Ranch Life 1 1 1 



Another anecdote illustrates that amazing lack 

 of a sense of proportion which characterises the 

 people of the West. We had a girl, as cook, who 

 was always leaving us to assist at the funerals of 

 her relations. These died one after the other. 

 Finally the mother died, and the girl asked for a 

 week's leave. At the end of the week I drove up 

 to her father's house to fetch Jane, and he (the 

 father) came out to speak to me. Naturally I 

 murmured a few words of condolence. 



" Yes," he replied mournfully, " poor Jane, poor 

 girl, she has had bad luck," he seemed to ignore 

 his share in it ; " she 's lost in one year," he began 

 to reckon on his fingers, '' yes, — Tom, Mamie, her 

 uncle Charlie, her mother, and to-day, this very 

 morning, she has lost Dick." 



" Good heavens ! " I exclaimed, confounded by 

 such unparalleled misfortunes. " You have lost 

 Dick ! Let me see, he was your youngest boy, 

 wasn't he?" 



" No," said the man, gravely, " Dick was poor 

 Jane's canary bird. She thought the world of it. 

 And it died this morning. Too bad, — ain't it ? " 



Max O'Eell, in one of his lectures, pointed out 

 the radical difference between the French servant, 

 Marie Jeanne, and the English Mary Jane. " Marie 

 Jeanne,"' he would say, " puts her wages into a 

 stocking and puts that stocking into a hole in the 

 ground; Mary Jane puts her wages into a new 

 hat, puts the hat on to her head, and gets photo- 

 graphed in it." I wish it were possible to repro- 

 duce Mons. Blouet's quaint, ironical accent, and to 

 show you the quirk of his eyebrows. I do not 



