Chapter LXXXV
CALIFORNIA
What a royal country is California!
I am the happy possessor of an alfalfa and orange ranch in San Jacinto county. How beautiful it is! As I stand under the trees at sunset I contemplate a scene not equaled even in the beautiful Austrian Tyrol!
Down from the mountain top, furrowed with many natural terraces from the base to the crest, trimmed by gradually receding rows of full grown orange trees to the infant ones, just planted, I look with reverence upon the valley. I see the bovine and the hog bow as the Angelus is heard. The lilac and the rose hold converse and whisper to the sun to shed less light that they may embrace and sink into the night. The chug of the practical water pump gives demonstration that it must nourish the alfalfa's life, only to destroy it, to give added life to the tenants of the velvety carpet.
All is hushed, the fowls bidden hence by the watchman, Chanticleer, to their respective homes, Mistress Hen to quench the fires and prepare for dawn. The stately Eucalyptus nods his head signifying that time is done. The sun apologetically starts away to make his daily run. The vegetables prepare themselves for the noonday meal, the barley and the oats keep tune to the zephyr's lullaby as they sink gracefully into slumberland.
From the East the gentleman called Moon appears and smilingly bids all good cheer, for, when he's on the watch, care vanishes.
All is hushed.
The twinkling of the stars seems to make a melody as they hit and strike each other down the heavens. Something moves, as if to destroy the harmony of thought. An Indian glides by with just a sign of recognition as he passes on to the adjacent mountain, which the government is pleased to call a reservation.
A limpid, casual stream flows slyly down as if fearful of discovery. The shrill, demoniac bark of the coyote gives the chickens and the goats warning that the scavenger of the desert is near, seeking to destroy. Then all is hushed again and a luminous silence known only to the few imparts to us the fact that a day has died. But another and another will yet be born – and thus they'll come and go until eternity.
Life is a bridge of sighs over which memory glides into a torrent of tears.
There is nothing so serious as fun.
I have never known a true comedian who was not a master of sentiment.
All the tragedians whom I have ever known were never more tragic than when they tried to be comic.
Chapter LXXXVI
I BECOME A BARNSTORMER!
While I was at work on my ranch, disgusted with the methods of New York managers, I received a proposition from Oliver Morosco to appear in New York under his management in a new play which I was first to try out with one of his stock companies in Los Angeles. If that play proved a failure Morosco agreed to submit others to me until we finally succeeded in finding a success. Evidently my short season with the opposition stock company had given Morosco pause!
It looked like an advantageous offer and I accepted, consenting to appear in "Oliver Twist" in one of his stock houses – among other plays. We had just begun rehearsals of "Oliver Twist" when an accident laid me low.
Morosco, who was in New York at the time, sent two of his employees to my house within an hour after I had been carried in and from them and from him, by telegrams, I received repeated assurances that I need not worry, that the contract would continue in force indefinitely. As soon as I should be able to appear on the stage Morosco promised to carry out his part of the agreement to the letter.
I was sufficiently recovered in February, 1913, to appear as Fagin. The play ran three weeks at the stock house in Los Angeles and then I found myself wondering what was to become of me! The great Morosco was "back East" somewhere. No one seemed to be able to locate him or to get word to him. So I waited about four or five weeks on the pleasure of this magnate! Finally came word that we were to organize a company on the spot and make a tour of the Coast in "Oliver Twist," extending it to Canada and continuing in it for the remainder of the season.
I had heard of but had never known what "barnstorming" meant before.
I know now!
The production which Morosco sent out with me was the thrown-together junk which had been used in the stock production. It was never intended to last more than a few weeks or to be moved! It was quite the worst collection of moth-eaten scenery and "properties" I ever saw. The company, with a very few exceptions, was recruited from the members of the Morosco stock companies who chanced to be idle at the moment. Some of the men, driven desperate by the nature of the backwoods country through which our route lay, were thoroughly intoxicated (and not infrequently blind drunk!) most of the time – and I for one had no heart to reprove them!
Some of the towns we played are not on any map – the map could never survive it! From pillar to post we were yanked along over single-track railroads – with bits of our scenery falling out through open baggage doors all along the line! How that scenery ever managed to hang together as long as it did has always puzzled me. Finally we had to eliminate the London bridge scene. The platforms were so insecure it was positively dangerous for the actors to stand on them. This was one of the greatest and most effective scenes in the New York production and gave my leading woman, Miss Moreland, as Nancy, one of her biggest moments.
The night before we took it off, in one of the smaller Coast towns, some of the gallery boys, noticing the stone (!) steps and huge pillars of granite (God save the mark!) wabbling to and fro, began to whistle "London Bridge is falling down" – and in a moment the whole house had taken it up!
That was enough for me. After five weeks of miserable business we closed in Victoria and I returned to my beach home outside Los Angeles to the far more congenial task of completing this book. I sincerely hope you, dear reader, will find as much pleasure in reading what I've written as I have found in its composition. I have striven to be kind to everyone in these pages and if any of my criticisms appear harsh or my views on various subjects be considered arrogant, pray accept my apologies. I have written as I think and whatever the verdict I stand by my guns.
What will the verdict be?
I wonder.
I say I returned to my home to complete this book. I did – and I thank the gods that Fate stepped in and for once was kindly enough disposed to permit me to write the most appropriate and happy finis any book of mine could have!
Fact and unconsecrated fields oppose faith and architecture.
Chapter LXXXVII
NUMBER FIVE
The day (a beautiful day in May, 1913, such a day as only Southern California at its happiest moment knows), I made Margaret Moreland my wife I once again set the buzzards and the gossips to wagging their ears and tongues and lashing their tails (I have always been sure both HAVE tails!).
My first (wife) was an angel;
My second a silly woman;
My third a Roman Senator;
My fourth a pretty little thing;
My fifth – all woman!
My whole (desire) was by repetition to prove that hope can conquer experience!
Chapter LXXXVIII
L'ENVOI
I am sorry for the poor American who deserts this sun-kissed California country for worn-out Europe. I am enjoying the breezes and ozone wafted from the great Pacific while poor deluded Eastern folk are festering in heat and humidity, varied only by an occasional murky thunderstorm.
I face the sea and at my back are roses! On either side the blue-brown mountains hold converse with the sun and stars and dip their august heads in silent acquiescence to the others' whispers. At night massive Mars, always on duty, ever luminous, sternly bids them silence and the world to "go to" while he blinks a patronizing approval upon those "beneath" him. He has much of cynicism in his blinking as he contemplates this tiny carbon, Earth, for all his constant attendance.
Mars is my companion, ever peering through my casement. Only our sex and distance prevent a silent flirtation! I am sometimes tempted to address him anyhow, but his majesty always awes me. Still, I find consolation communing with the waves that lull me to sleep as they embrace the sandy shore. The consolation is all too brief, the sleep intermittent, and I awake to fly back to the companionship of Mars.
He is such a splendid officer! Always on guard – at sea and over the desert. He seldom shows himself resplendent in crowded cities. He dislikes company and turmoil. He is always alone, now and then racing with the moon and always leaving that gentleman to the left as he smilingly beckons the wary miner of the desert and the patient mariner of the sea to the right. Mars knows the road – a magnificent, reticent soldier – and I pray ere long my friend Tesla will make him better known.
The drab morning is approaching o'er the mountain tops. A sea gull of corresponding color is on the sand, seeking what it may devour. The color of the bird and atmosphere are not to my fancy.
I am going to beg a favor of sleep and awake when the colors are more radiant, when the sunbeams glisten and dance from sky to wave, when the white clouds meet and kiss the shadow that lets fall diamond drops of crystal that quench the thirst of the flowers and give them life.
My home is by the sea. My lot is one hundred feet wide. Its height is interminable. It is a thousand fathoms deep! My front yard extends to the Antipodes.
Am I not to be envied?