motor and water the garden, though he appeared barefooted to drive me to town, and took French leave for a day’s fishing, pinning a note to the kitchen door, saying, “Expect me when you see me and don’t wait dinner,” afflicted me one entire summer.  I tried to rouse his ambition by pointing out the capitalists who began by digging ditches—­California is full of them—­and assuring him that there were no heights to which he might not rise by patient application, etc.  It was no use.  He watered the garden when I watched him; otherwise not.  I came to the final conclusion that he was in love.  Love is responsible for so much.

Another summer I decided to try darkies and carefully selected two of contrasting shades of brown.  The cook was a slim little quadroon, with flashing white teeth and hair arranged in curious small doughnuts all over her head.  She was a grass widow with quite an assortment of children, though she looked little more than a child herself.  “Grandma” was taking care of them while the worthless husband was supposed to be running an elevator in New Orleans.  Essie had quite lost interest in him, I gathered, for I brought her letters and candy from another swain, who used such thin paper that I couldn’t avoid seeing the salutation, “Oh, you chicken!”

Mandy was quite different.  She was a rich seal brown, large and determined, and had left a husband on his honor, in town.  We had hardly washed off the dust of our long motor-ride before trouble began.  A telegram for Mandy conveyed the disquieting news that George had been arrested on a charge of assault at the request of “grandma.”  It appeared that after seeing wifey off for the seashore he felt the joy of bachelor freedom so strongly that he dropped in to see Essie’s mother, who gave him a glass of sub rosa port, which so warmed his heart that he tried to embrace her.  Grandma was only thirty-four and would have been pretty except for gaps in the front ranks of her teeth.  She had spirit as well as spirits, and had him clapped into jail.  Telegrams came in—­do you say droves, covies, or flocks?  Night letters especially, and long-distance telephone calls—­all collect.  The neighbors, the Masons, the lawyer, and various relatives all went into minute detail.  Grandma, being the injured party, prudently confined herself to the mail.  As we have only one servant’s room and that directly under my sleeping-porch, it made it very pleasant!  The choicest telegram J——­ took down late one night.  It was from one of Mandy’s neighbors, and ended with the illuminating statement:  “George never had a gun or a knife on him; he was soused at the time!” Mandy emerged from bed, clad in a red kimono and a pink boudoir cap, to receive this comforting message.  She wept; Essie, who had followed in order to miss nothing, scowled, while J——­ and I wound our bath-robes tightly about us and gritted our teeth, in an effort to preserve a proper solemnity.  Of course we had to let her go back to the trial, which she did with the dignity of one engaged in affairs of state.  She and the judge had a kind of mother’s meeting about George, and decided that a touch of the law might be just the steadying influence he needed.