One of the first things I did on getting settled on my ranch, the second time I was in California, was to get a wagon and go down to my eucalyptus grove for a load of the pale green aromatic boughs with which to trim my attic study; for their fragrance is delightful and their delicate blue-green tone lends itself readily to decorative purposes. When the supply needed replenishing, I rode down on Mountain Billy and carried home the sweet-smelling branches on the saddle.

The grove served a more utilitarian purpose, however. The eucalyptus is an Australian tree, with narrow straight-hanging leaves, and its rapid growth makes it useful for firewood. A tree will grow forty feet in four years, and when cut off a few feet above the ground will spring up again and soon be ready to yield another crop. My grove had never been cut, but would soon be old enough. In the photograph of a eucalyptus avenue near Los Angeles, the row of trees on the right have been cut near the ground and the branching trunks are the consequence.[212]
EUCALYPTUS AVENUE, SHOWING POLLARDED TREES ON THE RIGHT, NEAR LOS ANGELES EUCALYPTUS AVENUE, SHOWING POLLARDED TREES ON THE RIGHT, NEAR LOS ANGELES

My eucalyptus or blue gum grove was down near the big sycamore, and opposite the bare knoll where Romulus and the burrowing owls had their nightly battles. On one side of it was a rustling cornfield always pleasant to look at. After the bare yellow stubble and all the reds and browns of a California summer landscape, its rich dark green color and its stanch, strong stalks made it seem a very plain honest sort of field, and its greenness was most grateful to eyes unused to the bright colors and strong lights of California.

Opposite the little grove, in a small house perched on a hill, an old sea-captain lived alone. As I rode by one day, he sat with his feet hanging over the edge of the high piazza, looking off; as if on the prow of his vessel, gazing out to sea. When I stopped to ask if he had seen anything noteworthy happen at the grove, he complained that it shut off his view and kept away the breeze from the ocean! I was too much taken by surprise to apologize for my trees, but felt reproached; unwittingly I had destroyed the old captain's choicest pleasure. He had spoken in an impersonal way that I quite understood,—he had been taken unawares,—but the next time I rode past, as if to make up for any apparent rudeness, he came hurrying down the walk to tell me of a crow's nest he had seen in the grove. To mark it he had[213] fastened a piece of paper to the wire fence by the road, and another paper to the nest tree, binding it on with a eucalyptus twig in true sailor fashion.

It was always a relief to leave the hot beating sun and the glare of the yellow fields and enter the cool shade of the quiet grove. I could let down the fence and put it up behind me; thus having my small forest all to myself; and used to enjoy riding up and down the fragrant blue avenues. The eucalyptus-trees, although thirty or forty feet high, were lithe and slender; some of them could be spanned by the hands. The rows were planted ten feet apart, but the long branches interlaced, so one had to be on the alert, in riding down the lines, to bend low on the saddle or push aside the branches that obstructed the way. The limbs were so slender and flexible that a touch was enough to bend back a green gate fifteen to twenty feet long, and Billy often pushed a branch aside with his nose. In places, fallen trees barred our path, but Billy used to step carefully over them.

The eucalyptus-trees change very curiously as they grow old. When young they are covered with branches low to the ground, and their aromatic tender leaves are light bluish green; afterwards they lose their lower branches, while their leaves become stiff and sickle-shaped, dull green and almost odorless. The same changes[214] are seen in the bark: first the trunks are smooth and green; then they are hung with shaggy shreds of bark; this in turn drops off so that the old trees are smooth again. Some of the young shoots have almost white stems, and their leaves have a pinkish tinge. Indeed, a young blue gum is as pretty a sight as one often sees; it is a tree of exquisite delicacy of coloring.
EUCALYPTUS WOOD STORED FOR MARKET, IN A EUCALYPTUS GROVE NEAR LOS ANGELES EUCALYPTUS WOOD STORED FOR MARKET, IN A EUCALYPTUS GROVE NEAR LOS ANGELES

Mountain Billy and I both liked to wander among the blue gums. Billy liked it, perhaps, for association's sake, for we had ridden through the eucalyptus at his home in northern California. I too had pleasant memories of the northern gums, but my first interest was in finding out who lived in my little woods. A dog had once been seen driving a coyote wolf out of it, but that was merely in passing. I did not expect to meet wolves there. It was said, however, to be a good place for tarantulas, so at first I stepped over the dead leaf carpet with great caution; but never seeing any of the big spiders, grew brave and sat indifferently right on the ground before the nests, or leaning up against the trees. The ground was almost as hard as a rock, for the eucalyptus absorbed all the moisture, and that may have had something to do with its freedom from snakes and scorpions, though it would not explain the absence of caterpillars and spiders, which just then were so common outside. Though in the[215] grove a great deal, I never ran into but one cobweb, and was conscious of the pleasant freedom from falling caterpillars. Moreover, I never saw a lizard in the blue gums, though dozens of them were to be seen about the oaks and in the brush.

It was a surprise to find so many feathered folks living in the eucalyptus, and I took a personal interest in each one of the inhabitants. The first time we started to go up and down the avenues we scared up a pair of turtle doves, beautiful, delicately tinted gentle creatures, fit tenants of the lovely grove. They did not know my friendly interest in them, and flew to the ground trailing and trying to decoy me away in such a marked manner that when we passed a young dove a few yards farther on, it was easy to put two and two together.

Yellow-birds called cheet'-tee, ca-cheet'-ta-tee, and the grove became musical with the sweet calls of the young brood. There was one nest ............