Cal

“ I stayed around to see if I'd be needed for anything.
"When Uncle Cal's pain let up on him a little he called Marilla and says to her: 'Did you look at your instrument, honey? And do you like it?'
"'It's lovely, dad,' says she, leaning down by his pillow; 'I never saw one so pretty. How dear and good it was of you to buy it for me!'
"'I haven't heard you play on it any yet,' says Uncle Cal; 'and I've been listening. My side don't hurt quite so bad now—won't you play a piece, Marilla?'
"But no; she puts Uncle Cal off and soothes him down like you've seen women do with a kid. ”

“ His cowboys followed after him, talking low among themselves, and Hall and Allifair crouched down and listened.
[Pg 205]
"Well?" spoke up the voice which they recognized as Cal's; but Ewing did not reply. "Let's ask these Indians," went on Cal, "maybe they know of some trail. Hey!" he called, "come over here!"
"What you want?" demanded the Indian in arrogant tones, and Cal asked about the trail up the chasm. "No good!" replied the Apache. "Go hup—steep! Go hup mo'—mo' steep! Bimby too steep—fall down. Me no likum. Go home."
"Where you think this man go?" spoke up Ewing. ”

“ I reckon if I hadn't took up sheep-raising I'd have been one of the finest composers or piano-and-organ manufacturers in the world.'
"That was Uncle Cal's style. But I never lost any patience with him, on account of his thinking so much of Marilla. And she thought just as much of him. He sent her to the academy over at Birdstail for two years when it took nearly every pound of wool to pay the expenses.
"Along about Tuesday Uncle Cal put out for San Antone on the last wagonload of wool. Marilla's uncle Ben, who lived in Birdstail, come over and stayed at the ranch while Uncle Cal was gone. ”

“ You’ve taken so long to tell us about your first discovery that I can’t wait to hear about the second.”
“Oh, yes, you can,” replied Cal. “It will save you a lot of trouble, and I can tell it in about half a dozen words.”
“Go ahead and tell it, then.”
“It is simply that I have solved the whole problem of defense.”
“How? Tell us about it!”
“Why, just above our camp—up the creek a few hundred yards, there’s a big gum tree, with an easily accessible crotch, comfortable to sit in, from which the one playing sentinel can see everything we want to see. ”

“ Col, Cal, Calah, Calach, signify properly an eminence, like the Collis of the Romans; but are often used for a fortress so situated. We sometimes meet with a place styled absolute Calah: but the term is generally used in composition, as Cala Nechus, Cala-Anac, Cala-Chan, Cala-On, Cala-Es, Cala-Ait, Cala-Ur, Cala-Ope, Cala-Ham, Cala-Amon, Cala-Adon: whence came the names of people and places styled [358] Callinicus, Calachene, [359] Colonæ, Cales, Calathe, Calistæ, Calathusa, Calauria, Coloriua, Caliope, Calama, Calamos, [360] Calamon, Calymna, Calydnus, Calycadnus ”

“ Do you know of a suitable place, Cal?”
“No, not from personal experience in these parts, but I’ve been watching the coast-line over there to starboard, and I think I make out the mouth of a small creek or inlet. The chart doesn’t show it very distinctly, but it roughly indicates a number of small indentations in the land, and the soundings given for all that shore seem satisfactory.”
“To the oars then,” said Larry, “and we’ll look for a landing place somewhere over there. The whole shore seems to be heavily wooded. Pull away.” ”

“ Nothin' agin one another, only we don't like. So I can't urge him myself; and fust thing we know some outlandishman or other'll step in and kerry her off, and then where should we be, Sam'l and me? I ask you that, Calvin Parks. We're gettin' on, [Pg 92] you know, Cal; we're five years good older than what you be, and we couldn't abide hired help, no way in the world. You urge Sam'l on to speak to Cousin, won't you now? I'd take it real friendly of you, Cal. I allers thought a sight of you, and so did Ma. 'Twould please Ma if you got a good woman for Sam'l, Cal. ”

“ Today our road lay along the river most of the time occasionally leaveing it for a few miles dust/ dust!! dust! ! ! towards night we left it struck into a Kenyon and overe hills in- stead of keeping the river and camped near a small spring at 9 P. M. no feed passed a mile back from camp. We passed a Mormon train from Cal they report Gold! Gold! Provisions reasonable fortunes made but 40 times as many spent Society not yet under Uncle Sams laws ”

“ The Shastas and their Neighbors, MS. 'The diversity of language is so great in California, that at almost every 15 or 20 leagues, you find a distinct dialect.' Boscana, in Robinson's Life in Cal., p. 240. 'Il n'est peut-être aucun pays où les différens idiomes soient aussi multipliés que dans la Californie septentrionale.' La Pérouse, Voy., tom. ii., p. 323. 'One might spend years with diligence in acquiring an Indian tongue, then journey a three-hours' space, and find himself adrift again, so multitudinous are the languages and dialects of California.' Powers' North. ”

“ Caleb coached him, I guess. Leastwise the town says so, and Cal ain’t never denied it. That was ’fore his woman, the Duchess, died, and Cal started travelin’. Anyhow, Nat worked like sixty down to the box-shop and planned when he was twenty-one he’d marry the kid from A-higher. It was sort o’ too bad. She give him the Grand Bounce, married another feller. Pore Natie got it square between the eyes the night he turned twenty-one. He was plannin’ on marryin’ her the comin’ Christmas. Rotten deal! Hurt him awful!”
Madelaine’s throat was dry. She nodded. ”

“ And there was recognition in his glance as he answered more respectfully than he had yet spoken.
“Craven’s gone. Died in the Argentine last winter.”
There was a moment’s silence and then Aunt Cal asked tremulously, “You were with him when he died?”
The other nodded. “And that reminds me,” he said, “he sent you a message, said I was to come back and give it to you myself. Or if you wasn’t here to get your address and mail it to you.” He began feeling in the pocket of his trousers, presently bringing out a dog-eared bill folder from which he extracted a dirty envelope. ”

“ The river, freed from its wooden-flume prison, rolls gracefully by. The green and purple beauty of these majestic old mountains looks lovelier than ever, through its pearl-like network of foaming streamlets, while, like an immense concave of pure sapphire without spot or speck, the wonderful and never-enough-to-be-talked-about sky of California drops down upon the whole its fathomless splendor. The day happens to be the inner fold of one of the atmospheric sandwiches alluded to above. ”

“ The present day man-in-the-street, man-about-town Californian has an obvious magnificence about him that is allied to the eucalyptus tree, the pomegranate....
“The enemy of California says the state is magnificent, but thin. He declares it is as though it were painted on a Brobdingnagian piece of gilt paper, and he who dampens his finger and thrusts it through finds an alkali valley on the other side, the lonely prickly pear, and a heap of ashes from a deserted camp-fire. He says the citizens of this state lack the richness of an æsthetic and religious tradition. ”

“ This reprehensible-propensity for betting on every possible subject is a peculiarity of California, and crops out distinctly on all occasions. Your genuine Californian, whether of Spanish origin and to the manner born, or Yankee by habit and only a son of the Golden State by adoption, has two peculiarities which strike a stranger most forcibly, next to his pardonable admiration for everything Californian, and, as a matter of course, contempt for anything which is not. ”

“ After a good breakfast, fine butter churned this morning being the I greatest luxury, we saddled our nags and started for Pueblo distant only 1 2 miles. I should never wish to live in a more beautiful country than this we are riding through this morning; it has given me a different opinion of Cali- fornia, and if I were going to remain in California should leave the sand hills of San Francisco very quickly. ”

“ The glamour of the gold excitement passed away with the first fifteen years of marvelous growth, and California was simply a new State, with, for a new State, a large class of wealthy men with the habits of men of business everywhere. ”

“ Then Larry said:
“Come on. There’s nothing more to be done to-night and we’re all half famished. We must have a good hearty supper, and then perhaps we’ll think of something more that we can do.”
“I doubt that,” said Cal; “but I say, Tom, you [302] have a positive genius for finding things—turtles’ eggs, smugglers’ camps, sweet potato patches, letters hidden in the woods, and everything else. Perhaps you’ll find poor Mr. Dunbar yet.” ”

“ Of all that mighty host, not more than one in a hundred remains in California to-day. In neglected graves, in the red earth of the Sierra, in the shadow of the cross of Calvary, under the laurel and willows of Lone Mountain, in the great depths of the sea, in the trenches of innumerable battlefields, in far-off Australia or Southern Africa, in Alaska, in Arizona, in Mexico, in Nicaragua, they sleep their last sleep. ”

“ The circle of engaging objects in a community, just emerging into the refinements of civilization, is never broad; but every phase in the great change going on possesses an intense individuality, and leaves its ineffaceable impression, like a ship sweeping a solitary sea, or a bird scaling a sunset cloud. California will be no more what she has been: the events of a few years have carried her through the progressive changes of a century. ”

“ Tide upon tide of Spring comes into California, through all four seasons. Fairy beauty overwhelms the lumbering grand-stand players. The tiniest garden is a jewelled pathway of wonder. But the Californian cannot shout ‘orange blossoms, orange blossoms; heliotrope, heliotrope.’ He cannot boom forth ‘roseleaves, roseleaves’ so that he does their beauties justice. Here is where the photoplay can begin to give him a more delicate utterance. And he can go on into stranger things, and evolve all the Splendor Films into higher types, for the very name of California is splendor.... ”

“ While there has been much in these events to recall to the cool observer the saying of Carlyle, "There are twenty-eight millions of people in Great Britain, mostly fools," it is yet a mistake to regard California as a community widely differing from more Eastern States. I am, in fact, inclined rather to look upon California as a typical American State, and San Francisco as a typical American city. ”

“ But I was speaking a while ago of this province of California. Do you realize, Captain, that here is a country exceeding Spain in area and equaling her soil in fertility?"
"I do realize it, indeed, señora. What we see here," indicating the waving valley, "and even after a winter of drought, is a demonstration of most wonderful fertility."
"Under the English flag all old customs will flourish here; the civilization developed will be along Spanish lines. Colonists will come in numbers and a mighty principality will grow—still it will be, in essentials, Spanish. ”

“ I could ride to Alisal."
"But you cannot be spared from here when the fog lifts. Talk about a California republic! Señora, you should be ruler of the Californias, including Texas and Oregon."
"Captain! Captain!" her merry laugh sounding within the old castle. "Again, my friend, breakfast. Hot coffee will go well, I am sure."
"You are very good, but I will decline for the present. Good-bye for a while. If anything comes up, I'll let you know. By the way, why not make Barcelo governor and general? Morando says he won't have the office, anyway, and it might save no end of confusion." ”

“ A journey of eighteen miles brought us to this place, where we are encamped upon the county fair-ground. California is a mean, thriftless village; there are no trees shading the cottages, no shrubbery in the yards. ”

“ When that great resource is located and developed I shall publish in every American newspaper the extraordinary agricultural advantages of the country. In a word, my object is to make California a great State and its name synonymous with my own. As I told you before, for fame as fame I care nothing; I do not care if I am forgotten on my death-bed; but with my blood biting my veins I must have action while living. Shall I say that I have a worthier motive in wishing to aid in the development of civilization? ”

“ A peninsula which to the Spanish conquistadores was an island glistening in the azure web of romance; a land for which the padres gave their lives in fanatic devotion to the Cross; a land rich in history, when the timbers of the Mayflower were yet trees in the forest. Lower California, once sought and guarded for her ores and her jewels, now a veritable terra incognita, slumbering, unnoticed, at the feet of her courted child, the great State of California. Lower California, her romance nigh forgotten, her possibilities overlooked by enterprise and by the statesmen of the two republics. ”

“ On the 7th we left Cali, and traversed a wild and uncultivated tract of land, abounding with game of every description. The general character of this country reminded me strongly of the scenes which I had often admired in the interior of the Cape, where a broad expanse of dark brushwood surrounds the traveller, beyond which, the tops of distant mountains are seen to rise, of a transparent purple hue, conveying the idea of an immeasurable chasm existing between them and the country over which you are passing. ”

“ CALIFORNIA ON CHARACTER. Life in California impresses new features on old characters, as a fresh mintage on antiquated coins. The man whose prudence in the States never forsakes him, and whose practical maxim is, “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” will here throw all his birds into the bushes, seemingly for the mere excitement of catching them again. He finds himself in an atmosphere so strongly stirred and stirring, that he must whirl with it, and soon enjoys the strong eddy almost as much as the still pool. ”