120 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



roots grubbed up in the hills and sold for fuel. On 

 the lonely summit of one of the foothills of the 

 Sierra Madre north of Pasadena, there is the soli- 

 tary grave of one of these old-time ranchers of the 

 chaparral. A half-obliterated trail, known to few, 

 leads to it through a fragrant tangle of sage, and 

 on the rough granite rock that marks this resting 

 place of a kindly heart, is carved this inscription: 

 "Owen Brown, son of John Brown, the Liberator, 

 Died Jan. 9, 1888, Aged 64 years." 



Soap from Bushes 



"I suppose," said an old Calif ornian to me one 

 day, "if I were to tell you that soap grows wild out 

 here, you'd think it was another California tall 

 story." 



We were jogging along a foothill road in a buck- 

 board with a pair of broncos, and I noticed my 

 companion was eyeing the slope of chaparral at one 

 side, where the California lilacs were blooming by 

 the twenty acres. 



"Well," I replied, "a tenderfoot likes evidence, 

 you know." 



He pulled up the horses, and alighting, stripped 

 from the nearest bushes a handful of the blossoms ; 

 then dipping his hands into a ditch of running water 

 by the roadside, he rubbed water and flowers well 



