A pretty lady, dressed in pink tarleton skirts, who rode several horses at a time, and jumped through tissue paper hoops, was my first heroine. Dick and I kept her picture for months on a ledge under the office desk, and there rendered her frequent homage. The mention of this desk calls to mind other activities centering in that office. On one occasion, when I was suitably young, the spirit moved me to carry a shovelful of live coals out through the door to the porch, and there coax up a fire by the addition of kindling wood. The same spirit, or another, however, suggested a compensating action. I summoned my mother to see my “nice fire,” to the salvation of the house. Fire, candles, matches, revolvers, all held a fascination. It is evident that neither my cousin Harry nor I were intended for a violent death, for it was our custom to investigate from time to time his father’s loaded revolver, turning the chambers about and removing and replacing the cartridges. Our faith in our ability to handle the dangerous weapon safely seems to have been justified by our success. It was deemed wise to keep me occupied, so far as possible, in order to thwart Satan, ever on the lockout for idle hands. So I was taught to sew patch-work and to knit, to read and to spell. There were short periods when I had to stay in the house, but like most California children, I spent out of doors most of the time not given over to eating and sleeping. Now-a-days even those duties are attended to upon porches. Under mamma’s guidance I once laboriously and secretly sewed “over and over” a gray and striped “comfort bag” for a birthday gift to papa. It was modelled on the bags made for the soldiers in the Union army when my mother was a girl. We made a special trip to Hollister to buy its contents, black and white thread, coarse needles, buttons, wax, blunt scissors, and to top off, pink and white sugary peppermint drops. That bag remained in service for twenty years, going always in father’s satchel whenever he went away. It came to my rescue once when I had torn my skirt from hem to band. As he sewed up the rent for me with nice big stitches, first on one side and then on the other, he told me it was a shoemaker’s stitch and had the advantage of bringing the edges together just as they had been originally, without puckering the cloth. Mamma used the same stitch to mend the torn pages of books and sheet music, in those days before Mr. Dennison invented his transparent tape.