192 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



After all, the world is one family and as Dona 

 Margarita's wicket clicked behind me, I had the 

 feeling that my own Pennsylvania and Virginia 

 grandmothers would have been quite at home among 

 the tangled posy beds of this daughter of Spanish 

 California. 



Old Mission Gardens and Ranch Patios 



Dona Margarita's tangled little garden is a type 

 of many in the Spanish sections of California, 

 pleasantly reminiscent of earlier days, like the 

 tumbled garret of an old country house; but be- 

 cause of their informality and modest proportions 

 visible to every passerby, they fail to measure up to 

 the romance with which in our minds old California 

 is invested. We have read "Ramona" and we de- 

 mand the privacy of the retired garden around 

 which the house has been built; we long for the 

 tinkling of guitars on jasmine wreathed verandas, 

 the splash of water in secluded fountains where 

 orange petals drop in fragrance and the mocker 

 sings through moonlit nights. But alas! there are 

 no birds in last year's nests. With the passing of 

 California under the Stars and Stripes, the old order 

 passed too. One by one, the great Spanish estates 

 came into possession of hardheaded Americans who 

 frankly went in for the money that was in them, and 



