The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-04-18
IN RAMONA'S COUNTRY.
VIM. Allen Whites Interesting
California Letter.

The following is William Allen Whites
most recent letter from California, pub
lshed in the Emporia Gazette:
IN RAMONA'S COUNTRY.
Ramona is the name of the big hotel
at Cascade. Colorado, in which slice
of the money Of the depositors Of the
defunct First National bank of Emporia
was spent The hotel Ramona, which
was always a business failure, takes It's
name from a book written by Helen
Hunt Jackson about a Mexican girl
named Ramont who ran away and got
married The people Of southern Cali
fornia insist that Ramona was real
girl and that her parents lived below the
Mexican line and further that she came
mp to San Diego to get married. II
must have been a scrumptlous Wedding
and Mrs. Jackson certainly wrote a nne
wedding notice for the girls but II the
traditions and guide books ana local
stories are not wrong, Ramona nao
about as ugly a town to get married IN
as ever lay out Of doors At old Town
In San Diego they viii show you aoDe
pile with q tiled roof, where the priest
lived who performed the ceremony, also
trey Will SNOW you a dObe church as big
as the Friends church or the Free Meth
odist church Ia E1np0ria, with four little
port holes Of windows in II, wherein the
ceremony was performed. The bells
WDlC0
also hang outside the church Every
thing is as ugly as an old shoe about the
whole Ramona business except the bells.
They have sweet chime The guides
VIII also snow you the hotel Wnere MIS-
Jackson boarded when she was writing
Ramona" 1t is about one hundred
yards from the dobe ruins Of the priests
house and because it is frame and needs
paint it looks even tougher than the
dobe. II is called the American House.
Now you know all about it.
For breakfast the authoress had fried
rOundsteak or pork chops, or sausage.
fried potatoes, fried mush and SOggy
biscuit; for dinner she had boiled meat
of some kind, two varieties Of canned
vegeta bles-nO matter how plentiful
fresh ones were, boiled potatoes, pie and
cottage pudding; for supper, cold meat,
cold rice, warmed up potatoes saw
dusty cake ard canned peaches II yod
have q great american novel II YOU
gentle reader, try that bill of fare on it
If that doesn't bring out the grief N
YOUR system nothing will And think,
only imagine, in this land Of the free
and home of the brave, how many mil
lions of people at boarding houses have
the same thing to eat! And still We
wonder at the increase of crime.
To get back to Ramona; she is dead
That is always the way. If Ramona
was living it would be interesting to
find out whether or not she would ad-
wise her daughters to do as she did.
Nine cases out of ten, when a girl runs
away and gets married she gives her
daughter advice that makes the girl a
cynic Probably if Ramona were liv
ing she would do the same. It would be
interesting also to know If she turned
out a good hOusekeeper and if the young
man liked her pancakes as we'll as ne
liked his mothers. That is the real test
of happiness, and if Ramona had lived
to testify that she had never got a cross
word from him nor given him a cold
dinner. there would have been sense in
the peals of the bells Of the dobe church,
which rang so sweetly for her wedding.
If wedding reiOicingS were postponed
from five to ten years, how few would
occur and how happy the whole world
would be when one really did cone of
But this is beside the point. Ra-
mOna's country, which is the subject of
three months in the year. Poppies and
field flowers of hundreds of kinds
dapple the hills and the grass grows
green and luxuriant Then for nine
months there is brown drOuth and only
such fields as are irrigated grow green.
The land above the valleys is brown
and barren The country is q desert
This country is not a settled country
as Kansas is. Only under the noun
tains and in the valleys is there any
agriculture. The cities Of southern
California hug the coast. The great
bulk of the land is desolate It's Won
derful fertility is q mOckery- Man has
conquered western Kansas. but the
MOjave desert still defies him. It is
as Indifferent as the ocean in its vic
tory. It does not even lure man. 1t
ignores him. There are still three things
in nature which scorn civilization. the
desert, the mountains and the ocean.
And their very contempt for man fas-
cinates him. Nothing else in all the
earth charms men as these three things,
and the most enthralling of these things
IS the ocean.
up' hundreds Of people go down to
Soden's mill to watch the water come
booming over the dam. The resistless-