Next to the store-room was a double-sized room, the usual one being square, the size of the width of the building. Here was a great chimney with a bellows and forge, and on the other side a long bench well-supplied with carpenter’s tools. One of our favorite occupations was to hunt up odd pieces of lead pipe, cut them into bits, beat them flat on the anvil and fold over into book-like shapes which we decorated with nail-prick design. I think it speaks something for the tastes of our elders that it was books we made. [Illustration: PATIO--RANCHO LOS CERRITOS--1872] Across the court was the kitchen where Ying reigned supreme, and Fan was his prime minister. Later Fan, having passed his apprenticeship, moved on to be head cook at the Alamitos. When Aunt Margaret had first come to the ranch to live there was no stove in the kitchen, and the first morning she went down she found her Indian boy kindling a fire by the friction of a couple of pieces of wood. The baking was done, even after the installation of a range, in a large brick oven out in the rear court, and Saturday afternoon witnessed the perfection of pies, bread, cake. Once I remember feasting on a sand-hill crane, that, too big for the kitchen stove, had been baked in this out-door oven. I have been asked about the character of the meals and the sources of food supply at the ranches. As was customary at the time there was more served than is usual at present. At breakfast there was always eggs, or meat,--steaks, chops, sausage--potatoes, hot bread, stewed fruit, doughnuts and cheese, and coffee for some of the grown folks. Dinner came at noon and frequently began with soup, followed by a roast, potatoes, two other fresh vegetables, with pickles, olives and preserves. Salads were unknown, but we sometimes had lettuce leaves, dressed with vinegar and sugar. For dessert there were puddings or pies or cake and canned fruit, and cheese. It will surprise some of the younger folk to know that mush--either cracked wheat or oatmeal or cornmeal was a supper dish. Sometimes the main article was creamed toast, and there might be hot biscuit, with jelly or honey or jam, and perhaps cold meat, and always again doughnuts and the constant cheese--very new for some tastes and very old for others. As for the supplies--the meat all came from the ranch. Every day a sheep was killed--occasionally a beef. Uncle John at the Alamitos built a smoke house and cured hams. There were chickens and ducks, tame and in season wild. The staple groceries came from Los Angeles in wholesale quantities--sugar and flour in barrels, navy beans and frijoles and green coffee in sacks, the latter frequently the source of delicious odors from the kitchen oven while roasting; it was daily ground for the breakfast drink, and the sound of the little mill was almost the first indication of stirring life.