The “filaree,” or pinclover; had borne its seeds with curious long ends–those seeds that California children call “clocks”–and among THE filaree there stood, on slender, bare stems, small flowers of the lily family which are known as “bluebells.” A boy was walking through the filaria. He was carrying a hatchet and an ax, and he […]

Cliffs by the blue bay held many fossil shells. Children sometimes strayed here and there with hammers, pounding out fossils from fallen pieces of the cliffs. On the extent of sands that bordered the cliffs and stretched up the coast between them and the breakers, old stumps that had been months before brought in by […]

Martin put his bare feet down through the thick dust of the country road. It was warm summer, and he was used to going barefoot, even to Sunday-school, from which he was now returning. Over the hot, dry grass of the fields there swayed at frequent intervals the heads of California wild oats. One such […]

Black dog slipped through a swinging gate and Miss Elizabeth followed him into an olive, orchard of small dimensions. The family to whom the black dog belonged was there. The father, Bernardo Esvido, stood on a step-ladder, picking black olives into a bucket half filled with water, the bucket being fastened to Mr. Esvido’s waist […]

Jo bent down and slipped under the barbed wire fence that separated the field back of the Chinese fishing-village from the other fields that stretched away to the houses of the California seaside resort under the pines. The wind blew pleasantly in from the sparkling bay. A large number of frames for drying fish stretched […]

Two white jaw-bones of a whale stood upright in the sunshine, their surfaces showing to a near observer numerous small indentations that caught the dust. The jaw-bones were relics from a little whaling station that had once been in business near the town. Even now whales occasionally wander from the great Pacific into the blue […]

Willis walked down one of the city wharves. He was going to see his father, Mr. Sutherland, who was one of the men employed by the State Harbor Commissioners in repairing wharves. The piles that supported the wharves often needed renewing, being eaten by teredos. Sometimes the flooring of the wharves sagged and needed restoring […]

The wind was blowing quite keenly from the north, and Miss Stratton had the collar of her coat turned up, as she hurried through the darkness of the avenue. She was talking behind her coat collar, the tips of which brushed her lips. If what Miss Stratton said had been audible to any one beside […]

The door of the “panaderia” opened. Americans would have called the place a bakery, but the sign said “Panaderia,” which might be interpreted “breadery” or bake-house. All California does not read English, and it behooves shop-keepers sometimes to word their signs for the customers desired. In like manner the “Restaurante Mexicana,” across the street, on […]

The Waves splashed on the bold rocks that guard the little harbor of Colombo on the southwest shore of the island of Ceylon. Groves of palm trees looked down on the one-story houses of the town. Upon a rock outside of Colombo stood a barefoot boy, his dark eyes gazing toward the tropically green mountains […]

The sky was lowering. The small storm-“igloo,” or round-topped snow house, was full of Eskimo dogs that had crowded in to shelter themselves from the bitter wind. This small igloo was built in front of the door of a bigger round igloo in which an Eskimo family lived. The dogs’ small igloo was built where […]