The Smiling Hill-Top | Page 4

Julia M. Sloane
garage in San Diego open half
an hour after closing time by a Caruso sob in my voice over the
telephone, while my brother-in-law's miserable chauffeur hurried over
for an indispensable part.
Poppy, the cow, contributed her bit--it wasn't milk, either--to this
complicated month, but deserves a chapter all to herself.
The backbone of the family found my letters "so entertaining" at first,
but gradually a note of uneasiness crept into his replies after I had told
him that Joedy had fallen out of the machine and had just escaped our
rear wheels, and that the previous night we had had three earthquakes. I
had never felt an earthquake before, and it will be some time before I
develop the nonchalance of a seasoned Californian, whose way of
referring to one is like saying, "Oh, yes, we did have a few drops of
rain last night." One more little tremble and I should have gathered the
family for a night in the garden.
After an incendiary had set fire to several houses in town, and Fräulein
had had a peculiar seizure that turned her a delicate sea-green, while
she murmured, "I am going to die," I sat down and took counsel with
myself. What next? I bought a rattlesnake antidote outfit--that, at least,
I could anticipate, and then I went out with the axe and hacked out the
words "Suma Paz" from the pergola. We are now "The Smiling
Hill-Top," for though peace does not abide with us, we keep right on
smiling.

[Illustration]
A CALIFORNIA POPPY

It would doubtless be the proper thing for me to begin by quoting
Stevenson:
"The friendly cow, all red and white, I love with all my heart," etc.
but I'd rather not. In the first place she wasn't, and in the second place I
didn't. The only thing about it that fits is the color scheme; Poppy was a
red-and-white cow, but I'd rather not. In the first place she wasn't, and
in the second place I didn't. The only thing about it that fits is the color
scheme; Poppy was a red-and-white cow, or rather a kind of strawberry
roan. Perhaps she didn't like being inherited (she came to us with "The
Smiling Hill-Top"), or maybe she was lonely on the hillside and felt
that it was too far from town. Almost all the natives of the village feel
that way; or perhaps she took one of those aversions to me that aren't
founded on anything in particular. At any rate, I never saw any
expression but resentment in her eye, so that no warm friendship ever
grew up between us.
The only other cow we ever boarded--I use the word advisedly--did not
feel any more drawn to me than Poppy. Evidently I am not the type that
cows entwine their affections about. She was Pennsylvania Dutch and
shared Poppy's sturdy appetite, though it all went to figure. Two quaint
maiden ladies next door took care of her and handed the milk over our
fence, while it was still foaming in the pail. Miss Tabitha and Miss
Letitia--how patient they were with me in my abysmal ignorance of the
really vital things of life, such as milking, preserving, and pickling!
They undertook it all for me, but in the end I had a small laugh at their
expense. I gave them my grandmother's recipes for brandied peaches
and pickled peaches, and though rigidly temperance, they consented to
do a dozen jars of each. Alas! they mingled the two--now as I write it
down I wonder if perhaps they did it on purpose, on the principle that
drug stores now put a dash of carbolic in our 95 per cent alcohol. In
which case, of course, the joke is on me.
To return to Poppy. At first I was delighted with the thought of
unlimited milk, bought a churn and generally prepared to enjoy being a
dairymaid. I soon found out my mistake. Poppy was "drying up" just as
the vegetation was. The Finn woman who milked her morning and

night, and who seemed to be in much closer sympathy with her than I
ever hoped to be, said that what she must have was green food. Having
no lawn, for reasons previously stated, that was a poser. My
brother-in-law's chauffeur, who was lent to me for a month, unbent
sufficiently to go to town and press a bill into the hand of the head
gardener of "The Place" of the village, so that we might have the grass
mowed from that lawn. Alas for frail human nature! It seems that he
disappeared from view about once in so often, and that his feet at that
moment were trembling on the brink. So he slid over the edge, and the
next man in charge
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