Of course we were celebrities, in a way, but in a
very horrid way. Dad was Old Tom Middleton, who used to keep a
livery-stable in San Bernardino, and I was Old Tom Middleton's girl,
"who actually used to live over a livery-stable, my dear!" It sounds
fearfully sordid, doesn't it?
But it wasn't sordid, really, for I never actually lived over a
stable. Indeed, we had the sweetest cottage in all San Bernardino. I
remember it so well: the long, cool porch, the wonderful gold-of-
Ophir roses, the honeysuckle where the linnets nested, the mocking
birds that sang all night long; the perfume of the jasmine, of the
orange-blossoms, the pink flame of the peach trees in April, the
ever-changing color of the mountains. And I remember Ninette, my
little Creole mother, gay as a butterfly, carefree as a meadow-lark.
'Twas she who planted the jasmine.
My little mother died when I was seven years old. Dad and I and my
old black mammy, Rachel, stayed on in the cottage. The mocking-birds
still sang, and the linnets still nested in the honeysuckle, but
nothing was ever quite the same again. It was like a different
world; it was a different world. There were gold-of-Ophir roses,
and, peach blossoms in April, but there was no more jasmine; Dad had
it all dug up.
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