make comfortable summer arrangements. As you start so you go on, for
changing horses in mid-stream has ever been a parlous business. A
temperamental high-school boy who came to drive the motor and water the
garden, though he appeared barefooted to drive me to town, and took
French leave for a day's fishing, pinning a note to the kitchen door,
saying, "Expect me when you see me and don't wait dinner," afflicted me
one entire summer. I tried to rouse his ambition by pointing out the
capitalists who began by digging ditches--California is full of
them--and assuring him that there were no heights to which he might not
rise by patient application, etc. It was no use. He watered the garden
when I watched him; otherwise not. I came to the final conclusion that
he was in love. Love is responsible for so much.

Another summer I decided to try darkies and carefully selected two of
contrasting shades of brown. The cook was a slim little quadroon, with
flashing white teeth and hair arranged in curious small doughnuts all
over her head. She was a grass widow with quite an assortment of
children, though she looked little more than a child herself. "Grandma"
was taking care of them while the worthless husband was supposed to be
running an elevator in New Orleans. Essie had quite lost interest in
him, I gathered, for I brought her letters and candy from another swain,
who used such thin paper that I couldn't avoid seeing the salutation,
"Oh, you chicken!"

Mandy was quite different. She was a rich seal brown, large and
determined, and had left a husband on his honor, in town. We had hardly
washed off the dust of our long motor-ride before trouble began. A
telegram for Mandy conveyed the disquieting news that George had been
arrested on a charge of assault at the request of "grandma." It appeared
that after seeing wifey off for the seashore he felt the joy of bachelor