HILL-TOP


No one should attempt to live on top of an adobe hill one mile from a
small town which has been brought up on the Declaration of Independence,
without previously taking a course in plain and fancy wheedling. This is
the mature judgment of a lady who has tried it. Not even in California!

When we first took possession of our hill-top early one June, nothing
was farther from my thoughts. "Suma Paz," "Perfect Peace," as the place
was called, came to me from a beloved aunt who had truly found it that.
With it came a cow, a misunderstood motor, and a wardrobe trunk. A
Finnish lady came with the cow, and my brother-in-law's chauffeur
graciously consented to come with the motor. The trunk was empty. It was
all so complete that the backbone of the family, suddenly summoned on
business, departed for the East, feeling that he had left us comfortably
established for the month of his absence. The motor purred along the
nine miles to the railroad station without the least indication of the
various kinds of internal complications about to develop, and he boarded
the train, beautifully composed in mind, while we returned to our
hill-top.

It is a most enchanting spot. A red-tiled bungalow is built about a
courtyard with cloisters and a fountain, while vines and flowers fill
the air with the most delicious perfume of heliotrope, mignonette, and
jasmine. Beyond the big living-room extends a terrace with boxes of deep
and pale pink geraniums against a blue sea, that might be the Bay of
Naples, except that Vesuvius is lacking. It is so lovely that after
three years it still seems like a dream. We are only one short look from
the Pacific Ocean, that ocean into whose mists the sun sets in flaming