126 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



ravaging a landscape, making it leprous and un- 

 clean. On the orchards and vineyards fall frosts 

 and scale, transmuting the silvery buds into charred 

 cinders, blackening the green shoots and tender 

 leaves till the trees would seem to be draped in 

 crape, mourning for their dead blossoms. 



And here, in this land of sunshine, as elsewhere, 

 disease spares not, and if you are living far from 

 town and doctor, you must wait in torment for the 

 help that is so long in coming. Your child, your 

 wife, is dying perhaps, and you sit beside what is 

 dearest to you in all the world, straining your ears 

 to catch the sound of the galloping horse that may 

 bring life or find death. 



I have already spoken of the sense of isolation. 

 If you have led the gentle life, if you have depended 

 largely upon others, if your nature craves the fric- 

 tion of human intercourse, if fine music, beautiful 

 pictures, the playhouse, the cathedral, have become 

 to you not superfluities but necessities, then ranch 

 life will surely be hateful and unprofitable. 



The domestic difficulties drive some housewives 

 distracted. On a ranch it is hard to keep servants, 

 even if you are rich enough to pay them well for 

 their services. Sometimes, for many weeks, a mis- 

 tress is compelled to do her own cooking ; she can- 

 not buy what she wants from the village stores ; the 

 meat is tough and poor in quality; the groceries 

 are adulterated. These things are not trifles. 



What affected us more than anything else was 

 the consciousness that we were living in a cul-de- 

 sac. Happily, my brothers and I had so much in 



