Alice had no time to catch her breath before the next wonder—trees more than 300 feet high and 30 feet thick. She had to lie on her back to see the tops of them. They looked very very old, and she thought they must have been born in the days when giants lived.
" Were they here when Columbus came to Amer ica?" Alice asked.
" Oh, yes, wise men think some of them might have been 5,000 years old when Columbus came." Dear, dear ! Mice wondered if they weren't tired standing and holding the blue sky up so long. Little white clouds seemed to be tangled in their evergreen leaves.
The farther south they went the warmer and dryer it became. Still there were wheat fields and sheep, I and by and by there were orchards of gray-green olive trees, and vineyards of big white grapes on gravelly hillsides. Some of the farms had queer houses of sun-dried yellow bricks, and with flat roofs. Many of the people were dark in complexion, with big black eyes. Almost every town and river was called " San" or " Santa" something, which grandfather said was Spanish for "Saint." How did Spanish people ever get away over into Southern California? Alice asked a sheep rancher that, as she drank milk and ate figs as sweet as honey in the patio, or inner court, of his house. He took off his broad-brimmed, gold-laced, pointed hat very politely and said that he did not know. They had been there a long time. Then she asked a priest at an Indian mission church. He said the Spanish people came up from Mexico to live, many many years before gold was found in California. They brought seeds and plants from Mexico and coaxed water down from the mountains, and made a garden out of the desert. Many of the gold seekers of '49 did not go back home, but went down the valley 500 miles to the old Spanish towns. There they estab lished farms and towns near the sea around Los Angeles. The Spanish had built a town there of sun-dried bricks, and called it the City of the Queen of the Angels. Now it was a great rich American city with nearly 600,000 inhabitants.
Right above the city of Los Angeles were snow covered mountains with real Christmas trees growing on their slopes. On New Year's Day there was a flower festival. Hundreds of carriages and automo biles went in procession, covered with roses, and flower-fairies rode in open cars. Alice was a white orange blossom in a bride's wreath of little girls.
Alice was so happy she couldn't sleep a wink that night, and wished she might live in the City of Angels forever.