II. THE VILLAGE 



VILLAGE is a pretty word, though ambitious 

 settlements are keen to disclaim the implied 

 rusticity and to graduate into the rank of 

 town or city. Palm Springs has no such aims, and 

 is well content to remain far down the list in census 

 returns. We decline to take part in the race for 

 Improvements, and are (so we feel, anyway) wise 

 enough to know when we are well off. Rural Free 

 Delivery does not entice us: we prefer the daily 

 gathering at the store at mail-time, Indians and 

 whites together, where we can count on catching 

 Miguel or Romualda if we wish to hire a pony or 

 get the washing done. Electric lights? No, thanks: 

 somehow nothing seems to us so homelike for the 

 dinner-table as shaded candles, or for fireside read- 

 ing a good kerosene lamp : while if we want to call 

 on a neighbor after dark, we find that a lantern 

 sheds light where you need it instead of illuminat- 

 ing mainly the upper air. To us cement sidewalks 

 would be a calamity: we may be dusty, but dust is 

 natural and we prefer it. After all, the pepper- or 

 cottonwood-shaded streets of our Garden of the Sun 

 are really only country lanes, and who wants a 

 country lane cemented? In fact, a little mistake 

 was made when they were named. Cottonwood Row 

 would have been better than Indian Avenue, and 



