University of Virginia Library

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 have 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 veranda. 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 gray 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 footfall 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 bedroom 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 toilet.
Still, that “low vice, curiosity,” was regulated by
certain laws, and a kind of rude chivalry invested
our observation. A pretty girl, whose bedroom
window was the cynosure of neighboring eyes,
was once brought under the focus of an opera-glass
in the hands of one of our ingenuous youth; but this
act met such prompt and universal condemnation,
as an unmanly advantage, from the lips of married
men and bachelors who did n'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
peculiarities 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.