two women in very scanty jersey bathing-suits with legs bare, wearing,
to be sure, law-fulfilling mackintoshes, but which, being unbuttoned,
flapped so in the breeze that they were only a technical covering. The
ladies were in earnest conversation as he passed. J---- heard one say,
"I grant all you say about the charm of his style, but I consider his
writing very superficial!"

It is a wonderful life for small boys. My sons are the loveliest shades
of brown with cheeks of red, and in faded khaki and bare legs are as
good an example of protective coloring on the hillside as any zebra in a
jungle. Quite naturally they view September and the long stockings of
the city with dislike.

There is a place on the beach by the coast road between Pasadena and San
Diego where we always have lunch on our journeys to and from town. Just
after you leave the picturesque ruins of the Capistrano Mission in its
sheltered valley, you come out suddenly on the ocean, and the road runs
by the sand for miles. With a salt breeze blowing in your face you can't
resist the lunch box long. With a stuffed egg in one hand and a sandwich
in the other, Joedy, aged eight, observed on our last trip south, "This
is the bright side of living." I agree with him.

One late afternoon a friend of ours was driving alone and offered a lift
to two young men who were swinging along on foot. "Your price?" they
asked. "A smile and a song," was the reply. So in they got, and those
last fifty miles were gay. That is the sort of thing which fits so
perfectly into the atmosphere of this land. Perhaps it is the orange
blossoms, perhaps it is that we have extra-sized moons, perhaps it is
the old Spanish charm still lingering. All I know is that it is a land
of glamour and romance. J---- said he was going to import a pair of
nightingales. I said that if he did he'd have a lot to answer for.

Places are as different as people. The East, and by that I mean the
country east of the Alleghanies and not Iowa and Kansas, which are
sometimes so described out here, has reached years of discretion and is
set in its way. California has temperament, and it is still very young
and enthusiastic and is having a lot of fun "growing up." I love the
stone walls, huckleberry pies, and johnny cakes of Rhode Island, and I
love the associations of my childhood and my family tree, but there is
something in the air of this part of the world that enchants me. It is a
certain "Why not?" that lead