Page 14 - hssc1929parks

In Pursuit of Vanished Days 147

The old William Workman adobe at Puente.
". . . firm and sturdy to this day. . ."
Thinking of the house as it was in those times, we re-
construct in imagination a typical ranch house of pastoral
California, built of what materials the land offered,
adapted
to the ne'eds of a life quite baronial, in its isolation as mana-
gerial center of a veritable little principality.
This house was built by a man born to the traditions of
another clime and another country. Unlike most early Cali-
fornia adobes, it had a cellar, or rather, a series of cellars.
Two were wine cellars, into one of which the great casks, filled
with the delicious product of Don Julian's vineyards and
winery, were rolled upon a runway of planks. Next to this
a cellar apartment to which the worn stairway of wood, with
creaking unsteady treads, descends from the rear veranda,
place, paved with brick
was the kitchen. A small, ill-lighted
- a queer kitchen. One cannot help but attempt a hazy com-
putation of the trips made over those steps, by Indian feet,
down and up, up and down the stairs, carrying the steaming
with emptied plates from the dining room
dishes, returning