When she was fifteen she sat breathless in the movies and watched
picturesque horsemen careering up and down and around the thousand
hills, and believed in her heart that half the Western pictures were
taken on or near her father's ranch. She seemed to remember certain
landmarks, and would point them out to her companions and whisper a
desultory lecture on the cattle industry as illustrated by the picture.
She was much inclined to criticism of the costuming and the acting.
At eighteen she knew definitely that she hated the very name Casa
Grande. She hated the narrow, half-lighted hallway with its "tree"
where no one ever hung a hat, and the seat beneath where no one ever sat
down. She hated the row of key-and-mail boxes on the wall, with the bell
buttons above each apartment number. She hated the jangling of the hall
telephone, the scurrying to answer, the prodding of whichever bell
button would summon the tenant asked for by the caller. She hated the
meek little Filipino boy who swept that ugly hall every morning. She
hated the scrubby palms in front. She hated the pillars where the paint
was peeling badly.
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