Part 3

Signor Garibaldi is a retired wine merchant driven out-of-doors by illness, a most courteous and sensitive soul, with a talent for letter-writing that is alone worth all the plumbago blossoms that he cut away last year. The following letter was written to J---- while Garibaldi was in charge of our hill-top, the bareness of which we strove to cover with wild flowers until we could make just the kind of garden we wanted:

March 15.

DEAR SIR:

The last time I had the pleasure of see you in your place, Villa Collina Ridente, you exclaimed with a melancholic voice, "Only poppies and mignonette came out of the wild flower seeds." "So it is," said I in the same tune of voice. Time proved we was both wrong; many other flowers made their retarded appearance, so deserving the name of wild flower garden....

Your place (pardon me as I am not a violet) could look better, also could look worse; consequently I consider myself entitled to be placed between hell and paradise--to have things as one wishes is an insolvable problem--that era has not come yet.

Many people come over to the Smiling hills, some think it is not necessary to go any farther to collect flower to make a bouquet. With forced gentle manner I reproached some of them, ordering to observe the rule, "vedere e non toccare." It go in force while I am present, not so in my absence. Those that made proverbs, their names ought to be immortal. Here for one, "When the cat is gone, the rats dance." How much true is in the Say. Every visitor like the place profane or not profane in artistic matter.

A glorious rain came last night to the great content of the farmers and gardeners--others not so. While I am writing from my Observatorio I can't see any indication of stopping. I don't think it will rain as much as when we had the universal deluge, but if the cause of said deluge was in order to get a better generation, it may. I don't think the actual generation is better than it was the anti-deluge, pardon me if you can't digest what I say. I am a pessimist to the superlative grade, and it is not without reason that I say so. I had sad experience with the World. Thank God for having doted me with a generous dose of philosophic! Swimming against the tide, not me, not such a fool I am!

Here is another pardon that I have to ask and it is to take the liberty of decorate the Smiling hill with the American flag. La Bandiera Stellata (note: I am not an American legally, no; to say I renounce to my country, impossible, but I am an American by heart if U. Sam can use me. I was not trained to be a soldier, but in matter of shooting very seldom I fail to get a rabbit when I want it, more so lately that a box of shells from 60 cents jumped to $1.00). As a rule the ridents colline are very monotonous, but when I am home, more so the Sunday, the "Marseillaise" no where is heard more than here; no animosity against nobody; Cosmopolitan, ardent admirer of C. Paine! The world is my country; to do good is my religion!

With fervent wishes of not having need of doctors or lawyers; with best regards to you and family, I am

Yours respectfully, CONSTANTINO GARIBALDI.

Unquestionably he has humor. After receiving more or less mixed orders from me, I have heard him softly singing in the courtyard, "Donna e mobile." I only regret that as a family we aren't musical enough to assist with the "Sextette" from "Lucia!"

Ever since we came to California we have been lucky about gardeners. I don't mean as horticulturists, but from the far more important standard of picturesqueness. Of course no one could equal Garibaldi with the romance of a distant relationship to the patriot and the grand manner no rake or hoe could efface, but Banksleigh had his own interest. He was an Englishman with pale blue eyes that always seemed to be looking beyond our horizon into space. There was something rather poetic and ethereal about him. Perhaps he didn't eat enough, or it may have been the effect of "New Thought," in one of the fifty-seven varieties of which he was a firm believer. He told me that his astral colors were red and blue, and that a phrenologist had told him that a bump on the back of his head indicated that he ought never to buy mining stock. With the same instinct that undid Bluebeard's and Lot's wives he had tried it, and is once more back at his job of gardening with an increased respect for phrenology.

I have a grudge against phrenologists myself. I had a relative who went to one when he was a young man, and was told that he had a wonderful baritone voice that he ought to cultivate. Up to that time he had only played the flute, but afterwards he sang every evening through a long life.

It distressed Banksleigh to see me lying about in hammocks on the verandah. He usually managed to give the vines in my neighborhood extra attention--like Garibaldi, he was a confirmed pruner. He told me that he wished I would take up New Thought, and was sure that if I thought strong I'd be strong. I wonder? One summer, lying in bed in a hospital where the heat was terrific, I found myself repeating over and over:

"Sabrina fair, Listen where thou art sitting, Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,"

and finding it far more cooling than iced orange juice. Was not I proving Banksleigh's contention? I was thinking cool and I was cool. In his own case New Thought seemed to work. He always looked ready to give up forever, and yet he never did.

California is full of people with queer quirks and they aren't confined to gardeners. I haven't had a hair-dresser who wasn't occult or psychic or something, from the Colonial Dame with premonitions to the last one, who had both inspirations and vibrations, and my hair keeps right on coming out.

I don't quite understand why gardeners should be queer. They say that cooks invariably become affected in time by so much bending over a hot stove, and that is easy to understand, but bending over nature ought to have quite the opposite effect, but it doesn't always. The lady gardener who laid out the garden that finally replaced our wild-flower tangle, proved that. She had a voice that would be wonderful in a shipyard, a firmness and determination that would be an asset to Congress and a very kind heart, also much taste and infinite knowledge of the preferences and peculiarites of California plants. Her right-hand man, "Will," was also odd. Unfortunately, his ideas were almost the opposite of hers. Before they arrived at our gate sounds of altercation were only too plain. She liked curves in the walks, he preferred corners; she liked tangles, he liked regular beds. What we liked seemed to be going to cut very little figure. All that was lacking was our architect friend, who had made the sketches and offered various suggestions of "amusing" things we might do. He also is firm, though his manner is mild, so the situation would have been even more "amusing" for the family on the side lines, had he been present. Owing to the placing of the house, we are doomed to have a lopsided garden whatever we do, but we want it to look wayward rather than eccentric. After a battle fought over nearly every inch of the ground the lady was victorious, for Will said to me as he watched her motor disappear: "I might as well do what she says or she'll make me do it over." In this J---- and I heartily concurred, for the simplest of arithmetical calculations would show that it would otherwise prove expensive.

Will had a worker whose unhappy lot it was to dig up stumps, apply the pick to the adobe parts of the soil, and generally to toil in the sweat of his brow. As a team they made some progress, and I began to have some hope of enjoying what I had always been led to believe was the treat of one's life--making a garden. I felt entirely care-free--the lady gardener was the boss and there was only room for one--directions were a drug on the market. This state of affairs was short-lived. Will failed to appear the third day out, and the lady gardener's pumping system for her nurseries blew up or leaked or lay down on the job in some way, so that the worker and I confronted each other, ignorant and unbossed. I will not dwell on the week that followed. The lady gardener gave almost vicious orders by telephone and the worker did his best, but it is not a handy way to direct a garden. When the last rosebush is in, including some that Will is gloomily certain will never grow, I think I shall go away for a rest to some place where there is only cactus and sage and sand.

J---- arrived on the scene in time to save the day, and the garden is very lovely. Next year it will be worth going a long way to see, for in this part of the world planting things is like playing with Japanese water flowers. A wall of gray stucco gently curves along the canyon side, while a high lattice on the other shows dim outlines of the hills beyond. In the wall are arches with gates so curved as to leave circular openings, through which we get glimpses of the sea. It makes me think of King Arthur's castle at Tintagel. In the lattice there is a wicket gate. There is something very alluring about a wicket gate--it connotes a Robin. Unfortunately, my Robin can only appear from Friday to Monday, but I'm not complaining. Any one is fortunate who can count on romance two days out of seven. At the far end of the garden is a screen designed to hide the peculiarites of the garage. The central panel is concrete with a window with green balusters; below is a wall fountain. The window suggests a half-hidden senorita. It really conceals a high-school boy who is driving the motor for me in J----'s absence, but that is immaterial. The fountain is set with sapphire-blue tiles and the water trickles from the mouth of the most amiable lion I ever saw. He was carved from Boise stone by one "Luigi" from a sketch by our architect friend. He has Albrecht Duerer curls--the lion I mean--four on a side that look like sticks of peppermint candy and we call him "Boysey."

The pool below him is a wonderful place for boat sailing. It fairly bristles with the masts of schooners and yachts, and the guns of torpedo destroyers, and while the architect and the grown-ups did not have a naval base in mind when the sketch was made, I do appreciate the feelings of my sons.

"There's a fountain in our garden, With the brightest bluest tiles And the pleasantest stone lion Who spits into it and smiles! It's shaded by papyrus And reeds and grasses tall, Just a little land-locked harbor Beside the garden wall.

"They talked of water-lilies And lotus pink and white-- We didn't dare to say a word But we wished with all our might, For how could we manoeuvre The submarine we've got, If they go and clutter up the place With all that sort of rot.

"But mother said she thought perhaps We'd wait another year, 'It's such a lovely place to play, We ought to keep it clear.' So there's nothing but a goldfish Who has to be a Hun, I don't suppose he likes it, But gee, it's lots of fun!"

Some day we are going to have a sun dial. J---- thought of a wonderful motto in the best Latin, and now he can't remember it, which is harrowing, because it would be so stylish to have a perfectly original one. It was something about not wanting to miss the shady hours for the sake of having all sunny ones. At any rate, we are resolved not to have "I count none but sunny hours."

There are all kinds of responsibilities in life, and picking the right shade of paint for a house you have to live in is a most wearing one. Painting the trimming of ours in connection with the garden was very agitating. I had sample bits of board painted and took them about town, trying them next to houses I liked, and at last decided on a wicked Spanish green that the storms of winter are expected to mellow. As I saw it being put on the house I felt panic-stricken. For a nice fresh vegetable or salad, yes, but for a house--never! And yet it is a great success! I don't know whether it has "sunk in," as the painter consoled me by predicting, or whether it is that we are used to it; at any rate, every one likes it so much that I have cheerfully removed smears of it from the clothing of all the family, including the puppies' tails.

As to ourselves in the role of gardeners--there were not two greener greenhorns when we first resolved to stay in California; we still are, though I think I do J---- an injustice in classing him with me. We can make geraniums grow luxuriantly, but we don't want to. I wish they would pass a law in Southern California making the growing of red geraniums a criminal offense. So many people love to combine them with bougainvillia and other brilliant pink or purple flowers, and the light is hard enough on eyes without adding that horror. We are resolved to progress from the geranium age to the hardy perennial class, and are industriously studying books and magazines with that end in view. The worst of garden literature is that it is nearly all written for an Eastern climate. Once I subscribed for a garden magazine, lured by a bargain three months' offer. Never again! At the end of the time, when no regular subscription came in from me, letters began to arrive. Finally one saying, "You probably think this is another letter urging you to subscribe. It is not; it is only to beg that you will confidentially tell us why you do not." I told him that all our conditions here are so different from those in the East. People want Italian and Spanish gardens, and there is the most marvellous choice of flowers, shrubs, and vines with which to get them, but we want to be told how, and added to this, it is heart-breaking to love a fountain nymph in the advertisements and to find that her travelling expenses would bankrupt you.

One marvellous opportunity we have--the San Diego Exposition, whose gardens are more lovely than ever, though soldiers and sailors are feeding the pigeons in the Plaza de Panama instead of tourists. The real intention of that exposition was to show people in this part of the world what they could do with the great variety of plants and shrubs that thrive here.