Adobe days : $b being the truthful narrative of the events in the life of a California girl on a sheep ranch and in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles while it was yet a small and humble town; together with an account of how three young men from Maine in eighteen hundred and fifty-three drove sheep and cattle across the plains, mountains and deserts from Illinois to the Pacific coast; and the strange prophecy of Admiral Thatcher about San Pedro harborBixby Smith, Sarah
History
Adobe days : $b being the truthful narrative of the events in the life of a California girl on a sheep ranch and in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles while it was yet a small and humble town; together with an account of how three young men from Maine in eighteen hundred and fifty-three drove sheep and cattle across the plains, mountains and deserts from Illinois to the Pacific coast; and the strange prophecy of Admiral Thatcher about San Pedro harbor
Bixby Smith, Sarah
Agriculture -- California; Bixby Smith, Sarah, 1871-1935 -- Childhood and youth; Ethnic groups -- California; Frontier and pioneer life -- California -- Los Angeles; Los Angeles (Calif.) -- Biography; Los Angeles (Calif.) -- History; Mines and mineral resources -- California; Real estate development
We had not been long in Maine before the air filled with goose
feathers, only it wasn’t feathers, but wet snow. Then came sleds
and sleighs, a snow man and Christmas, with a piggy-back ride on
grandfather to see the tree at the church.
The snow was so deep on the ground and it was so cold, the chickens
had to stay in the barn all the time; every morning grandmother and I
took my little red bucket and went to feed them, out through the summer
kitchen, the wood-shed, past the horse’s stall to their house.
While I was in Maine I learned odors as well as sights. I know the
smell of snow in the air, of pine trees in winter, of a woodshed and
barn, of an old house that has been lived in for long, long years. I
came to know the fragrance of a cellar, apples and butter, vegetables
and preserves, and can recall its clammy coolness.
To have a bath in a wash-tub by the kitchen stove was a lark for a
little wild-westerner who had known only a modern bathroom. The second
time we were at grandfather’s there was a curious soft-rubber pouch
for a tub, which was set up when wanted before the fire in the north
bedroom. The bottom rested on the floor, while the sides were held up
by poles, resting on chairs. After a week-end tubbing, mamma and I
would say together,
“How pleasant is Saturday night
When all the week I’ve been good,
Said never a word that was cross
And done all the good that I could.”
I have other memories of that fire-place. Once, during the first visit,
mamma left me for a few days in the care of my inexperienced aunt, of
whom I took advantage. I assured her that my mother every night rubbed
my chest with camphorated oil and gave me a spoonful of Hive’s cough
syrup. Evidently I had recently enjoyed a cold. So every night I got
my oil rub and the sweet sticky dose, and, wrapped in an old shawl
and called a “little brown sausage,” was rocked during some blissful
minutes of story-telling. Mamma was shocked when she returned to find
the empty bottle and to know the whereabouts of its contents.
Still another fire-place memory,--papa was taking care of me in this
room, and was having so good a time reading and smoking that I thought
I would do the same. I climbed up and took from the mantel a pretty
twisted paper lamp-lighter, then seated myself beside him, put my feet
as high as I could on my side of the fireplace, adjusted my newspaper,
lighted my cigar, and in mouthing it about, managed to set my front
hair on fire. That attracted papa’s attention to his job.
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