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So they did; and Jessica thought she had never seen anything so wonderful as this traveling disclosed. Especially was she interested in the “tourist” carriages; for until now she had associated that word with the wealthy, rather impertinent persons who made southern California a winter amusement ground and had none too much respect for the rights of residents whose ranches they visited. One such group, she well remembered, had driven over Sobrante as if it had been a public park, or with even greater freedom, since its temporarily absent mistress returned to find her garden despoiled of its floral treasures.

“Tourist” now began to stand for other things, in this young traveler’s mind. For weary mothers, cooking scant messes for their fretful babies upon the great stove in the corner of the car; for bare seats, sometimes heaped with all sorts of household belongings; for, indeed, a glimpse of that poverty to which the strict economies of Sobrante seemed actual luxury.

“Why, how different it is from our place in the ‘Arizona!’ I never, never, saw so many children! How they do cry! How hot and tired the mothers look! Oh! can’t I do something for somebody?” cried the girl, actually distressed by the discomfort about her.