"For heaven's sake, shut that dog up." We all bore it with Christian resignation when his family decided to take a motor camping trip, Prince to be included in the party. He is probably

even now waking the echoes on Lake Tahoe, or barking himself hoarse at the Bridal Veil Falls in the Yosemite, but thank goodness we can't hear him quite as far away as that.

I dare say that he might be a perfectly nice, desirable dog if he had had any early training. Our own "pufflers," as the boys call "Rags" and "Tags," their twin silver-haired Yorkshire terriers, could tell him what a restraining influence the force of early training has on them, even on moonlight nights.

Prince is the worst affliction we have had, but not the only one. The people on the mountain-slope above us acquired a yellowish collie-like dog to scare away coyotes. He ought to have been a success at it, though I don't know just what it takes to scare a coyote. At any rate, he

used to bark long and grievously about dawn in the road across the canyon. One morning I was almost frantic with the irregularity of his outbursts. It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. Suddenly a rifle shot rang out; a spurt of yellow dust, a streak of yellow dog, and silence! I rushed to J——'s room, to find him with the weapon, still smoking, in his hands. I begged him not to start a neighborhood feud, even if we never slept after dawn. I even wept. He laughed at me. "I didn't shoot at him," he said. "I shot a foot behind him, and I've given him a rare fright!" He had, indeed. The terror of the coyotes never came near us again.

As to servants, the subject is so rich that I can only choose. Unfortunately, the glory of the view does not make up to

them for the lack of town bustle and nightly "movies," so it isn't always easy to make comfortable summer arrangements. As you start so you go on, for changing horses in mid-stream has ever been a parlous business. A temperamental high-school boy who came to drive the 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.

The sentence was for three months, which suited me exactly, as I calculated that his release and our return to town would happily synchronize. Mandy really stood the gaff pretty well and returned to her job, and an armed neutrality ensued, varied by mild outbreaks. Essie was afraid of Mandy. She said that she would never stay in the house with her alone; Mandy wouldn't stay in the house alone after dark, so it became rather complicated. We apparently had to take them or else find them weeping on the hillside,

when we came back from a picnic. In justice to the darky heart I must say that when Billie was taken very ill they buried the hatchet for the time, and helped us all to pull him through.

The summer was almost over when I began to suffer from a strange hallucination. I kept seeing a colored gentleman slipping around corners when I approached. As Mandy was usually near said corner, I certainly thought of George, but calmed myself with the reflection that he was safe in jail. Not so. George had experienced a change of heart and had behaved in so exemplary a manner that his sentence had been shortened two weeks, and what more natural than that he should join his wife? It wasn't that I was afraid of George; I was afraid for George. I did not want him to meet Essie, for if Grandma's smile

had cost him so dearly, I hated to think of the effect of Essie's black eyes and unbroken set of white teeth. I needn't have worried, for George was apparently "sick of lies and women," and never let go his hold on the apron-string to which he was in duty bound.

This summer I am unusually fortunate, owing to a moment of clear vision that I had forty-eight hours before leaving town. I had a Christian Science cook, a real artist if given unlimited materials, and she didn't mind loneliness, as she said that God is everywhere; to which I heartily agreed. I know that He is on this hill-top. So far so good, but her idea of obeying Mr. Hoover's precepts was not to mention that any staple was out until the last moment. At about six o'clock she usually came pussy-footing to my door in the tennis shoes she

always wore, to tell me that there wasn't a potato in the