“A frontier town!” echoed Bob.

“You think it over,” said Baker.

IV

But if Bob imagined for one moment that he had acquired even a notion of California in his experiences and observations down the San Joaquin and in Los Angeles, the next few stages of his Sentimental Journey very soon undeceived him.  Baker’s business interests soon took him away.  Bob, armed with letters of introduction from his friend, visited in turn such places as Santa Barbara, Riverside, San Diego, Redlands and Pasadena.  He could not but be struck by the absolute differences that existed, not only in the physical aspects but in the spirit and aims of the peoples.  If these communities had been separated by thousands of miles of distance they could not have been more unlike.

At one place he found the semi-tropical luxuriance of flowers and trees and fruits, the soft, warm sunshine, the tepid, langourous, musical nights, the mellow haze of romance over mountain and velvet hill and soft sea, the low-shaded cottages, the leisurely attractive people one associates with the story-book conception of California.  The place was charming in its surroundings and in its graces of life, but it was a cheerful, happy, out-at-the-heels, raggedy little town, whose bright gardens adorned its abyssmal streets, whose beautiful mountains palliated the naivete of its natural and atrocious roads.  Bob mingled with its people with the pardonable amusement of a man fresh from the doing of big things.  There seemed to be such long, grave and futile discussions over the undertaking of that which a more energetic community would do as a matter of course in the day’s work.  The liveryman from whom Bob hired his saddle horse proved to be a person of a leisurely and sardonic humour.

“Their chief asset here is tourists,” said he.  “That’s the leading industry.  They can’t see it, and they don’t want to.  They have just one road through the county.  It’s a bum one.  You’d think it was a dozen, to hear them talk about the immense undertaking of making it halfway decent.  Any other place would do these things they’ve been talking about for ten years just on the side, as part of the get-ready.  Lucky they didn’t have to do anything in the way of getting those mountains set proper, or there’d be a hole there yet.”

“Why don’t you go East?” asked Bob.

“I did once.  Didn’t like it.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Well, I’ll tell you.  Back East when you don’t do nothing, you feel kind of guilty.  Out here when you don’t do nothing, you don’t give a damn!”

Nevertheless, Bob was very sorry when he had to leave this quiet and beautiful little town, with its happy, careless, charming people.

Thence he went directly to a town built in a half-circle of the mountains.  The sunshine here was warm and grateful, but when its rays were withdrawn a stinging chill crept down from the snow.  No sitting out on the verandah after dinner, but often a most grateful fire in the Club’s fireplace.  The mornings were crisp and enlivening.  And again by the middle of the day the soft California warmth laid the land under its spell.