from his scraps and made her a present of it.  I faintly asked if she thought it was a very old one, visions of ptomaine poisoning rising vividly.  Oh, no, she said, “it wasn’t old at all, he had merely stepped on it.”  My own perfectly good dinner was at her house.  I told her to take off a portion for her cat, and I would send the boys for the rest.  I heaved a sigh of relief—­a fresh young fish, even if crushed, would not have fatal results.

I will pass rapidly on to my last thorn, which isn’t on the list because I’m not quite sure that it is one.  It is a small, second-hand, rather vicious little motor, which I have learned to drive as a war measure.  After the first time I ever tried to turn it around, and it flew at our lovely rose-garlanded lattice fence at one hundred miles an hour, I christened it “the little fury.”  I missed the fence by revolving the steering wheel as though I were playing roulette.  I almost went round twice, but J——­ rescued me by kicking my foot off the throttle.  Since then I have sufficiently mastered it to drive to town for the laundry and the newspaper.  I am like a child learning to walk by having an orange rolled in front of it.  I must know how far the Allies have driven the Germans, so I set my teeth and start for town in the “little fury.”  Every one told me that I’d have to break something before I really got the upper hand.  I have.  I bravely drove out to a Japanese truck garden for vegetables and came to grief.  One of the boys tersely expressed it in his diary, “Muvs ran into a Japanese barn and rooked the bumper!” Now that that is over, I begin to feel a certain sense of independence that is not unpleasant.  It is some time since I have stalled the engine or tried to climb a hill with the emergency brake set.  The boys and the “pufflers” are game and keep me company; we live or die together.

After all, the loveliest rose in my garden, the Sunburst, lifts its fragrant flower of creamy orange on a stalk bristling with wicked-looking mahogany spikes.  If I’m very careful about cutting it, I don’t prick my fingers and the thorns really add to the effect.

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THE GYPSY TRAIL

A friend of mine once wrote an article on motoring in Southern California for one of the smart Eastern magazines.  In it she said that often a motor would be followed by a trailer loaded with a camp outfit.  What was her surprise and amusement to read her own article later, dressed for company, so to speak.  “A trailer goes ahead with the servants and outfit, so that when the motoring party arrives on the scene all is in readiness for their comfort.”  Great care must be taken that the sensibilities of the elect should not be offended by the horrid thought that ladies and gentlemen actually do make their own camp at times!  So the trailer has to go ahead, and that is just where the lure and magic of Southern California slips through the fingers.