sake of having all sunny ones. At any rate, we are resolved not to have
"I count none but sunny hours."

There are all kinds of responsibilities in life, and picking the right
shade of paint for a house you have to live in is a most wearing one.
Painting the trimming of ours in connection with the garden was very
agitating. I had sample bits of board painted and took them about town,
trying them next to houses I liked, and at last decided on a wicked
Spanish green that the storms of winter are expected to mellow. As I saw
it being put on the house I felt panic-stricken. For a nice fresh
vegetable or salad, yes, but for a house--never! And yet it is a great
success! I don't know whether it has "sunk in," as the painter consoled
me by predicting, or whether it is that we are used to it; at any rate,
every one likes it so much that I have cheerfully removed smears of it
from the clothing of all the family, including the puppies' tails.

As to ourselves in the rôle of gardeners--there were not two greener
greenhorns when we first resolved to stay in California; we still are,
though I think I do J---- an injustice in classing him with me. We can
make geraniums grow luxuriantly, but we don't want to. I wish they would
pass a law in Southern California making the growing of red geraniums a
criminal offense. So many people love to combine them with bougainvillia
and other brilliant pink or purple flowers, and the light is hard enough
on eyes without adding that horror. We are resolved to progress from the
geranium age to the hardy perennial class, and are industriously
studying books and magazines with that end in view. The worst of garden
literature is that it is nearly all written for an Eastern climate. Once
I subscribed for a garden magazine, lured by a bargain three months'
offer. Never again! At the end of the time, when no regular subscription
came in from me, letters began to arrive. Finally one saying, "You