Julia M. Sloane - The Smiling Hill Top
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Julia M. Sloane >> The Smiling Hill Top
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I shall never forget my first experience of the spell. I was invited by
my Grandmother to go to California for several months. There were four
of us, and we were all tired, for one reason or another; Grandmother
because she was eighty, and it's a strenuous matter to live eighty
years; my Aunt because she had been desperately ill; C. C. because she
had nursed my Aunt back to comparative health, and I because I had been
a debutante that winter, and every one knows that that is the hardest
work of all. We went as far south as the train would take us, and
settled ourselves at Coronado to bask in the sunshine until the
tiredness was gone and we became a band of explorers, with the world
before us! A pair of buggies drawn by nags of unblemished reputation for
sagacity and decorum, driven by C. C. and me, carried us over many a
picturesque and rough road. It invariably took us all day to get
anywhere and back, irrespective of what the distance was supposed to be.
The outfit was so old that I often had to draw up my steed and mend the
harness with a safety-pin. Trailing Ramona was our favorite game.
Fortunately for that part of the country, she and Allessandro managed to
be born, or sleep, or marry, or die in pretty nearly every little
settlement, ranch, or mission in San Diego County, and it's a great boon
to the country. Now, of course, with a motor you can cover the ground in
a day, but then, with a guaranteed horse and a safety-pinned harness,
Ramona was good for weeks.
We usually took a picnic lunch, and it was on one of these trips that I
first saw the Smiling Hill-Top and knew it not for my later love. How
often that happens! Jogging home, with the reins slack on the placid
mare's back, Grandmother liked me to sing "Believe Me If All Those
Endearing Young Charms" and "Araby's Daughter," showing that she was a
good deal under the spell of the palm trees and the sunset, for I have
the voice of a lost kitten. It also shows the perfect self-control of
the horse, for no accidents occurred.
It was a very different Coronado from the present day, with its motors
on earth and water, and in air. I liked ours better and hated to leave
it, but after six weeks of its glory of sunshine I was deputed to go
north to Pasadena to rent a bungalow for two months. It was my first
attempt of the kind, and aided by a cousin into whose care I had been
confided, I succeeded in reducing the rent twenty-five dollars a month
for a pretty cottage smothered in roses and heliotropes and well
supplied with orange and lemon trees. I was rather pleased with myself
as a business woman. Not so Grandmother. She was thoroughly indignant
and announced her firm intention of paying the original rent asked, a
phenomenon that so surprised our landlord, when I told him, that he
insisted on scrubbing the kitchen floor personally, the day of her
arrival. Thus did Raleigh lay down his cloak for the Queen!
Everything was lovely. It only rained once that spring--the morning
after we had gone up Mount Lowe to see the sun rise, to be sure, but it
would be a carping creature who would complain when only one expedition
had been dampened. For twenty years I cherished the illusion that this
was a land of endless sunshine. I don't know where I thought the
moisture came from that produces the almost tropical luxuriance of the
gardens and the groves. I know better now and, strange to say, I have
come to love a rain in its proper time and place, if it isn't too
boisterous. We discovered a veteran of the Civil War turned liveryman,
who for a paltry consideration in cash was ours every afternoon, and
showed us something new each day, from racing horses on the Lucky
Baldwin Ranch to the shadow of a spread eagle on a rock. Grandmother's
favorite excursion was to a picturesque winery set in vineyards and
shaded by eucalyptus trees. She was what I should call a wine-jelly,
plum-pudding prohibitionist, and she included tastes of port and fruit
cordials as part of the sight-seeing to be done. You can be pretty at
eighty, which is consoling to know. Grandmother, with a little curl over
each ear and the pink born of these "tastes" proved it, and she wouldn't
let us tease her about it either. It was an easy life, and so
fascinating that I even said to myself, "Why not learn to play the
guitar?" for nothing seemed impossible. It shows how thoroughly drugged
I was by this time, for my Creator wholly omitted to supply me with a
musical ear. I always had to have my instrument tuned by the young man
next door, but I learned to play "My Old Kentucky Home" so that every
one recognized it. Now, if years had not taught me some fundamental
facts about my limitations, I should probably render twilight hideous
with a ukelele, for a ukelele goes a guitar one better, and Aloha oee
wailed languorously on that instrument would make even a Quaker relax.
It was in the late spring that the Great Idea came to Aunty and me. I
don't know which of us was really responsible for it, and there was a
time when neither of us would own it. A course in small "Why Nots?" made
it come quite naturally at the last. Why shouldn't we drive into the
Yosemite Valley before we went home? By the end of May it would be at
its loveliest, with the melted snows from the mountains filling its
streams and making a rushing, spraying glory of its falls. It did seem a
pity to be so near one of the loveliest places on earth and to miss
seeing it. Aunty and I discussed the matter dispassionately under a palm
tree in the back yard. We honestly concluded that it wouldn't hurt
Grandmother a bit, that it might even do her good, so we began to put
out a few conversational feelers, and the next thing we knew she was
claiming the idea as her own and inviting us to accompany her! In her
early married life she was once heard to say to Grandfather, "Edwin, I
have made up our minds." So you can see that Aunty and I were as clay in
her hands! Where we made our great mistake was in writing to the rest of
the family about our plans until after we had started. They became quite
abusive in their excitement. Were we crazy? Had we forgotten
Grandmother's age? What was C. C., a trained nurse, about, to let a
little delicate old lady take such a trip? They were much shocked. We
had to admit her age, but Aunty and I weren't so sure about her
delicacy, and anyway her mind was made up, so we burned their telegrams
and packed the bags.
It happened twenty years ago, but I can see her sitting in a
rocking-chair on the piazza of Leidig's Hotel in Raymond, surrounded by
miners, all courteously editing their conversation and chewing tobacco
as placidly as a herd of cows, while Grandmother, the only person whose
feet were not elevated to the railing, rocked gently and smiled. Of
course we planned to make the trip as easy as possible, and had engaged
a spring wagon so that we could take more time than the stage, which
naturally had to live up to a Bret Harte standard. We made an early
start from Raymond after a rather troubled night at Leidig's Hotel. You
hear strange sounds in a mining camp after dark. Every one in town saw
us off, as Grandmother was already popular, and looked on as rather a
sporting character. Al Stevens, who drove us, was a bitter
disappointment to me, not looking in the least romantic or like the hero
of a Western story. I shan't even describe him, except to say that he
smoked most evil-smelling cigars, the bouquet of which blew back into
our faces and spoiled the pure mountain air, but we didn't dare say a
word, for fear that he might lash his horses round some hair-pin curve
and scare us to death, even if we didn't actually go over the edge. I
don't think he would really have rushed to extremes, for he turned out
to be distinctly amiable, and our picnic lunches, eaten near some
mountain spring, were partaken of most sociably and Al Stevens didn't
always smoke. How good everything tasted! I don't believe I have ever
really enjoyed apple pie with a fork as I enjoyed it sitting on a log
with a generous wedge in one hand and a hearty morsel of mouse-trap
cheese in the other.
We spent three days driving into the valley, staying at delightful inns
over night, and stopping when we pleased, to pick flowers, for wonderful
ones grow beside the road; Mariposa tulips with their spotted butterfly
wings, fairy lanterns, all the shades of blue lupin, and on our detour
to see the big trees I found a snow-plant, which looks like a blossom
carved out of watermelon--pink and luscious! It is hard to realize how
big the big trees are! Like St. Peter's, they are so wonderfully
proportioned you can't appreciate their height, but I do know that they
would be just a little more than my tree-climbing sons would care to
tackle. Stevens was a good driver and approved of our appreciation of
"his" scenery, and I think he was proud of Grandmother, who really stood
the trip wonderfully well. At last came the great moment when a bend in
the road would disclose the valley with its silver peaks, its
golden-brown river, and its rainbow-spanned falls. We had never
suspected it, but Stevens was an epicure in beauty. He insisted on our
closing our eyes till we came to just the spot where the view was most
perfect, and then he drew in his horses, gave the word, and we looked on
a valley as lovely as a dream. I am glad that we saw it as we did, after
a long prelude of shaded roads and sentinel trees. Nowadays you rush to
it madly by train and motor. Then it was a dear secret hidden away in
the heart of the forest.
We spent five days at the hotel by the Merced River, feasting on beauty
and mountain trout, and lulled by the murmur of that gentle stream.
Moonlight illumined the whiteness of the Yosemite Falls in full view of
the hotel verandah as it makes the double leap down a dark gorge. We
could see a great deal with very little effort, but after a day or two I
began to look longingly upward toward the mountain trails. At last a
chance came, and "Why Not" led me to embrace it. A wholesale milliner
from Los Angeles invited me to join his party. We had seen him at
various places along our way, so that it was not entirely out of a clear
sky. He was wall-eyed--if that is the opposite of cross-eyed--which gave
him so decidedly rakish a look that it was some time before I could
persuade my conservative relatives that it would be safe for me to
accept the invitation, but as the party numbered ten, mostly female,
they finally gave me their blessing. Being the last comer, and the mules
being all occupied, I had to take a horse, which I was sorry for, as
they aren't supposed to be quite as sure-footed on the trail. The party
all urged me to be cautious, with such emphasis that I began to wonder
if I had been wise to come, when Charley, our guide, told me not to pay
any attention to them, that I had the best mount of the whole train.
Charley, by the way, was all that Al Stevens was not, and added the note
of picturesqueness and romance which my soul had been craving. He was
young, blond, and dressed for the part, and would have entranced a
moving-picture company! The wholesale milliner called me "Miss Black
Eyes," and was so genial in manner that I joined Charley at the end of
the parade and heard stories of his life which may or may not have been
true. Every now and then Jesse James, an especially independent mule,
would pause, and with deliberation and vigor kick at an inaccessible fly
on the hinder parts of his person, while his rider shrieked loudly for
help, and the procession halted till calm was restored. At last we
reached the end of the trail. Somewhere I have a snap-shot of myself
standing on Glacier Point, that rock that juts out over the valley,
clinging to Charley's hand, for I found that standing there with the
snow falling, looking down thousands of feet, made me crave a hand to
keep the snowflakes from drawing me down. The wholesale milliner and the
rest considered me a reckless soul, and many were the falsetto shrieks
they emitted if I went within ten feet of the edge of the precipice.
They did not realize the insurance and assurance of Charley's hand.
Of course I endured the anguish of a first horseback ride for the next
day or two, but it was worth it, and by the time we were ready to start
for home I could sit down quite comfortably. The trip was accomplished
without a jolt or jog sufficient to disarrange Grandmother's curls.
Aunty and I were always so thankful that we defied the family and
let her have her last adventure, for soon afterward her mind began
to grow dim. For myself, I treasure the memory both for her sake,
and because I can't climb trails myself any more, and that is
something I didn't miss. Was it Schopenhauer or George Ade who
said, "What you've had you've got"?
Twenty years later another party of four, consisting of a husband and
two boys, were led by a lady Moses into the promised land, and were met
by an old friend, the Civil War veteran, with a motor instead of his
pair of black horses! He was too old to drive, but he had come to
welcome me back. Billie and Joedy were thrilled. They adored the tales
of his twelve battles and the hole in his knee, even more than their
mother had before them, being younger and boys. It was as lovely a land
as I had remembered it, only, of course, there were changes. The motor
showed that. I should not say that the tempo of life had been quickened
so much as that its radius had been widened, or that the focus was
different; the old spell was the same. To reconcile the past and the
present, I have thought of a beautiful compromise. Why not a motor van?
The family jeered at me when I first suggested that we spend J----'s
next vacation meandering up the coast in one. Of course, the boys adored
the idea at first, but sober second thoughts for mother made them pause.
Billie: "But, Muvs, you'd hate it, you couldn't have a box spring!"
Joedy: "And you don't like to wash dishes."
Quite true. I had thought of all that myself. I don't like to wash
dishes, but we use far more than we really need to use, and anyway I had
rather decided that I wouldn't wash them. As to the bed-spring, I could
have an air mattress, for while it's a little like sleeping on a captive
balloon, it doesn't irritate your bones like a camp cot.
The family distrust of me, as a vagabond, dates from a camping trip last
August to celebrate Billie's twelfth birthday. It lasted only one night,
so "trip" is a large word to apply to it, but I will say that for one
night it had all the time there could be squeezed into it. We selected a
site on the beach almost within hallooing distance of the Smiling
Hill-Top, borrowed a tent and made camp. I loved the fire and frying the
bacon and the beat of the waves, but I did not like the smell of the
tent. It was stuffy. I had been generously given that shelter for my
own, while the male members of the party slept by a log (not like one,
J---- confessed to me) under a tarpaulin--I mean "tarp"--with stars
above them except when obscured by fog. My cot was short and low and I
am not, so that I spent the night tucking in the blankets. The puppies
enjoyed it all thoroughly. Though they must have been surprised by the
sudden democratic intimacy of the situation, they are opportunists and
curled themselves in, on, and about my softer portions, so that I had to
push them out every time I wanted to turn over, which was frequently. I
urged them to join the rest of the party under the "tarp," but they were
firm, as they weren't minding the hardness of the cot, and they don't
care especially about ventilation. I greeted the dawn with heartfelt
thanksgiving, and yet I'm as keen about my vacation idea as ever. I have
simply learned what to do and what not to do, and it won't matter to me
in the least whether my ways are those of a tenderfoot or not. Why not
be comfortable physically as well as spiritually? Think of the
independence of it! To be able to sit at the feet of any view that you
fancy till you are ready to move on! Doesn't that amount to "free will"?
Yes, I am resolved to try it out and Billie says if I make up my mind to
something I generally get my way (being descended from Grandmother
probably accounts for it), so if you should see a rather fat, lazy green
van with "Why not?" painted over the back door, you may know that two
grown vagabonds, two young vagabonds, and two vagabond pups, are on the
trail following the gypsy patteran.
[Illustration]
WHERE THE TRADE WIND BLOWS
Mr. Jones meets his friend, Mr. Brown:
"Surprised to see that your house is for sale, Brown."
"Oh--er--yes" replies Brown; "that is, I don't know. I keep that sign up
on the lawn." Then with a burst of confidence: "Mrs. Brown meets so many
nice people that way, don't you know!"
So it is that we have a reputation for being willing to sell anything in
California, even our souls. Of course, it isn't at all necessary to have
a sign displaying "For Sale" to have constant inquiries as to the price
of your place. After the days of "The Sabine Farm" were only a lovely
memory, we bought a bungalow in Pasadena, or, rather, we are buying it
on the instalment plan. It is really an adorable little place with a
very flowery garden, surrounded by arbors covered with roses, wistaria,
and jasmine (I think I should say we have been very fortunate in our
dwelling-places since we emigrated), and passers-by usually stop and
comment favorably. Young men bring their girls and show them the sort of
little place they'd like to own, and often they ring the door-bell for
further inquiries. Driven to bay, I have put a price of half a million
on our tiny estate. When I mention this, the investigators usually
retreat hastily, looking anxiously over their shoulders to see if my
keeper is anywhere in sight. As to the real-estate men, they are more in
number than the sands of the sea, and the competition is razor-edged. If
you have the dimmest idea of ever buying a lot or house, or if you are
comfortably without principle, you won't need to keep a motor at all.
The real-estate men will see that you get lots of fresh air, and they
are most obliging about letting you do your marketing on the way home.
We have an especial friend in the business. He never loses hope, or his
temper. It was he that originally found us "The Sabine Farm." He let us
live there in peace till we were rested, for which we are eternally
grateful, and then he began to throw out unsettling remarks. The boys
ought to have a place to call home where they could grow up with
associations. Wasn't it foolish to pay rent when we might be applying
that money toward the purchase of a house? Of course it told on us in
time and we began to look about. "The Sabine Farm" would not do, as it
was too far from J----'s business, and the lotus-flower existence of our
first two years was ours no longer. Every lot we looked at had
irresistible attractions, and insurmountable objections. At last,
however, we settled on a piece of land looking toward the mountains,
with orange trees on either hand, paid a part of the price, and supposed
it was ours for better or worse. Just then the war darkened and we felt
panicky, but heaven helped us, for there was a flaw in the title, and
our money came trotting back to us, wagging its tail. It was after this
that we stumbled on the arbored bungalow, and bought it in fifteen
minutes. I asked Mr. W---- if he liked bass fishing, and whether he'd
ever found one gamier to land than our family. He will probably let us
live quietly for a little while, and then he will undoubtedly tell us
that this place is too small for us. I know him!
In case of death or bankruptcy the situation is much more intense. Every
mouse hole has its alert whiskered watcher, and after a delay of a few
days for decency, such pressure is brought to bear that surviving
relatives rarely have the courage to stand pat. Probably a change of
surroundings _is_ good for them.
If people can't be induced to sell, often they will rent. There is an
eccentric old woman in town who owns a most lovely lot, beautifully
planted, that is the hope and snare of every real-estate man, but,
though poor, she will not part with it. She has a house, however, that
she rents in the season. One day some Eastern people were looking at it,
and timidly said that one bath-room seemed rather scant for so large a
house.
"Oh, do you think so?" said Mrs. Riddle. "It is enough for us. Mr.
Riddle and I aren't what you'd call bathers. In fact, Mr. Riddle doesn't
bathe at all; I sponge!"
Real estate isn't the only interest of the West. We all read the
advertising page of the local paper just as eagerly as we do the foreign
news. If I feel at all lonely or bored I generally advertise for
something. Once I wanted a high-school boy to drive the motor three
afternoons a week. The paper was still moist from the press when my
applicants began to telephone. I took their names and gave them
appointments at ten-minute intervals all the following morning, only
plugging the telephone when J---- and I felt we must have some sleep. In
the morning, forgetting the little wad of paper we had placed in the
bell, I took down the receiver to call the market, when a tired voice
started as if I had pressed a button:
"I saw your 'ad' in the paper last night, etc." When they arrived they
ranged in age from sixteen to sixty. The latter was a retired clergyman,
the Rev. Mr. Bain, who said he drove for his wife, but (here he fitted
his finger-tips together, and worked them back and forth in a manner
that was a blend of jauntiness and cordiality) he thought he could fit
us both in!
I blush to state that I selected a younger chauffeur! Emboldened by the
success of my first advertising venture, I decided to try again. This
time I wished to sell our superfluous old furniture. The war has made me
dislike anything about the place that isn't really in use. Having lived
some years in Pennsylvania, and having amassed quite a collection of
antique mahogany furniture, I felt justified in thinning out a few
tables and odd pieces that our desirable bungalow is too small to hold.
The results weren't as pronounced as before, but they quite repaid me. I
sold my best table to a general, which gave me a lot of confidence, but
my greatest triumph was a hat-rack. It was a barren, gaunt-looking
affair, like a leafless tree in winter, but it was mahogany, and it was
old. Two ladies who were excitedly buying tables spied it, and exclaimed
in rapture. I rose to the occasion:
"That is the most unusual piece I have," I unblushingly gushed. "It is
solid mahogany and very old. I never saw another like it. Yes, I would
sell it for twenty-five dollars."
They both wanted it--I was almost afraid it might make feeling between
them, till I soothed the loser by selling her an old brass tea-kettle
that I had picked up in a curiosity shop in Oxford years ago. It was so
old that it had a hole in it, which seemed to clinch the matter. I sent
for the packer the moment they were out of the house, and had the things
boxed and away before they could change their minds. When I showed
J---- the money, he said I was wasting my time writing, that he was sure
I had a larger destiny.
Speaking of having furniture boxed carries me back to the time when we
lived in Pennsylvania and I bought many things of a pleasant old rascal
who just managed to keep out of jail. One time he showed me a lovely old
table of that ruddy glowing mahogany that adds so much to a room. I said
I would take it, but told him not to send it home till afternoon. I
wanted time to break it to J---- after a good luncheon. J---- was very
amiable and approving, and urged me to have it sent up, so I went down
to the shop to see about it. To my dismay I found it neatly crated and
just being loaded into a wagon. I called frantically to my rascally
friend, who tried to slip out of the back door unobserved, but in vain.
I fixed him with an accusing eye.
"What are you doing with my table?" I demanded.
"Did you really want it?" he queried.
"Of course I want it. Didn't I say I'd take it?" I was annoyed.
"Oh, well," to his men, "take it off, boys." "You see," turning to me,
"a man from Seattle was in after you left, and he said he'd take that
round table over there if I'd sell him this one too. I showed him
another one every bit as good as this, but he wouldn't look at it;
still, I guess I'll box it up in that crate with his round one, and when
it gets to Seattle I reckon he won't want to send it way back. It's a
long way to Seattle!"
"That's your business, not mine," I remarked coldly, though I felt an
unholy desire to laugh. "Just send mine home before any one else tempts
you."
I still sleep in a Hepplewhite four-poster that he wheedled out of an
old Pennsylvania Dutch woman for a mere song. The posts at the head were
sawed off so that the bed could stand in a room with a sloping ceiling,
but, fortunately, the thrifty owner had saved the pieces instead of
using them for firewood, so I have had them neatly stuck on again.
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