no accountin' for 
 taste; and as for scenery, even Nebraska has 
 some if you take the trouble to climb up on a 
 windmill and look for it. 
 
 " 'So you don't like California?' observed 
 your Uncle, a little put out. 
 
 " 'I wouldn't go so far as to say that,' re- 
 turned the man from Seattle, smoothin' his silk 
 
THE MAN FROM SEATTLE 191 
 
 umbrella affectionately; 'as a playground for 
 the tired business men from live towns where 
 they are really doin' things, California fills a 
 long-felt want; but in a well-watered country, 
 where they raise things for profit and not for 
 show, we could hardly spare good land for 
 sightseers' benefit entirely, and, besides, havin' 
 so many strangers around until you can't tell 
 the sheep's from the goats, would get on my 
 nerves. I asked ten different men to direct me 
 to a certain office building in Los Angeles, and 
 every one said, "I'm a stranger here myself." 
 Seems to me I'd like to meet some one from 
 home, in my own home town, occasionally. ' 
 
 "Your Uncle was openin' his mouth to reply 
 when I intervened by askin', 'So you are goin' 
 back to Seattle!' 
 
 " 'I am, madam,' he returned proudly; 'I am 
 going back to a man's country.' 
 
 " 'To a man's country!' echoed me and your 
 Uncle Hiram in chorus. 
 
 " 'Yes, a man's country,' he repeated firmly. 
 'Seattle is run by men. Southern California, 
 and especially Los Angeles, is run by women. 
 The whole country from Tijuana to Santa Bar- 
 bara is overrun with them. I'll have to be 
 
192 UNCLE HIKAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 shown the first place yet that is not overflowin' 
 with them. They crowd you off the sidewalks, 
 off the street cars, and even out of the jitneys. 
 
 It takes a braver man than I am to push my 
 way into those big department stores; saw 
 something in a show window that I wanted to 
 buy. Do you suppose I could get through the 
 door without gettin' wedged into a mass of 
 pushing women? Not I! Then I thought I'd 
 made a mistake and the store was for ladies 
 oaly; but no! a few tired-lookin ' men hoi din' 
 onto their wives' arms and steppin' sidewise, 
 and up and down and every way to get out of 
 the way of the other women, were in the crowd, 
 so I saw it was a general store.' 
 
 " Your Uncle sighed, as if at some sad remem- 
 brance, and the man continued : 
 
 " 'A policeman saw me actin' what he de- 
 scribed as "suspiciously," and when I ex- 
 plained the situation to him he offered to cut a 
 path for me back to the gents' furnishin' de- 
 partment, but I refused his assistance, tellin' 
 him I would put on clean collars and cuffs and 
 wait till I got to a town where there were not 
 so many women. 
 
 " 'It's hard on a man,' commiserated your 
 
THE MAN FROM SEATTLE 193 
 
 Uncle, and the aggrieved one continued his tale 
 of woe. 
 
 " 'A friend of mine was tellin' me about that 
 magnificent new hotel they built up in Los An- 
 geles exclusively for men. The sign, "FOR MEN 
 ONLY," hadn't been out an hour before the 
 women got wind of it. All day long they passed 
 in groups and squads, peerin' curiously into 
 the windows, where a score of bachelors and 
 widowers looked out triumphantly at them from 
 the lobby windows as they lounged in easy- 
 chairs, read papers, smoked and made them- 
 selves strictly at home. The women stood it 
 two days; then they invaded the lobby, drove 
 the men from their easy-chairs, monopolized the 
 telephone, drove the manager nearly crazy with 
 questions, and wrinkled up their noses at the 
 tobacco smoke. At the present time the five 
 hundred rooms are occupied by three hundred 
 men and their wives, twenty by bachelors and 
 widowers, and the remainder by, single women, 
 two in a room.' 
 
 " 'And it's gettin' worse all the time,' com- 
 plained your Uncle. 
 
 "The man from the North smiled superior*- 
 like and said: 
 
194 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 " 'Now, such a thing never could have hap- 
 pened in Seattle/ 
 
 " 'We aren't afraid of our men folks down 
 here,' said I, a little miffed at his attitude to- 
 ward the women population. 
 
 " 'I should say not,' sighed your Uncle 
 Hiram, as he added his grievances to the list-, 
 savin': 
 
 " 'The lobbies in the hotel was originally 
 built for the men folks, but we quit usin' them 
 to any great extent long ago. One man who 
 was run out into the streets to smoke, and near- 
 ly drove off of the street car in the bargain, told 
 me back where he came from he used to be a 
 prominent citizen, and was considered a man 
 amongst men. "But/' says he, "out here in 
 Los Angeles the best that I can say for myself 
 is that I'm a man amongst women." You can 
 always tell a stranger in town by seein' him in 
 the lobbies amongst the women folks.' 
 
 " 'I've noticed another peculiar thing, too,' 
 commented the man from Seattle. 'When a 
 good-looker comes floatin' in all ribbons and 
 furbellows, the men nearly fall over each other 
 to give her a seat. Fancy man being that 
 dippy in Seattle!' And then he went on, as if 
 
THE MAN FKOM SEATTLE 195 
 
 his own voice listened good to him: 'That takin' 
 a fluffy bag of some sort out of their purses 
 and powderin' their faces right before us is a 
 new one on me. I'll admit, though, that the Cal- 
 ifornia girls are charming, in spite of their in- 
 dependent ways. A fellow might get used to it 
 in time. 
 
 " 'Then those apartment houses are goin' to 
 take you folks by spreading as fast as Devil 
 grass. If they continue ten years longer, 
 there'll be children who'll have to go to a Mu- 
 seum or Exposition to see an open bed. I've 
 seen nothing but wall beds since I left home. 
 Went to visit a friend in Pasadena and worked 
 half the night tryin' to pull a mantel down. He 
 heard the racket and came up to see what was 
 the matter ; then he showed me how to pull some 
 knobs that let out one side of the house into a 
 wall bed and sleepin' porch combined. 
 
 " 'Met a widow from Seattle,' he went on, 
 'who said she was havin' the time of her life 
 down here in one of these apartment houses. 
 Said it was a dandy place for a woman who 
 didn't want to marry, for there were so few 
 eligible men in Los Angeles they were at a 
 premium, so they always went on the " Dutch" 
 
196 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOBNIA 
 
 Treat" basis. I said it looked pretty cheap, but 
 she defended the system and said it was all 
 right. She said if a woman really wanted to 
 marry she had better stay in Seattle, where 
 competition wasn't so great.' 
 
 " 'From your talk, I gather you are a con- 
 firmed bachelor/ hinted your Uncle. 
 
 " 'I was/ admitted the man from Seattle, 
 'but I am goin' to spend ten days in Los An- 
 geles, and you can never tell what will happen 
 to a lone bachelor among so many women, 
 and ' 
 
 " 'All aboard!' shouted the train dispatcher. 
 The man from Seattle slid into his rubbers, 
 hoisted his umbrella and started for the train. 
 We followed him, and to our great astonishment 
 we found it was rainin' outside to beat Seattle. " 
 
AUNT PHOEBE'S ADVENTURE 
 
 UNCLE THOUGHT SHE WAS A VICTIM OF 
 HALLUCINATION 
 
 //T" NEVER told you, Mandy, what a time 
 I me and your Uncle had buyin' Christ- 
 mas presents in California," said Aunt 
 Phoebe Harrison. 
 
 "In the first place I was too mad to talk about 
 it for a month, and after that I was ashamed to 
 tell any one about it, but since I've been think- 
 in' it over, I can now laugh to myself about the 
 ridiculousness of it all, and I don't blame your 
 Uncle half as much as I did at the time it hap- 
 pened. 
 
 "One nice morning about two weeks before 
 Christmas I said to your Uncle, * Let's go and 
 buy our Christmas presents early this year and 
 avoid the rush, ' and he answered back real cross 
 for him : 
 
 " 'You talk just like a department store ad- 
 vertisement, Phoebe, and I don't wonder, seein' 
 
 197 
 
198 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 how you hain't hardly read any other kind of 
 literature for nearly a month; but if you are 
 determined to have me run the gauntlet of life 
 and limb in them Christmas crowds on Broad- 
 way, I may just as well take my life in my 
 hands now as any other time.' 
 
 " Whenever your Uncle goes shopping with 
 me amongst the crowd of department store 
 women, he acts like he was doin' something as 
 dangerous as goin' to war. So after arguin' 
 and actin' contrary by wearing his white straw 
 hat, for fear he'd sweat the band of his new 
 black one, we got started. 
 
 "My! but it was a warm day for December, 
 and about the first thing I had to do after get- 
 ting into the crowds was to take off my jacket 
 and give it to your Uncle to carry. He rolled 
 it up in a tight wad, and putting it under his 
 arm, said sarcastic-like, right before some other 
 women who was eyeing the proceedings disap- 
 provin'-like: 
 
 " 'Phoebe, you ought to have a snapshot 
 taken of me luggin' this old jacket round so as 
 to have somethin' natural and lifelike to look 
 at when I'm mustered out.' 
 
 "I didn't answer him, for I have learned by 
 
AUNT PHOEBE 'S ADVENTUEE 199 
 
 experience not to talk back to him when he gets 
 one of them grouchy moods, so I kept a still 
 tongue and mebby saved a fuss. 
 
 "The first place we stopped to look at things 
 was at a big bookstore, and a tall, narrow, con- 
 tracted young man, who wore a collar big 
 enough to go over his little head, come forward 
 to wait on us. I saw him look and motion to a 
 hatchet-faced girl near him as much as to say, 
 * Watch me and you'll see some fun.' 
 
 ' * I took out my list from my purse, to see the 
 names I had jotted down, random-like, of folks 
 I wanted to remember back home and read: 
 'Mrs. Minerva Petigrew, Lincoln, Route No. 2, 
 R. F. D.' She was a former naber, so after 
 readin' her name out to your Uncle, I said: 
 'How do you think a book would do for her?' 
 
 " 'All right,' he answered right out loud be- 
 fore that grinning clerk. 'If you can find one 
 entitled, "Something to Bead When You Get 
 Tired of Talking About Your Neighbors.' 
 
 " 'Then,' he continued, 'we might get this one 
 called "Foreigners" for that raw Swede that 
 rents the south eighty. 
 
 " 'Then that "Billy Whiskers" will do for 
 Uncle Billy Hudson, who hain't shaved himself 
 
200 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOBNIA 
 
 since the Pop party went out of power back in 
 the early Nineties. 
 
 "I hurried him away for fear they would 
 hear him, and made up my mind to go by my- 
 self to buy books the next time. 
 
 "Then we commenced the rounds of the de- 
 partment stores, and by noon we was nearly 
 loaded down and ready for our lunch, which 
 we ate up on the top floor of one of the big 
 department stores. 
 
 "After we had started home, I missed my 
 jacket. Your Uncle had left it where we et our 
 lunch; but he wouldn't go back after it, sayin' 
 he'd rather go over Niagary Falls in a barrel 
 than to fight his way through that mob of wom- 
 en folks again; said he'd buy me a new one 
 rather than go. The jacket belonged to my new 
 tailored suit, but seein' how he dreaded going 
 for it, I decided to go myself. 
 
 "Comin' back, I thought to save time by 
 crossin' the street catercornered ; but, sakes 
 alive ! I'll never try that again, for I got caught 
 between two automobiles, a street car and a 
 motorcycle, as I stood there too dazed to know 
 which way to turn. A street car come cross- 
 wise, ringing the bells right on me, some one 
 
AUNT PHOEBE 'S ADVENTURE 201 
 
 shouted for me to jump and in doin' so I caught 
 the heel of my shoe in my skirt and fell down all 
 of a heap, right in front of a cow hitched to the 
 front of a cart. 
 
 "Yes, a cow. real cow with a bell on her 
 and a man drivin* her from behind, just like a 
 horse. Which was the most astonished, me or 
 the cow, I don't know, but she gave a little 
 scairt bawl and jumped clear over me and never 
 hurt me a mite. 
 
 "Just then a policeman spied me and come 
 and helped me over to the corner where your 
 Uncle was waitin' for me. In some way my 
 face'd got scratched a little and was bleedin', 
 and when your Uncle see me with a policeman, 
 he was the worst scairt man you ever saw, and 
 when I commenced, excited-like, to tell him 
 about the cow episode, he said to himself: 
 
 " ' Crazy as a bed bug! Seein' that bull fight 
 in Tiajauny, and this Christmas jam has been 
 too much for her, and she's come unhinged right 
 here on the street. Would that we had never 
 seen a department store or a Spanish bull fight 
 jabberin' away about cattle right here on 
 Broadway! Come on, Phoebe, we must see a 
 doctor right away,' and he hurried me into a 
 
202 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 building and took me up to the office of a young 
 doctor who had just come out to Los Angeles 
 from Indiana, where some relations of ours 
 lived. 
 
 " ' Doctor Smally, who, by the way, was six 
 feet tall and wore nose glasses, listened as sol- 
 emn as an owl while your Uncle told him I had 
 been suddenly took with a hallucination, think- 
 in' I see a cow walkin' on Broadway, with a bell 
 on her neck, and a man drivin' her from behind 
 like a horse. The drivin' club matinee, stock 
 yard moving pictures, Christmas bells, bull 
 fights and things has got on her nerves, and 
 here she is,' says he, 'all unhinged.' 
 
 " 'Quit talkin' nonsense and put some court 
 plaster on my face, ' says I. 'I'm no more crazy 
 than the rest of you, for I saw a cow hitched to 
 a cart on Broadway, and that's the end of it.' 
 
 "The doctor looked sidewise at your Uncle, 
 and says soothin'-like to me: 
 
 " 'Of course she did; of course she did.' 
 
 " ' Of course she did nothin',' said your Uncle, 
 too contrary to let on even to a crazy wife. 
 'Can't you give her a dose of somethin', doc, to 
 counteract them hallucinations?' 
 
 "The doctor, thus admonished, hitched his 
 
AUNT PHOEBE >S ADVENTURE 203 
 
 chair up closer to mine, and looking straight 
 into my eyes and talking like's if I was a child, 
 said to your Uncle : 
 
 " 'From what I can understand, this this, er 
 peculiarity was not evident in her family!' 
 
 " Your Uncle thought a minute, and then said: 
 
 " 'Yes, now that I think of it, her daddy did 
 act mighty queer once when I was a-sittin' up 
 with Phoebe and forgot myself (because the 
 clock stopped running and stayed till four in 
 the morning. Yes, now that I think of it, he 
 talked mighty queer and random-like, sayin' my 
 folks must have had a mighty airly breakfast 
 for me to get over so soon in the morning; let 
 on like he thought I'd just come from home.' 
 
 " 'Well,' said the puzzled doctor, his sharp 
 gray eyes leveled on my countenance through 
 them nose glasses, 'there's one test that never 
 fails: a person who cannot touch their nose 
 with the forefinger of their left hand, at the first 
 trial, is mentally unbalanced,' and he called out 
 real sharp, 'Place your left forefinger on the 
 tip of your nose quick!' 
 
 "I could have done it, all right, but a button 
 on my sleeve caught on my lace collar, and I 
 
204 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 nearly punched an eye out, and almost broke 
 my glasses. 
 
 "The doctor seemed awful worked up at my 
 failure, and wiped his nose glasses on his pur- 
 ple handkerchief, and pulled up his pants and 
 gazed thoughtfully at his purple socks, and 
 straightened his purple tie, mutterin' to him- 
 self: * Liable to have a brainstorm or lapse of 
 memory any minute and do violence to her hus- 
 band.' 
 
 "When he mentioned your Uncle, I turned 
 round to see what he was doing, and there he 
 stood, as pale as putty, looking like he had 
 turned to stone and tryin' his best to put his 
 left forefinger on the tip of his nose, and, be- 
 ing so excited, he missed it every time. 
 
 " 'Phoebe,' says he, 'I'm done for. Another 
 good man's had his nerves broke off short as a 
 corncob, buyin' Christmas truck in them wom- 
 en-crowded department stores. Take us home 
 in a taxi, Doc, and call in a parsel of them ex- 
 pert allainists and help 'em patch up our in- 
 tellectual aparatuses, and then we'll give up 
 these Exposition trips and things, and settle 
 down to private life and do no thin' more excit- 
 
AUNT PHOEBE 'S ADVENTUEE 205 
 
 ing that pick the devil grass out, and gossip 
 over the back fence with the nabers.' 
 
 "So the doctor started us homeward, and just 
 as we stepped onto the sidewalk toward the tax- 
 icab what should we see but that same cow, cart, 
 driver, bell and all, comin' down the street. 
 
 "The doctor opened his eyes in astonishment 
 and got red in the face at the diagnosis he had 
 made, but your Uncle was so relieved to think 
 the whole family wasn't crazy that he nearly 
 danced on the sidewalk. Then as usual he tried 
 to get out of it by saying he was joking, and 
 knowed there was a cow in town all the time; 
 but he didn't. 
 
 "Sometimes when I want to tease the doctor 
 I say, real sharp: 'Put the forefinger of your 
 left hand on your nose quick!' 
 
 "Now I'll show you the picture of that cow. 
 I found it among the presents your uncle gave 
 me last Christmas, and some day when we are 
 down on Broadway I'll show you the real cow, 
 cart, driver, bell, and all." 
 
A SHOPPING EXPERIENCE 
 
 ( f X "Tf T ELL, buying clothes in California/ 7 
 y y complained Aunt Phoebe, "and 
 mebby any other place nowadays, 
 is getting to be a real problem. The time was 
 when I thought having the price of good clothes 
 settled the matter, but I guess it just compli- 
 cates it. 
 
 "I went into a store the other day intending 
 to peek around a little, but a hard-faced, wood- 
 en-figured saleswoman transfixed me with her 
 fishy eyes and seated me where I belonged, with 
 as much firmness as if I was going to the elec- 
 tric chair. 
 
 "Economy dies hard, so I had in mind a gar- 
 ment that I could play a game of golf in, or 
 wear to the beach, or mountains, or even on the 
 street if we took a notion to ride downtown from 
 the links. 
 
 "Scenting the hidden economy, when I made 
 my wants known, her stony face got harder and 
 harder as she informed me that they didn't car- 
 
 206 
 
A SHOPPING EXPERIENCE 207 
 
 ry any such garment; ' however,' she added, 
 'you might find it in the basement.' 
 
 "I got up and started to leave, but a good- 
 looking Jewish gentleman, with much bowing 
 and smiling, inveigled me back into my seat and 
 drawing the saleslady aside, he laid down the 
 law to her for letting a customer escape, with 
 an altogether different look on his dark coun- 
 tenance than when he was reseating me. 
 
 ' ' She went to a case and took out a sport suit 
 with polka dots nearly as large as a saucer. I 
 shook my head, and she replaced it and brought 
 for my inspection a white broadcloth affair 
 which she insisted I try on. One look at myself 
 in the glass made me gasp, for it made me look 
 like I had regained the forty pounds I was so 
 long losing. I took it off in a hurry. 
 
 "Just at this juncture your Uncle, who was 
 to meet me there, came tiptoeing out of the ele- 
 vator like he was at a funeral and sat down be- 
 side me. The saleslady had her back to us, look- 
 ing into the glass case for some more freak 
 clothes to try on me. 
 
 " 'Did you find anything?' asked your Uncle, 
 in a stage whisper. 'Get something, for pity 'a 
 sake, and let's get out of here.' 
 
208 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 "He looked around at the dressed-up figures, 
 and then all at once, before I knew what he was 
 doing, he says, 'How's this one made in front T 
 and takes that saleslady by the hip and tried to 
 whirl her round, thinking she was a dummy. 
 
 "She whirled, all right, and said, 'Sir!' so 
 suddenly that she scared the senses almost out 
 of your Uncle. 
 
 "The Jewish gentleman came runnin', and I 
 felt so sorry for your Uncle I bought a plaid 
 suit then and there and the haughty saleslady 
 moved automatically away with it, and the Jew- 
 ish gentleman soothed your Uncle's ruffled feel- 
 ings while he was making out the check. 
 
 " 'What in the world did you mean?' said I 
 to your Uncle, when we were alone. 
 
 " 'Mean?' says he. 'How in creation was I 
 to know she wasn't a dummy? She looked like 
 one, and, by George, she felt like one, too hard 
 as a stone image; never see a woman who 
 wouldn't give an inch before. 
 
 "Then I bought a nice waist, and gloves and 
 shoes and a hat. 
 
 "I had them all laid out on the bed, very well 
 satisfied and not begrudging the seventy-five 
 dollars they cost; but that was before Mrs. 
 
A SHOPPING EXPERIENCE 209 
 
 Gambol, a society woman and a distant connec- 
 tion who lives across the street, gave them, to 
 use a slang phrase, 'the once over.' 
 
 " 'Unhwh,' she murmured, as she picked up 
 my lace waist (marked eight-ninety-eight) ; 
 4 very pretty for informal afternoons; wish you 
 had been with me to see the display of waists at 
 fne Maryland last week. I bought one with real 
 lace, the points set inverted around the belt," 
 said she, 'to wear with my new blue suit with 
 the velvet trimmings.' 
 
 "She passed over the plaid dress without a 
 single comment, which is to a woman the biggest 
 insult of all. I also found that my gloves, which 
 from the way the saleslady talked could be worn 
 with anything, 'from a sassy Jane to a span- 
 gled evening gown,' were only intended for 
 sport wear; and she had a pair of shoes like 
 mine the year before. 
 
 "From his den on the other side of the hall 
 your Uncle heard all. After she left, he came 
 into the room, saying: 'Phoebe Harrison, I am 
 going to ask one favor of you : you go shopping 
 with that woman, and get the best; her hus- 
 band's bank account is no bigger than mine 
 what his wife can afford my wife can afford. 
 
210 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 When we go East this summer we want to go 
 right. Let her help to select your clothes, and 
 send the bills to me/ 
 
 "I went. 
 
 "Your Uncle looked incredulous when he foot- 
 ed up the bills, but he made me out a check f o* 
 twelve hundred dollars without a word of com- 
 plaint. I got a waist like hers it was cheap ( ?) , 
 she said, at ninety-five dollars. 
 
 "And my hat well, if I hadn't wanted to 
 give your Uncle an object lesson on what it cost 
 to keep up with every passing fad, I never 
 would have dreamed of buying it, for such 
 prices are wicked, and my conscience hurt me 
 over the money I paid for my clothes, at least 
 it did until I put them on. I will admit they are 
 becoming, and buying the right kind of clothes 
 is getting to be a real art ; but your Uncle never 
 urged me to go out with Mrs. Gambol any more, 
 but now that they are safely packed in the trunk 
 ready for our Eastern trip, I'm not saying I'm 
 sorry, for I'm 'prepared' to meet the Presi- 
 dent's wife or anybody else who happens our 
 way. I'm going to send Mrs. Gambol the very 
 latest novelty direct from Paris that I can find 
 in New York City.'' 
 
A TRIP BACK TO THE OLD HOME 
 
 THINK I told you," observed Aunt 
 Phoebe, " about Mrs. Gambol takin' me 
 on that shoppin' expedition just before 
 we took our Eastern trip. 
 
 "And now about the trip itself: We had quite 
 a time getting started, for when you are keepin' 
 house it's no easy matter to break up and leave 
 on short notice. I had thought to leave Ito, the 
 Jap gardener who sleeps in the garage, in 
 charge, but when he tried to feed Beauty, my 
 white Persian cat, he (the cat, I mean) arched 
 up his back, slapped at Ito's face with his paw, 
 and retired under the gas range, glarin' at him 
 with wide eyes until he left the kitchen. 
 
 4 'Then he tried to feed Beauty's liver and 
 milk to the canaries ; so I give up the idea and 
 left Gusta Johnson, our house maid, in charge. 
 Then I had a fuss with your Uncle Hiram about 
 takin' two trunks. He wanted me to leave most 
 of the nice things I had gone to so much trouble 
 
 211 
 
212 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 to buy and get fitted into at home. Well, we 
 settled the matter finally by taking two trunks 
 and a lot of extra suit cases, but at last we got 
 started and, when the train was movin' easward 
 through the familiar streets of Los Angeles, we 
 were both considerably wrought up in our feel- 
 in 's, for before our return our eyes would rest 
 upon the Capitol of these great United States ; 
 we would walk the streets of that wonder city, 
 New York; and last, but not least, we would 
 visit our childhood's home, which we had not 
 seen for nearly a third of a century, on the 
 banks of the raging Wabash. 
 
 "Our first short stop was at Salt Lake City, 
 which Mormonism made famous, or infamous^ 
 just as you happen to look at it. 
 
 "Why is it that the system of Mormonism 
 never jars or shocks a man's sensibilities like 
 it does a woman's? 
 
 "As we neared the city, we fell in conversa- 
 tion with our fellow travelers and, while all the 
 women denounced the system bitterly, the men 
 viewed the matter with good-natured tolerance. 
 A sour-looking man said that single marriages 
 were not always what they were cracked up to 
 be, and a good lookin' bachelor said he thanked 
 
A TRIP TO THE OLD HOME 213 
 
 Ms lucky stars that Congress had put its foot 
 down on the practice in time to save him; and 
 your uncle humorously remarked 'if polygamy 
 ever came into style in California, instead of 
 adding a room for every new wife like they did 
 in Salt Lake City, he would build a cute little 
 bungalow court for them.' 
 
 "We stopped over one day in Chicago, and I 
 went with your Uncle to see the excitement in 
 the wheat-pit on the Board of Trade. Talk 
 about noises ! The hotel solicitors at the Ferry 
 Depot in San Francisco and twelve hundred 
 women talkin' all at once at the Ebell Club 
 House seemed but a drop in the ocean compared 
 to the uproar made by them brokers. They all 
 talked at the top of their voices, knocked off 
 each other's hats, and shook their fists at one 
 another. Your Uncle, who had made a vow never 
 to speculate again (being considerable ahead of 
 the game), acted like IVe seen old race horses 
 act when they saw other horses racing on their 
 old tracks, but he showed strength of character 
 by not yieldin' to the temptation, and we was 
 soon on our way to the Capital City. We stayed 
 a month in Washington, and enjoyed it. 
 
 "My cousin, Eansdale Kelley, Democrat 
 
214: UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 Congressman from Indiana, took us to see ev- 
 erything, including the President and his wife. 
 I was awful glad I bought that orchard-colored 
 broadcloth with everything to match. I read 
 once that good clothes in certain places were 
 more to be coveted than a good name. I don't 
 exactly believe that, but there is no denyin' it's 
 a great comfort to know you are wearing the 
 right clothes when the President and his wife is 
 givin' you a handshake and the 'once over.' 
 
 "As for our stay in New York, I find it's 
 'love's labor lost' to try to tell any one about 
 that city. If they have never been there, they 
 are only mildly interested ; and if they have been 
 there, they think they know more about it than 
 you do. 
 
 "At last we reached Indiana, and your Uncle 
 was awfully disappointed to find his old home 
 covered with machine shops and roundhouses. 
 The only landmark left was a big hickory-nut 
 tree where the workin' men were eatin' their 
 noon-day lunch, but I knew I was goin' to the 
 same old homestead, for at my father's death it 
 had passed into the hands of his sister, Aunt 
 Betsy Kelley. Her husband, Captain Kelley, 
 was a big, good-natured and handsome Irish- 
 
A TRIP TO THE OLD HOME 215 
 
 man. Tradition has it that the day after their 
 marriage she burned up his pipe, tobacco, play- 
 in' cards, violin, hair oil and fancy vest, and 
 everything else pertainin' to the vanities of life. 
 When he passed away, a few years later, an old 
 neighbor man remarked: 'Far be it from me to 
 mourn the passin' of that man; bein' too much 
 of an Irishman to get a divorce and not enough 
 of an Irishman to thresh the meanness out of 
 her, what was there left for the poor man to do 
 but die?' 
 
 "Well, there is no denyin' Aunt Betsy was a 
 character and when, at the age of seventy-five, 
 she opened the screen door for me an' your 
 Uncle an' made a vigorous onslaught on the flies 
 with a yard stick covered with fringed newspa- 
 pers (instead of shakin' hands with us). I see 
 that she was the same old Aunt Betsy, still 
 active and alert in body and mind. After the 
 last venturesome fly had been routed, she calm- 
 ly hung the fly-chaser on its hook and shook 
 hands cordially with us, gave us the best rock- 
 ers, padded with log-cabin and crazy-quilt cush- 
 ions. To my delight, everything in the room 
 was just the same as my memory had pictured 
 it: the same brussels carpet with its sprawlin' 
 
216 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 green leaves and impossible roses, was on the 
 floor, for Aunt Betsy had done us the honors of 
 the best room, or parlor, sacred to funerals and 
 weddin's, and the first formal calls of the minis- 
 ters. This rule was broken only once, when she 
 gave a reception to the whole countryside, the 
 night after her only son was elected to Con- 
 gress. I looked eagerly aroun' me through the 
 open door into the familiar sitting-room, with 
 its hit-and- miss rag carpet and braided mats at 
 the door. Here was one place, in this changin' 
 world that time had left untouched. Every ob- 
 ject in the room recalled memories of other 
 days. The organ, the marble-toped table, were 
 there, and standin' in one corner was a three- 
 cornered contraption known in my youthful 
 days as a what-not. Eeposing on the what-not, 
 amid china ornaments and California souvenirs, 
 was a. conch-shell, which some seafaring ances- 
 tor had wished on the family. Your Uncle's eyes 
 and mine fell on it at the same time, and in 
 spite of ourselves, we laughed long and loud 
 lucky for us that Aunt Betsy had gone to the 
 cellar for cold cider and doughnuts ! The old 
 shell recalled a little incident of our courtin' 
 days. Your Uncle had taken me to a Fourth of 
 
A TKIP TO THE OLD HOME 217 
 
 July celebration in the village near by. Now 
 it seems to have been an unwritten law that all 
 the family should be at home from this festivity 
 at 6 o'clock, but some other young people coaxed 
 us to stay and see the fireworks at night. Now 
 it was another unwritten law in our neighbor- 
 hood that this conch shell was never to be used 
 except in cases of fire, accidents or lost children, 
 when a few vigorous blasts would bring the 
 whole neighborhood to our aid. So when seven 
 o'clock come, and no Phoebe, and eight o'clock 
 come and no Phoebe, what did Aunt Betsy do 
 but blow that conch shell louder than Gabriel's 
 trumpet, and sitting on the dewey grass on your 
 Uncle's linen duster, enjoyin' the fireworks, the 
 old conch shell's tones smote on my ear like the 
 crack of doom. Without waitin' to explain, I 
 hurried your astonished Uncle to the top-buggy, 
 and halfway home we met a small searchin 1 
 party headed by Aunt Phoebe lookin' for us. 
 Your Uncle was so mad he didn't come to our 
 house for nearly two weeks, much to Aunt Bet- 
 sey's satisfaction, and to this day if some one 
 blows a conch shell suddenly, I jump as if I was 
 shot. 
 " After Aunt Betsy came back with the cider, 
 
218 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOBNIA 
 
 she went out again to get supper, leavin' us to 
 entertain ourselves with the family, album. 
 Eagerly we turned the leaves. Aunt Betsy's 
 husband came first; Cousin Eansdale Kelley, 
 three months old, taken in his mother's arms, 
 his two yards of lace-trimmed dress trailing 
 grandly on the floor; a fat little girl, with tight- 
 ly curled hair, claspin' a doll in her arms, 
 bore the legend, 'Phoebe Eansdale, aged two 
 years. 9 
 
 By and by we come to a family group your 
 Uncle's father and mother, she holding a small 
 boy on her lap. 'What homely kid is that, moth- 
 er is holdin' on her lap?' wondered your Uncle, 
 adjustin' his glasses and lookin' closely. 
 1 Brother John made rather a good-lookin' man. 
 I never thought he carried such a food-trap as 
 that aroun' when he was a little boy. He must 
 have got tired carryin' his ears and feet aroun'. 
 Holdin' such a lookin' kid as that and lookin' 
 proud of him in the bargain, shows what mother 
 love will do. From the stern look on his face, 
 father don't seem to be any too well pleased 
 with the rangey youngster fate has wished on 
 him. Wonder when that picture was taken? 
 Here it tells on the back,' and he read: 'James 
 
A TEIP TO THE OLD HOME 219 
 
 P. Harrison, Mary Ann Harrison, and little 
 Hiram on his third birthday.' Your Uncle was 
 considerably taken aback when he found it was. 
 himself. By and by we found a picture of our- 
 selves taken on that Fourth of July, showin* 
 him to be quite a handsome young lad, and he 
 was awfully tickled to see that he had at last 
 caught up with his ears and mouth. 
 
 " 'And Phoebe, you're a peach,' says he, 'in 
 spite of your dinky hat and squeezed-in waist. r 
 
 "At the supper table I had two pleasant sur- 
 prises. I met my pretty namesake, Phoebe Kel- 
 ley, and Aunt Betsy gave me the rose bud set of 
 dishes that had been in our family 200 years. 
 After supper, we an' Aunt Betsy and Jerome, 
 the hired man that she still treated like a boy 
 in spite of his sixty years, made the roun's of 
 the old farm, out through the apple orchard, 
 across a little clover patch, to the old spring- 
 house with its pans of milk everlastingly repos- 
 in' in troughs of icy spring water. A barrel 
 sunk in the ground, over a bubblin' spring, re- 
 called to mind a near tragedy of my childhood, 
 when I fell headfirst into its icy depths. 
 
 "Then we took a look at the smoke-house and 
 saw the smoke from the hickory chips curlin' up 
 
220 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 among the hams. Your Uncle hinted so hard 
 that Aunt Betsy gave him one to take home. 
 
 " After a while, the moon came up over the 
 hills, and the whip-poor-wills commenced their 
 plaintive song in a woodland near by. 'I'm go- 
 ing to bed,' suddenly announced Aunt Betsy, 
 'and you, Phoebe, had better unpack a longer 
 dress, as the minister and his wife is comin' here 
 to-morrow for dinner.' 
 
 " 'Why,' says I, taken aback, 'I only brought 
 the dress I have on. What's the matter with 
 this?' 
 
 " 'Well, never mind; I'll see about it,' was all 
 she said, as she left us and went in the house. 
 
 "The night was hot, and I knew my old room 
 would be stiflin', so we sat down on a rustic 
 bench that we used to use in our courtin' days 
 under a grape-arbor, near the old walnut gate. 
 The air was heavy with the scent of the honey- 
 locusts, and sounds heard only in a woodland 
 country came faintly to the ear: the tinklin' of 
 a cowbell; the barkin' of a dog, and the ever- 
 lastin' callin', callin' of the whip-poor-wills. 
 
 "Suddenly down the old brick walk, leadin' 
 to the front gate, came Phoebe. Up from the 
 very shadows, so suddenly did he appear, came 
 
A TEIP TO THE OLD HOME 221 
 
 a good-lookin' young man, sayin', 'Darling, I 
 thought you would never come. ' 
 
 " * Grandma has company, Harold. It seems 
 like an age since I saw you last night.' 
 
 " 'Guess what I have in my pocket ' 
 
 " 'Phoebe/ came the voice of Aunt Betsy. 
 
 "Phoebe didn't answer, but flecked the young 
 man playfully with a bunch of honey-locust 
 blooms. 
 
 " 'I got the ring yesterday, ' continued 
 Harold. 'I cannot let you go to Washington 
 and leave ' 
 
 " 'Phoebe Elizabeth,' a little louder from 
 Aunt Betsy. 
 
 " 'Coming, grandma,' lied Phoebe. 
 
 " 'Lean over and I'll tell you something,' said 
 Harold to Phoebe. 
 
 ''She leaned, and he laughingly caught her in 
 his arms. They looked as pretty as a scene 
 from a movin' picture show. 
 
 " 'Phoebe Elizabeth Kelley,' called Aunt 
 Betsy, sticking her white-capped head out of 
 the window, 'I'm comin' right down and, if that 
 young man is ' 
 
 "But so engrossed were they with each other 
 that the warning fell on deaf ears, and your 
 
222 UNCLE HIEAM IN CALIFOENIA 
 
 Uncle, remembering the couch-shell episode, and 
 fearing the worst from Aunt Betsy, suddenly 
 called out, 'Break away!' 
 
 "If Harold jumped an inch, he jumped a foot, 
 and he was out of sight, down the pike, and 
 Phoebe was in the house by a side door when 
 Aunt Betsy, lookin' puzzled at findin' no one, 
 appeared on the scene. 
 
 "The next mornin' I was awakened from a 
 California dream by what I thought at first was 
 the fire department, but what proved to be the 
 six-o'clock breakfast bell in the hands of the 
 faithful Jerome. Knowing Aunt Betsy's habit 
 of cleaning off the breakfast table half an hour 
 after the breakfast bell rang, I woke your 
 grumbin' Uncle and made haste to dress. I 
 looked at my comfortable Pullman kimona, but 
 abandoned the idea and picked up my tailored 
 travelin' skirt, an' could scarcely believe my 
 eyes when I saw that a six-inch black alpaca- 
 plaited flounce had been sewed neatly onto the 
 bottom. I put it on, and the plaited flounce 
 touched the floor modestly all around, and I 
 laughed at the figure I cut in the long mirror. 
 Your Uncle looked up gloomily from lacing his 
 shoes and, not recpgnizing the skirt, said: 
 
 
A TRIP TO THE OLD HOME 223 
 
 * Couldn't rest, I reckon, without draggin' some 
 new-fangled Paris style home with you from 
 New York. I'll bet you're just dyin' to see 
 what Mrs. Gambol thinks of it. "Well, there is 
 one thing sure, they just naturally had to come 
 lower, since they couldn't go up any higher. 
 What goes up must come down skirts as 
 well as anything else. You do look funny, 
 
 though ' 
 
 " A rap on the door hurried us down to break- 
 fast, and your Uncle found a letter by his plate. 
 It read: 'Honorable Hiram Harrison. I thank 
 you for attention. Be informed of the wondrous 
 actions of your servant, Gusta, and the Beauty 
 Cat also yellow birds with cage. This day 
 Beauty Cat sun himself by the hedge. Dog 
 jump over hedge. Much growl. Cat claw and 
 make faces. Very high back, big tail. Jump 
 on the garage. No come down. Ito get ladder. 
 Cat claws his face. Much bleed. Gusta girl 
 go up. Cat come down. Both fall from ladder. 
 Gusta cry. Arm no go. Cat runs house. Three 
 legs only used. Now Gusta in the hospital, 
 Beauty in cat hospital; much hiss and make 
 faces at other sick kitties. Yellow birds no eat 
 for Ito. Present address, bird store. Every- 
 
224 UNCLE HIRAM IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 thing fine; also the devil grass. Dig more to- 
 morrow, maybe. Remember Honorable Missus. 
 Very kind wishes. Ito. ' 
 
 " 'That settles it,' said your Uncle, awful 
 cheerful considerin' all the broken bones. * You 
 won't have to put in another night fannin' and 
 slappin' mosquitoes and listenin' to them ever- 
 lastin' whip-poor-wills.' 
 
 "Of course, I was disappointed, but I started 
 in to pack my suitcase and your Uncle to pack 
 his ham. It's wonderful, the lure the word Cali- 
 fornia has for every one. Aunt Betsy promptly 
 accepted our invitation to visit us, and when 
 we suggested a travelin' companion, she said: 
 'What for? I paid the mortgage off this farm, 
 raised a Congressman, and I guess I can find 
 California without taggin' after any one.' 
 
 "And Phoebe and her young lawyer are com- 
 ing out on their weddin' tour, and Jerome, the 
 hired hand, is comin' too. He says he has put 
 twenty dollars in the bank every year for forty 
 years, and he is goin' to see 'California First.' 
 He said his brother, who has been livin' out 
 there at the County Farm for two years, says it 
 beats workin' on a muddy Indiana farm all 
 hollow."