leaves in dreamy music, and above and through this whispered sound
you heard the brook splashing over its pebbly bed,--splashing and
splashing and laughing all it possibly could, knowing it would
speedily be dried up by the thirsty August sun. Every few yards part
of the stream settled down contentedly into a placid little pool,
while the most inquisitive and restless little drops flowed noisily
down to see what was going on below. The banks were fringed with
graceful alders and poison-oak bushes, vivid in crimson and yellow
leaves, while delicate maiden-hair ferns grew in miniature forests
between the crevices of the rocks; yet, with the practicality of
Chinese human nature, Hop Yet used all this beauty for a dish-pan and
refrigerator!

Now, confess that, after having seen exactly how it looks, you would
like to rub a magic lamp, like Aladdin, and wish yourself there with
our merry young sextette. For California is a lovely land and a
strange one, even at this late day, when her character has been
nearly ruined by dreadful stories, or made ridiculous by foolish
ones.

When you were all babies in long clothes, some people used to believe
that there were nuggets of gold to be picked up in the streets, and
that in the flowery valleys, flowing with milk and honey, there grew
groves of beet-trees, and forests of cabbages, and shady bowers of
squash-vines; and they thought that through these fertile valleys
strode men of curious mien, wild bandits and highway robbers, with
red flannel shirts and many pockets filled with playing-cards and
revolvers and bowie-knives; and that when you met these frightful
persons and courteously asked the time of day, they were apt to turn
and stab you to the heart by way of response.