It was sacrament Sabbath in the little Seceder congregation at Blue Mound. Vehicles denoting various degrees of prosperity were beginning to arrive before the white meeting-house that stood in a patch of dog-fennel by the roadside. The elders were gathered in a solemn, bareheaded group on the shady side of the building, arranging matters of […]

There had been a norther during the day, and at sunset the valley, seen from Dysart’s cabin on the mesa, was a soft blur of golden haze. The wind had hurled the yellow leaves from the vineyard, exposing the gnarled deformity of the vines, and the trailing branches of the pepper-trees had swept their fallen […]

Mr. Anthony attached a memorandum to the letter he was reading, and put his hand on the bell. “Confound them!” he said under his breath, “what do they think I’m made of!” A negro opened the door, and came into the room with exaggerated decorum. “Rufus, take this to Mr. Whitwell, and tell him to […]

A soft yellow haze lay over the San Jacinto plain, deepening into purple, where the mountains lifted themselves against the horizon. Nancy Watson stood in her cabin door, and held her bony, moistened finger out into the tepid air. “I believe there’s a little breath of wind from the southeast, Robert,” she said, with a […]

A young woman sat on the veranda of a small redwood cabin, putting her baby to sleep. The infant displayed that aggressive wide-awakeness which seems to characterize babies on the verge of somnolence. Now and then it plunged its dimpled fists into the young mother’s bare white breast, stiffened its tiny form rebelliously, raised its […]

I. We were sojourning between Anaheim and the sea. There was a sunshiny dullness about the place, like the smiles of a vapid woman. The bit of vineyard surrounding our whitewashed cabin was an emerald set in the dull, golden-brown plain. Before the door an artesian well glittered in the sun like an inverted crystal […]

I The slope in front of old Mosey’s cabin was a mass of purple lupine. Behind the house the wild oats were dotted with brodiaea, waving on long, glistening stems. The California lilac was in bloom on the trail, and its clumps of pale blossoms were like breaks in the chaparral, showing the blue sky […]

I. Mrs. Wickersham helped her son from his bed to a chair on the porch, and spread a patchwork quilt over his knees when he was seated. “Don’t you want something to put your feet on, Benny?” she asked anxiously, with that hunger for servitude with which women persecute their male sick. The invalid looked […]

I. The afternoon train wound through the waving barley-fields of the Temecula Valley and shrieked its approach to the town of Muscatel. It was a mixed train, and half a dozen passengers alighted from the rear coach to stretch their legs while the freight was being unloaded. Enoch Embody stood on the platform with the […]

I. Senora Gonzales was leaning upon the corral gate in the shade of the pomegranates, looking out over the lake. The lake itself was not more placid than the senora’s face under her black rebozo. Perhaps a long life of leaning and gazing had given her those calm, slow-moving eyes, full of the wisdom of […]

I. Mrs. Randall was piecing a quilt. She had various triangular bits of calico, in assorted colors, strung on threads, and distributed in piles on her lap. She had put on her best dress in honor of the minister’s visit, which was just ended. It was a purple, seeded silk, adorned with lapels that hung […]

I. Lysander Sproul, driving his dun-colored mules leisurely toward the mesa, looked back now and then at the winery which crowned its low hill like a bit of fortification. “If I’d really had any idee o’ gettin’ ahead o’ him,” he reflected, “or circumventin’ him an inch, I reckon I’d been more civil; it’s no […]

I. He came up the mountain road at nightfall, urging his lean mustang forward wearily, and coughing now and then–a heavy, hollow cough that told its own story. There were only two houses on the mesa stretching shaggy and sombre with greasewood from the base of the mountains to the valley below,–two unpainted redwood dwellings, […]