Perhaps my enthusiasm for California sounds a little like cupboard love.
There is a certain type of magazine which publishes the most alluring
pictures of food, salads and desserts, even a table with the implements
laid out ready for canning peaches, that holds a fatal fascination for
me. I have even noticed J---- looking at one with interest. When my
father comes out to visit us every spring, the truck gardens, the
packing houses, and the cost of living here, I think, affect him in much
the same way that those magazines do me, and I wonder if every one,
except a dyspeptic, doesn't secretly like to hear and see these very
things! Could it be the reason people used to paint so much still
life?--baskets of fruit, a hunter's game-bag, a divided melon, etc. I
frankly own that they would thrill me more if I knew their market price,
so that I might be imagining what delightful meals I could offer my
family without straining the household purse, which is my excuse for the
intimate details concerning food and prices which I have given.
Surely human beings ought to respond as the fruits do to this climate,
in spirit as well as in body, and become a very mellow, amiable,
sweet-tempered lot of people, and I think they do.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131