The San Rosario Ranch

How it begins

The house was a large square building, simple and hospitable in appearance. A wide veranda ran about the four sides, heavily draped by climbing roses and clematis. There were indisputable evidences that visitors were expected. Old Tip, the dog, knew it as well as everybody else about the house. He had been routed out from his favorite spot on the sunny side of the piazza, by Ah Lam, who had given him a shower-bath of water and soap-suds, because he did not move away to make room for the scrubbing-brush which the white-clad Celestial plied vigorously. From earliest morning the inhabitants of the simple house had been busied in making it ready.