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."