" J---- and I took no chances, and ate in silence. Anyway,
the eggs were fresh. We explored the country as well as we could in the
fog, and found quite a large part of it well under water. On one ranch
we met a morose gentleman in hip boots, wading about his property, which
looked like a pretty lake with an R. F. D. box sticking up here and
there like a float on a fishing line, while a gay party of boys and
girls were rowing through an avenue of pepper trees in an old boat. The
gentleman in the hip boots had bought his place in summer! J---- and I
decided then and there that if we ever bought any property in
California, it would be in the midst of the spring rains, but we know
now that even that wouldn't be safe--another element has to be reckoned
with besides water--fire.
Of course Rain in California is spelled with a capital R. Noah spelled
it that way, but we didn't before we came West. It swells the streams,
which in summer are nothing but trickles, to rushing torrents in no
time. Bridges snap like twigs, dams burst, telegraph lines collapse;
rivers even change their courses entirely, if they feel like it, so that
it would really be a good idea to build extra bridges wherever it seemed
that a temperamental river might decide to go.
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