The Smiling Hill-Top | Page 7

him, so I was unanimously elected by the family as the one to

open negotiations. A customer actually appeared. We gradually
approached a price by the usual stages, I dwelling on his advantage in
having the calf and trying not to let him see my carking fear that we
might be the unwilling godparents of it if he didn't hurry up and come
to terms. At last the matter was settled. I abandoned my last five-dollar
ditch, thinking that the relief of seeing the last of Poppy would be
cheap at the price. There were four of us, and we would not hesitate to
pay two dollars each for theatre tickets, which would be eight dollars,
so really I was saving money.
A nice little girl with flaxen pigtails brought her father's check. She and
her brother tied Poppy behind their buggy and slowly disappeared
down the hill. There was the flutter of a handkerchief from the other
side of the canyon, and that was all.
In the words of that disturbing telegram:
"Salve atque vale."

[Illustration]
GARDENERS
"Venite agile, barchetta mia Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!"
accompanied by the enchanting fragrance of burning sage-brush, is
wafted up to my sleeping-porch, and I know that Signor Constantino
Garibaldi is early at work clearing the canyon side so that our Matilija
poppies shall not be crowded out by the wild. It is a pleasant awakening
to a pleasant world as the light morning mist melts away from a bay as
"bright and soft and bloomin' blue" as any Kipling ever saw. It seems
almost too good to be true, that in a perfect Italian setting we should
have stumbled on an Italian gardener, who whistles Verdi as he works.
True, he doesn't know the flowers by name, and in his hands a pair of
clippers are as fatal as the shears in the hands of Atropos, but he is in
the picture. When I see gardeners pruning I realize that that lady of
destiny shows wonderful restraint about our threads of fate--the

temptation to snip seems so irresistible.
Signor Garibaldi is a retired wine merchant driven out-of-doors by
illness, a most courteous and sensitive soul, with a talent for
letter-writing that is alone worth all the plumbago blossoms that he cut
away last year. The following letter was written to J---- while Garibaldi
was in charge of our hill-top, the bareness of which we strove to cover
with wild flowers until we could make just the kind of garden we
wanted:
March 15.
DEAR SIR:
The last time I had the pleasure of see you in your place, Villa Collina
Ridente, you exclaimed with a melancholic voice, "Only poppies and
mignonette came out of the wild flower seeds." "So it is," said I in the
same tune of voice. Time proved we was both wrong; many other
flowers made their retarded appearance, so deserving the name of wild
flower garden....
Your place (pardon me as I am not a violet) could look better, also
could look worse; consequently I consider myself entitled to be placed
between hell and paradise--to have things as one wishes is an
insolvable problem--that era has not come yet.
Many people come over to the Smiling hills, some think it is not
necessary to go any farther to collect flower to make a bouquet. With
forced gentle manner I reproached some of them, ordering to observe
the rule, "vedere e non toccare." It go in force while I am present, not
so in my absence. Those that made proverbs, their names ought to be
immortal. Here for one, "When the cat is gone, the rats dance." How
much true is in the Say. Every visitor like the place profane or not
profane in artistic matter.
A glorious rain came last night to the great content of the farmers and
gardeners--others not so. While I am writing from my Observatorio I
can't see any indication of stopping. I don't think it will rain as much as

when we had the universal deluge, but if the cause of said deluge was
in order to get a better generation, it may. I don't think the actual
generation is better than it was the anti-deluge, pardon me if you can't
digest what I say. I am a pessimist to the superlative grade, and it is not
without reason that I say so. I had sad experience with the World.
Thank God for having doted me with a generous dose of philosophic!
Swimming against the tide, not me, not such a fool I am!
Here is another pardon that I have to ask and it is to take the liberty of
decorate the Smiling hill with the American flag. La Bandiera Stellata
(note: I am not an American legally, no; to say I renounce to