The Smiling Hill-Top | Page 6

It is "the Public." You never can
tell about the Public! Sometimes it wants small packages for a small
sum, or large packages for more, but mostly, what it frankly wants is a
large package for a small sum! Some dealers didn't like the trade-mark.
It was changed. It then turned out that the first trade-mark was really
what was wanted. Then the cheese man fell desperately ill, which was a
calamity, as neither the Book of Common Prayer, an aeroplane, nor a
Latin Grammar is what you need in such a crisis.
J---- waded dejectedly about in whey until a new cheese man took the
helm. He also fell ill. I always supposed that making cheese was a kind
of healthful, bucolic occupation, but I was wrong. Apparently every
one that tries it steers straight for a nervous break-down. I have gotten
to a point myself where, if any one quotes "Miss Muffet" to me, I emit
a low, threatening growl.
However, I'm digressing, for our life was not complicated by cheese or
Bulgarian bacilli till much later (and when you think of what the
Bulgos have done to the Balkans we can't really complain).
That first summer Poppy seemed care enough. A neighbor across the
canyon, who had known her in her girlhood, took too vital an interest in
her daily life. It was maddening to be called on the telephone at all
hours and told that Poppy had had no fresh drinking water since such
and such an hour, or to have Donald waylaid and admonished to give
her plenty to eat. That she had, as my bills at the feed and fuel store can
prove.
At this juncture the backbone of the family fell desperately ill, and I
flew to the hospital where he was, leaving Poppy to kick and stamp and
lose tethering pins and dry up at her own sweet will. After the danger
and strain were over, I found myself also tucked into a hospital bed,
while a trained nurse watched over the children and Poppy. One
morning a frantic letter arrived. Poppy had dried up! According to what
lights we had to guide us, it was far too soon, but reasoning did not

alter the fact. There was no milk for the boys, and the dairyman had
always declined to deliver milk on our hill, it was outside his route!
Two helpless persons flat on their backs in a hospital are at a
disadvantage in a crisis like that. However, one must always find a way.
I think I have expressed myself elsewhere as to the value of wheedling.
It seemed our only hope. I wrote a letter to the owner of that dairy, in
which I frankly recognized the fact that our hill was steep and the road
bad, that it was out of his way and probably he had no milk to spare,
anyway, but that Billie and Joe had to have milk, and that their parents
were both down and out, and that it was his golden opportunity to do,
not a stroke of business, but an act of kindness! It worked. He has been
serving us with milk ever since, and I'd like to testify that his heart is in
the right place.
Before I leave the subject of wheedling, I might add that if it is a useful
art in summer, in winter it is priceless. After a week of rain, such as we
know how to have in these parts, adobe becomes very slippery. This
hill is steep, and I have spent a week on its top in February, feeling like
the princess in the fairy tale, who lived on a glass hill ready to marry
the first suitor who reached the top; only in my case there were no
suitors at all; even the telegraph boy declined to try his luck.
Speaking of telegrams, I think that as a source of interest we have been
a boon to this village. One departing friend telegraphed in Latin,
beginning "Salve atque vale." This was a poser. The operator tried to
telephone it, but gave that up. He said, "It's either French or a code."
The following season he referred to it again, remarking, "A telegram
like that just gets my goat."
But to return to the now thoroughly dry Poppy. We determined to sell
her, in spite of the fact that we never are very successful in selling
anything. Things always seem at their bottom price when we have
something to dispose of, while we usually buy when the demand
outruns the supply. Still, I once conducted several quite successful
transactions with an antique dealer in Pennsylvania. I think I was said
to be the only living woman who had ever gotten the best of a bargain
with