The Smiling Hill-Top | Page 6

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 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