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Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith, 1856-1923

"A Summer in a Canyon"

I shall be the Buffalo Bill of Harvard, and I
shall give charming little entertainments in my rooms, or in some
little garden-plot suitable to the purpose.'
'Shall you make a point of keeping up with your class?' asked Mrs.
Winship.
'Oh yes, unless they go too fast. My sports won't take any more time
than rowing or baseball. They'll be a little more expensive, because
I'll have to keep some wild cattle constantly on hand, and perhaps a
vaquero or two; but a vaquero won't cost any more than a valet.'
'I didn't intend furnishing you with a valet,' remarked his mother.
'But I shall be self-supporting, mother dear. I shall give
exhibitions on the campus, and the gate-money will keep me in
luxury.'
'This is all very interesting,' said Polly, cuttingly; 'but what has
it to do with California, I'd like to know?'
'Poor dear! Your brain is so weak. Can't you see that when I am the
fashion in Cambridge, it will be noised about that I gained my
marvellous skill in California? This will increase emigration. I
don't pretend to say it will swell the population like the discovery
of gold in '48, but it will have a perceptible effect.'
'You are more modest than a whole mossy bank of violets,' laughed Dr.
Paul. 'Now, Margery, will you give us your legend?'
'Mine is the story of Juan de Dios (literally, Juan of God), and I'm
sorry to say that it has a horse in it, like Polly's; only hers was a
snow-white mare, and mine is a coal-black charger.


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