'How intense everything is in California! Do you know what I mean,
mamma?' said Bell. 'The fruit is so immense, the canyons so deep,
the trees so big, the hills so high, the rain so wet, and the drought
so dry.'
'The fleas so many, the fleas so spry,' chanted Jack, who had
perceived that Bell was talking in rhyme without knowing it.
'California is just the place for you, Bell; it gives you a chance
for innumerable adjectives heaped one on the other.'
'I don't always heap up adjectives,' replied Bell, with dignity.
'When I wish to describe you, for instance, I simply say "that
hateful boy," and let it go at that.'
Jack retired to private life for a season.
'I'd like to paint a picture of Teresita,' said Margery, who had a
pretty talent for sketching, 'and call it The Summer Child, or some
such thing. I should think the famous old colour artists might have
loved to paint this gorgeous flame-tinted poppy.'
'Not poppy,--eschscholtzia,' corrected Jack, coming rapidly to the
surface again, after Bell's rebuke, and delivering himself of the
tongue-confusing word with a terrible grimace.
'I'm not writing a botany,' retorted Margery; 'and I can never
remember that word, much less spell it. I don't see how it grows
under such an abominable Russian name. It's worse than
ichthyosaurus. Do you remember that funny nonsense verse? -
"I is for ichthyosaurus,
Who lived when the world was all porous;
But he fainted with shame
When he first heard his name,
And departed a long while before us.
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