As I recall the place--the green dell below; the spires of pine;
the sun-warm, scented air; that gray, gabled inn, with its faint
stirrings of life amid the slumber of the mountains--I slowly awake
to a sense of admiration, gratitude, and almost love. A fine
place, after all, for a wasted life to doze away in--the cuckoo
clock hooting of its far home country; the croquet mallets,
eloquent of English lawns; the stages daily bringing news of--the
turbulent world away below there; and perhaps once in the summer, a
salt fog pouring overhead with its tale of the Pacific.
A STARRY DRIVE
In our rule at Silverado, there was a melancholy interregnum. The
queen and the crown prince with one accord fell sick; and, as I was
sick to begin with, our lone position on Mount Saint Helena was no
longer tenable, and we had to hurry back to Calistoga and a cottage
on the green. By that time we had begun to realize the
difficulties of our position. We had found what an amount of
labour it cost to support life in our red canyon; and it was the
dearest desire of our hearts to get a China-boy to go along with us
when we returned. We could have given him a whole house to
himself, self-contained, as they say in the advertisements; and on
the money question we were prepared to go far. Kong Sam Kee, the
Calistoga washerman, was entrusted with the affair; and from day to
day it languished on, with protestations on our part and
mellifluous excuses on the part of Kong Sam Kee.
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