# Adobe Days/Chapter 8

Chapter VIII
The Ranch Story Continued
Cookies were not the only things in which Ying excelled. There were cakes fearfully and wonderfully decorated with frosting curly-cues, and custard pies so good that grandfather always included one with the doughnuts and cheese that little David carried in his lunch basket when he went up to visit his brother on the famous occasion when he slew Goliath with his sling shot.
Grandfather had left his Maine home and now sat on the sunny California porch and charmed his child audience with versions of the Hebrew stories that I judge he did not use in the pulpit of the dignified village church where he had ministered for so many years. But these adaptations existed even then, for I know now that they were not made for us but had served, a generation earlier, to delight our mothers. We learned how Samson’s strength returned when, in the temple of the Philistines, the hooting mob threw eggs at him. Grandfather was not unaware of the characteristics of mobs, for he was an avowed abolitionist and advocate of women’s rights when they were unpopular causes, although he himself was never favored with eggs. He used to agree with an old ​Quaker of a nearby town who said, “If a hen wants to crow, thee’d better let her crow.”
To return to his stories: there was the legend of David. When the lion attacked his sheep he ran so fast to their rescue that his little coat-tails stuck out straight behind him; when the lion opened his mouth to roar David reached down his throat and caught him by the roots of his tongue and held him, while, with his free hand he pulled his jackknife out of his trousers pocket, opened it with his teeth, and promptly killed the beast. Then he sat down upon a great white stone and played on his jews-harp and sang, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star.”
I once gave this form of the story in a Sunday School class as an object lesson in earnestness in the pursuit of duty, and when my teacher kindly asked me where it was to be found, assured her that it must be in one of the intervening Bible chapters that had been skipped in our course. Imagine my chagrin as I vainly sought the text. I must have been fourteen years old at the time.
Grandfather not only told us stories, but he opened Sunday to me for secular reading. On my eighth birthday he had given me a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and I was revelling in them when a Sunday came, and, as we were settling ourselves on a blanket out on the grass under the big eucalyptus tree for an afternoon with books, mother questioned the wisdom of my reading such a book on that day. She said we would let grandfather decide. I see him yet, looking over the tops of his spectacles at the eager little girl ​who had interrupted his reading; “I think,” he said, “that a book fit to read any day is fit to read on Sunday.” I bless the memory of grandfather, willing to give a child his honest judgment, and that that judgment was of a liberal mind.
I remember that about this time there was a governess in the family who was a member of the Universalist denomination and who sometimes pined for her own church; to comfort her, grandfather told her that he would prepare and preach for her a Universalist sermon, which he did the following Sunday. It may be that this small service on the old ranch porch was the first of this faith in Southern California. Grandfather’s catholic sympathy for various religious faiths is also illustrated by his friendship with Rabbi Edelman and his frequent attendance upon the services in the old synagogue on Broadway near Second in Los Angeles.
I treasure a small round lacquer box that he bought for me once from a Chinese peddler who had walked the dusty miles from Los Angeles, balancing on a pole over his shoulder the two large covered bamboo baskets, so familiar to the early Californian. The whole family gathered, while on the shady porch were spread the wonders of China.
There were nests of lacquer boxes, with graceful sprays of curious design in a dull gold; bread boats, black outside and vermillion within; Canton china, with pink and green people, flowers and butterflies; teapots in basket cosies, covered cups without handles; chop-sticks and back-scratchers and carved card-cases, ​all in ivory; feather fans with ivory or sandal wood carved sticks; toys, such as a dozen eggs in decreasing size packed one within another, tiny tortoises with quivering heads and legs in glass topped green boxes, or perplexing pieces of wood cut into such strange shapes that it took much skill and time to replace the blocks if once disturbed; there was exquisite embroidery, shawls, or silk handkerchiefs, sometimes there was one of the queer hanging baskets of flowers and fruit fashioned from feathers, silk and tinsel, that so delighted the Chinese themselves but which the housewives rather dreaded receiving as New Year gifts from devoted servants; to top off there was always the strange candy, ginger and lichee nuts. How could so many things come out of those baskets!
If the Chinaman was an essential part of the housekeeping, the Mexican was an integral part of the ranch proper. When Mr. Temple lived at the Cerritos he had great numbers of humble retainers who lived for the most part in huts or jacals of tule or willow brush; some of the more favored ones stayed in the wings facing the patio and others occupied the older Cota house that stood near the river.
My cousin, George, who lived at the ranch all his boyhood, once wrote of these people: “The men of these families had been accustomed to work occasionally as vaqueros in the service of the rancho. There was always plenty of meat; and frijoles and chili, with mais del pais were to be raised under crude forms of cultivation at the foot of the hill. On account of the death by starvation of the cattle on the over-stocked ​ranges the occupation of these people was gone and they soon vanished seeking fields of usefulness elsewhere....
“Among the Temple retainers, however, was one strong and stalwart character, the most perfect horseman and acknowledged leader of the vaqueros, Juan Cañedo. He was manifestly attached to the land by strong ties of sentiment, and set up the claim that Mr. Temple had sold him with the ranch to Mr. Bixby, with whom he intended to stay.... This man was expert in the use of the reata—the left hand as well as the right—and was easily superior to any of those now exhibiting in the wild west shows. For those days this sort of thing was the life of the people, not their pastime, and this was a picked man among them.”
George knew and loved Old Juan as long as he lived, provided for his old age, stayed with him when he died, and for many years paid monthly the widow’s grocery bill.
When the little boy was four his father had a saddle made especially for him and Juan delighted to show him how to ride, to make a horseman of him; he also served as a teacher of Spanish. Juan never condescended to speak English, although he understood it, so my conversations with him were one sided, for I regret to say that my knowledge of Spanish was very meager.
He looked like a bronze statue, brown face, brown clothes, brown horse and infinite repose. Many a time have I seen him ride out of the courtyard gate fol ​lowed by the hounds, Duke, Queen, Timerosa, and others of forgotten name, to hunt coyotes, the constant menace to the sheep.
There were many other interesting men who worked at the ranches. There was always a Jose; I remember a romantic looking Romulo, and Miguel, who is now spending his last days a tenant of the old house. Over at Alamitos there was a jolly, fat vaquero with a heavy black beard and twinkling eyes, who was known as “Deefy”—I spell phonetically,—because scarlet fever at twelve had stolen his hearing. He remembered enough of language to speak, but did so in the most uncanny, guttural and squeaking sounds. He was a friendly soul and never so appalling as dignified Old Juan.
Then there were all sorts of other nationalities represented in one way or another; Parlin, a Maine man, always predicting disaster, and speaking only in a whisper; Roy, the Englishman, John “Portugee,” Henry and Charlie, young Americans getting a start, and the merry Irish John O’Connor who always had time for a joke with the children, and whose departure was mourned when he left the Cerritos to open a saloon on Commercial street in Los Angeles.
Just a few years ago at Uncle Jotham’s funeral in Long Beach I was touched to see a whole pewful of these men who had worked for him in the old days at the ranch, even John O’Connor among them.
I recall Sunday evenings at the Alamitos when Uncle John got out his fiddle, and men who had other instruments came into the parlor and we had a concert ​that included Arkansaw Traveler, Money Musk and Turkey in the Straw. There had been a piano in the parlor at the San Justo, but neither Cerritos nor Alamitos boasted piano or organ.
To this day the employees on the Alamitos come to the home for merry-making at least once a year when the hostess provides a Christmas party with a tree and candy and a present for everyone connected with the ranch, from the great grandmother of the family down to the last little Mexican or Japanese that lives within its borders.
Although sheep were the earliest interest gradually cattle were added. Instead of the large herds ranging freely, as they had under Don Temple and Don Stearns, we kept them in great fenced fields, on both the ranches and over on the Palos Verdes. Those were exciting mornings when, at dawn, the men and boys started off for the rodeo, or round-up, on the hills beyond Wilmington, Uncle Jotham and father in the single buggy with two strong horses that would take them up and down ravines and over the hills where no roads were; the boys of the family, and the vaqueros, on horseback. I couldn’t go, I was a girl and must be a lady,—whether I was one or not.
But fashions change, and the Alamitos girls today have always been horsewomen with their father, and can handle cattle better than most men; and then they can lay aside their ranch togs and don a cap and gown and hold their own in a college, or in filmy dress and silver shoes, grace a city dance,—competent and attractive daughters of California.
​Aunt Susan, grandmother to these girls, was most hospitable, especially to children, and Uncle John, with his jokes and merry pranks, a delight to them. I shall always hear the sound of his voice as he came in the back door of the hall, danced a sort of clog and called some greeting to his little wife. He always wore at the ranch boots with high heels,—cowboy boots.
Often there would be gathered at the Alamitos, in addition to the children who belonged, half a dozen cousins with their friends, and the small Hellmans, whose father was a part owner in the ranch. The house was elastic, and if there were not beds enough there were mattresses and blankets to make warm places on the floor. The privilege of sleeping in the impromptu bed was a much coveted one.
A favorite resort was the great barn, a still familiar sight to passers-by on the Anaheim Road. It was made from an old government warehouse taken down, hauled over from Wilmington and rebuilt at the ranch, forty odd years ago. It afforded magnificent leaps from platform to hay or long slides on the slippery mows. Up among the rafters were grain bins, whose approach over narrow planks added a spice of danger—a mis-step would have meant a thirty foot fall, but we never made mis-steps. In the central cupola Fred and Nan kept house, while the babies were parked in the bins.
“Old Sorrel,” a friendly mare, lived down in the pasture beyond the wool-barn, and might be ridden for the catching. She seemed to like to carry a back ​ful of small people, extending from her mane to her tail. Fred had a real horse, “Spot,” for riding but “Sorrel” was the playmate. Harry had one of those favored horses of old California, cream-colored with silvery trimmings, and he called him by the general name of his kind, “Palomino.”
There were fish to be caught in New River below Alamitos, catfish and carp that could be taken home and eaten. One day Fred and I, wandering about, came upon some that had been speared and left by poachers. We were indignant, but could do nothing to the men we saw drive away. However, we could prevent the waste of good fish, so we took them to the house, neglecting to tell the cook that we had not just killed them ourselves. They could not have been too dead, for no one suffered from eating them.
Kittens and puppies abounded and new chickens, pigs, and calves or colts provided constant interest. Once when two insignificant little dogs were assisted out of the world little Sue took comfort in thinking they would look very cute in Heaven tagging around after God every time He went for a walk.
The son of the house staged one spring a new entertainment. His father took great pride in his first litter of twelve thoroughbred Berkshires, and every day each member of the family inspected the new pigs. One day the son of the chief dairyman dared the boy to kill them, which dare he immediately accepted, doing the execution with a pitchfork. Then followed a thrashing, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and no more slaughterings!
​I was not involved in this affair, but I cannot claim blood-guiltlessness. I recall with a shudder my participation in the stabbing of fat frogs in a shallow pool; even then it sent shivers up and down my spine, but I could do almost anything the boys could. I did draw the line at knocking down swallows nests and feeding the baby birds to the cats, although Harry maintained that this was necessary to prevent the introduction of bed-bugs from the nests into the house. A year or two later the boy went out with a new gun that had been given him, but came back telling me that he could not shoot turtle doves who sat in so friendly a fashion together on the fence rail and made mournful sounds, neither could he shoot rabbits, for they looked at him. He was a sensitive boy and the earlier killings belonged to our primitive stage of development.
In those days I frequently watched, in spite of mother’s wish that I should not, the daily butchering of a sheep, not so much the actual slaying, but the skinning and the removal of the slippery, interesting insides; a daily course in anatomy. And blown-up bladders made wonderful playthings.
One of the most interesting features of the Alamitos was the cheese-making that was done on a large scale, two hundred cows being milked for the purpose night and morning. To improve the milk for this Uncle John imported some of the first registered Holsteins into Southern California. There was great excitement among us children, and undoubtedly a fair degree of it among the grown-ups, when a carload of fine ​animals arrived from New York, prominent among them being several members of the Holstein family of Aaggie, a magnificent bay stallion, and about a dozen Shetland ponies. For a number of years Mrs. Bixby’s span of these harnessed to a tiny buggy were a familiar sight about Long Beach.
She was a skillful driver and I shall never forget a night ride I had with her when I was a little girl. I was going home with her from Los Angeles for a few days at the ranch. We took the train at the Commercial street station at about five o’clock, and when we reached Wilmington at six it was already dark. We went to the livery stable where the teams had been left for the day, and then set out for the ranch, Uncle John in his gig with Fred, the small boy, tucked in under the seat. In the wide, single-seated buggy drawn by two lively horses, Aunt Susan drove, with me between her and the nurse, who held the baby girl. The night was so dark and the fog so thick that we could not see the horses’ heads, much less the road. We followed close to my uncle, who called back every few minutes, and found the way across the bridge and started along Anaheim Road, not a street lined with houses as it now is, but just a track across the bare mesa. It was before the day of Long Beach.
Slowly, slowly, we went along, almost feeling our way, blindfolded by the mist. There was not a light or a sound, and soon we lost Uncle John, but Aunt Susan did not fail in courage and told us she was going to give the horses their head and trust them to take us home. Bye and bye, after two hours they ​came to a stop and we found we were on the brow of the hill, above the wool barn, just a few steps from the house. It was relief enough for me to have come home, what must it have been to the woman driving!
One other foggy drive I took many years later. I was fifteen and had been for several days at the Alamitos, among other things drawing the spots of several new Holstein calves on the blanks of application for registration, that being a privilege reserved for me, the wielder of the pencil among us. In order to be back in school Monday morning, I had to be taken over to Long Beach to meet the first Los Angeles train. How many times have I eaten lamp-lit breakfasts in the old ranch dining room and started off in the sweet fresh morning, to watch the dawn and hear the larks sing as we drove!
This foggy morning Uncle John was driving and as it was April there was a pearly light over every thing. Every hair of his beard and eyebrows was strung with tiny drops of water; we had a most happy hour, drawn by Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. The next day came word of sudden sickness. In ten days my merry young uncle was dead. It did not seem possible. It was my first realization of death. And childhood ended. When my mother had gone I was ten, and while it seemed strange, it did not stand out from all the strangeness of the world as did this later coming face to face with the mystery. In the case of my mother I missed her more as years went by than I did at the time of the actual separation.
Aunt Martha was distressed when after mother’s ​death she came to us, to find how often we children played that our dolls had died. We held a funeral service and buried them under the sofa in the parlor after a solemn procession through the long hall. We wore towels over our heads for mourning veils, copied not from any used in our family, but from those of two tall, dark sisters who sat in front of us in church, whose crepe-covered dresses and veils that reached the floor were a source of unfailing wonder.
As I look back it does not seem to me that the playing of funerals involved any disrespect or lack of love for our mother, but was, rather, a transference into our daily activities of a strange experience that had come to us.
We had another play that was connected with a death, but at the time I did not recognize the relationship. Just before we came south for the long visit, Harry’s five year old sister Margaret had died of diphtheria and was buried in the ranch garden. Soon after our arrival a mason came and set up a gravestone for her. Beside her grave were those of an older sister, and of a little unnamed baby. The ranch had been robbed of its children and the heart of the young mother sorrowed. Harry had been devoted to Maggie and was disconsolate without her, so that I must have been a most welcome visitor for the lonely small boy. Taking our cue from the mason we spent many hours in the making of mud tombstones for our bird and animal burial plot over near the graves of the children. I modelled them and he polished them and put on the inscriptions. ​We wandered about day after day, in the cool summer sunshine,—so near the ocean that oppressive heat was rare. As soon as breakfast was over, away we went. I was clad in a daily clean blue-and-white checked gingham apron, Harry, although but seven, in long trousers, “like the men.” We romped in barn or garden, visited the corrals or gathered the eggs; we played in the old stage left in the weeds outside the fence, or worked with the tools in the blacksmith shop. When the long tin horn sounded at noon the call for the men’s dinner we returned to the house to be scrubbed. I was put into a white apron for meal time, but back into my regimentals as soon as it was over. A second whitening occurred for supper and lasted until bedtime.
Sometimes we went down to the orchard, where all summer long we could pick ripe apples and pears; and occasionally, as a rare treat, we were allowed to go barefoot and play in the river, reduced to its summer safe level. One day, after having built elaborate sand houses and laid out rival gardens, planted with bits of every shrub and water weed we could find, we went to a place deep enough for us to sit down in water up to our necks, where, grinning over the top of the water, we enjoyed an impromptu bath. We hung our clothes on a willow until they were dry and then wondered what uncanny power made our mothers know that we had been wet.
A half mile or so beyond this ford lived Uncle Marcellus and Aunt Adelaide, and their boys, Edward and Herbert, who used to come over to help at shearing ​time. Just inside their front door they had a barometer shaped like a little house where a woman came out and stood most of the time, but if it were going to rain the gallant husband sent her inside and stood guard himself.
The largest and loveliest hyacinths I have ever known grew for this aunt, and she had tame fish in her pond that would come and eat breadcrumbs which we gave them. Aunt Adelaide was a very short woman with the shiniest, smooth, dark hair that never turned gray. It went in big waves down the side of her face. Once she showed mother a number of large new books and told her about a way to study at home and learn just as if you were going to college, and a long time afterwards she showed us a big piece of paper that she said was a Chautauqua diploma and meant that she had studied all those books.
Every time we went over to the station on the railroad, or came back, or went to Compton to church or camp meeting, or came back, we always saw the old house that had been the first ranch house, belonging to the Cotas, but which had now only pigeons, many, many shining lovely pigeons living in it,—and so many fleas that we called it the “Flea House” and knew better than ever to go into it.
But we were not afraid to go into the deserted coyote hole that we found in a bank down on the side of the hill below the house. Luckily we did not find a rattlesnake sharing it with us.
The sum of child happiness cannot be told. How good it is to wander in the sun, smelling wild celery, ​or the cottonwood leaves, nibbling yellow, pungent mustard blossoms while pushing through the tangle; how good to feel a pulled tule give as the crisp, white end comes up from the mud and water, or to bury one’s face in the flowing sulphur well for a queer tasting drink, or to cut un-numbered jack-o-lanterns while sitting high on a great pile of pumpkins of every pretty shape and color, and singing in the salty air; how good to wander in the sun, to be young and tireless, to have cousins and ranches!