Page 171 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

At the secondhand shop

policemen at the crossings if they had seen that dog. As all the police
at the First Street station knew us and the dog, they called their
friends at the station and asked them to keep on the lookout for the
dog. After searching in vain for an hour, I went glumly home for
lunch. Fannie was greatly worried when I had not come home for
lunch, since the dog had come home and been fed, but she laughed
and said, “The dog has more sense than you. Lunch was ready, and
now it is cold.” When he was through with his meal he just went
back to the shop down the side of the hill and never waited for me.
That was the talk of the policemen.
He was the best little dog, but he had a bad habit. Ben used to
wash him practically every day, as he was pure white, but when he
was cleaned and dried he used to get out of the towel and roll on the
floor—which we oiled often with cedar oil to keep the dust down.
Then he looked black and greasy and Ben had fits. One day, after
Ben had washed him and he looked very white, a man and a woman
passed by in a Packard. They stopped and came in, and asked how
much for the dog. We were not willing to sell him, so we asked a high
price, twenty-five dollars. The man took out the money and put it on
the counter. I was sorry, but it was too late to back out. This was the
first of my chain of dog affairs, which lasted for years until the
children grew up and the machine became a competitor for man’s
best friend.
An incident I remember occurred during the time we lived on
Ceres Avenue. Nowadays, in the machine age, when an automobile
can climb any mountain at any height, Mount Wilson has lost its
interest; but in those days, it attracted the youth and sports-people.
The trail from Sierra Madre is narrow, and over five thousand feet
high. It was a challenge to many to make that climb. It took a night
to hike up there and three or four hours to get back down, as well as
several hours to travel to Sierra Madre and back. Fannie was young
and had a friend who was going up the mountain, so she joined the
party. The climbers counted several hundred people, as was usual on
Saturday evenings when there was no picture show to go to. She
started to climb at twelve o’clock, reached the peak at seven in the
morning, rested until noon, and then began the descent of that steep
trail.
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