78 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slopp 



after seeing the pictures in the " Illustrated London 

 News," "that the Queen will keep the war in 

 Egypt going — for me." 



Another day he was listening attentively to the 

 story of the Golden Calf and the Fiery Serpents. 

 " Well," he remarked, as the Bible was closed, " they 

 were wicked, those Israelites. No wonder God was 

 mad with them. / don't blame him." 



Irreverence is a characteristic of the children of 

 the West. This is partly the fault of the pastors. 

 I remember a funeral sermon preached by a Presby- 

 terian minister upon a dead child. The child's 

 play-fellows were in church, and attentive listeners 

 to a discourse mainly biographical. The preacher 

 concluded : " I can see him ; yes, I can see our dear 

 little friend ; " he looked upward, and the eyes of 

 the children were immediately fixed upon the ceiling 

 of the church. " There he is, corralled in Heaven^ 

 playing about with all the other little angels." 



This allusion to the corral, that homely feature 

 in the Western landscape, appealed forcibly to the 

 imagination of the children, but surely the ridicu- 

 lous was too perilously near the sublime. 



Speaking of funerals, I recall another anecdote 

 that illustrates this peculiar blending of the sacred 

 and the profane. In Southern California, funerals 

 are, like the Irish wake, a source of entertainment 

 to the many who attend them. If the deceased 

 happens to have been in his lifetime a member of 

 any order, such as the Oddfellows or Freemasons, his 

 funeral becomes a public function, a parade. You 

 march to the burial-ground clad in the uniform of 



