3. III.
Soon after I moved into Happy Valley I was
struck with the remarkable infelicity of its title.
Generous as Californians are in the use of adjectives,
this passed into the domain of irony. But I was inclined
to think it sincere—the production of a weak
but gushing mind, just as the feminine nomenclature
of streets in the vicinity was evidently bestowed by
one in habitual communion with “Friendship's Gifts”
and “Affection's Offerings.”
Our house on Laura Matilda Street looked somewhat
like a toy Swiss Cottage—a style of architecture
so prevalent, that in walking down the block it
was quite difficult to resist an impression of fresh
glue and pine shavings. The few shade trees might
have belonged originally to those oval Christmas
boxes which contain toy villages; and even the people
who sat by the windows had a stiffness that made
them appear surprisingly unreal and artificial. A
little dog belonging to a neighbor was known to the
members of my household by the name of “Glass,”
from the general suggestion he gave of having been
spun of that article. Perhaps I have somewhat exaggerated
these illustrations of the dapper nicety of
our neighborhood—a neatness and conciseness which
I think has a general tendency to belittle, dwarf and
contract their objects. For we gradually fell into
small ways and narrow ideas, and to some extent
squared the round world outside to the correct angles
of Laura Matilda Street.
One reason for this insincere quality may have
been the fact that the very foundations of our neighborhood
were artificial. Laura Matilda Street was
“made ground.” The land, not yet quite reclaimed,
was continually struggling with its old enemy. We
had not been long in our new home before we found
an older tenant, not yet wholly divested of his
rights, who sometimes showed himself in clammy
perspiration on the basement walls, whose damp
breath chilled our dining-room, and in the night
struck a mortal chilliness through the house. There
were no patent fastenings that could keep him out—
no writ of unlawful detainer that could eject him.
In the winter his presence was quite palpable; he
sapped the roots of the trees, he gurgled under the
kitchen floor, he wrought an unwholesome greenness
on the side of the verandah. In summer he became
invisible, but still exercised a familiar influence over
the locality. He planted little stitches in the small
of the back, sought out old aches and weak joints,
and sportively punched the tenants of the Swiss
Cottage under the ribs. He inveigled little children
to play with him, but his plays generally ended in
scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough, and measles.
He sometimes followed strong men about
until they sickened suddenly and took to their beds.
But he kept the green-plants in good order, and was
very fond of verdure, bestowing it even upon lath
and plaster and soulless stone. He was generally
invisible, as I have said; but some time after I had
moved, I saw him one morning from the hill, stretching
his grey wings over the valley, like some fabulous
vampire, who had spent the night sucking the
wholesome juices of the sleepers below, and was
sluggish from the effects of his repast. It was then
that I recognized him as Malaria, and knew his
abode to be the dread Valley of the shadow of Miasma—miscalled
the Happy Valley!
On week days there was a pleasant melody of boiler-making
from the foundries, and the gas works in the
vicinity sometimes lent a mild perfume to the breeze.
Our street was usually quiet, however—a foot-ball
being sufficient to draw the inhabitants to their front
windows, and to oblige an incautious trespasser to
run the gauntlet of batteries of blue and black eyes
on either side of the way. A carriage passing
through it communicated a singular thrill to the
floors, and caused the china on the dining-table to
rattle. Although we were comparatively free from
the prevailing winds, wandering gusts sometimes got
bewildered and strayed unconsciously into our street,
and finding an unencumbered field, incontinently set
up a shriek of joy and went gleefully to work on
the clothes-lines and chimney-pots, and had a good
time generally until they were quite exhausted. I
have a very vivid picture in my memory of an organ-grinder
who was at one time blown into the end of
our street, and actually blown through it in spite of
several ineffectual efforts to come to a stand before
the different dwellings, but who was finally whirled
out of the other extremity, still playing and vainly
endeavoring to pursue his unhallowed calling. But
these were noteworthy exceptions to the calm and
even tenor of our life.
There was contiguity but not much sociability in
our neighborhood. From my bed-room window I
could plainly distinguish the peculiar kind of victuals
spread on my neighbor's dining table; while, on the
other hand, he obtained an equally uninterrupted
view of the mysteries of my toilette. Still that
“low vice, curiosity,” was regulated by certain laws,
and a kind of rude chivalry invested our observations.
A pretty girl, whose bed-room window was
the cynosure of neighboring eyes, was once brought
under the focus of an opera glass in the hands of one
of our ingenious youth; but this act met such
prompt and universal condemnation as an unmanly
advantage, from the lips of married men and bachelors
who didn't own opera glasses, that it was never
repeated.
With this brief sketch I conclude my record of
the neighborhoods I have moved from. I have
moved from many others since then, but they have
generally presented features not dissimilar to the
three I have endeavored to describe in these pages.
I offer them as types containing the salient pecularities
of all. Let no inconsiderate reader rashly
move on account of them. My experience has not
been cheaply bought. From the nettle Change I
have tried to pluck the flower Security. Draymen
have grown rich at my expense. House-agents have
known me and were glad, and landlords have risen
up to meet me from afar. The force of habit impels
me still to consult all the bills I see in the streets,
nor can the war telegrams divert my first attention
from the advertising columns of the daily papers. I
repeat, let no man think I have disclosed the weaknesses
of the neighborhood, nor rashly open that
closet which contains the secret skeleton of his dwelling.
My carpets have been altered to fit all sized
odd shaped apartments from parallelopiped to hexagons.
Much of my furniture has been distributed
among my former dwellings. These limbs have
stretched upon uncarpeted floors, or have been let
down suddenly from imperfectly-established bedsteads.
I have dined in the parlor and slept in the
back kitchen. Yet the result of these sacrifices and
trials may be briefly summed up in the statement
that I am now on the eve of removal from my
Present Neighborhood.
