VI 



RANCH LIFE — II 



ON our ranch, we wore canvas overalls. My 

 brother used to say that the unfastening of 

 a large safety pin left him in condition for a plunge 

 into the pool at the bottom of our corral. Yet on 

 Christmas Day (and also upon the Queen's first 

 Jubilee) we solemnly arrayed ourselves in dress 

 things and dined ^ la mode. 



We had many pets. One — a goat — gave us a 

 deal of trouble. He was a remarkable beast, with 

 a cultivated taste for sheet music, and he could 

 swallow, whole, Sunday editions of San Franciscan 

 newspapers: a feat never accomplished by mortal 

 man. If anything was missing on the ranch, such 

 as a monkey-wrench, or a button-hook, or a packet 

 of tobacco, we always knew where it was — inside 

 the goat. Finally he took to roosting on the piano, 

 for neither bars nor bolts kept him out of our 

 sitting-room ; and he had a playful habit of ap- 

 proaching you very quietly from behind and then 

 — Bif! We loved that goat, but the time came 

 when we had to choose between him and our Lares 

 and Penates. It was no use giving him away, 

 because he refused to be a party to the transaction, 

 and always came back more wicked than before- 

 Our Chinaman said he was a devil. So he was 

 condemned to death, and three of us drew lots to 



