I have a sand bed, and I play There in the sand for half the day.
And mother comes, and sits by me; And little sister likes to see
The many things I make of sand. But she's too young to understand
About the houses and the hills The mines and stores and flouring mills
And then I make believe, and say My sand bed is the sunny bay;
These blocks are boats, and far away They sail all night and sail all day,
And carry iron. When they return They bring us coal that we may burn.
And now my sand bed is a farm. This is the barn. Here, safe from harm,
My horses and my cows I keep. These sheds are for the wooly sheep.
And there you see my piggies's pens. This yard holds in the lively hens.
This is the garden, where I hoe My plants; and here the flowers grow.
These sticks are pines, so straight, so tall And dark. But these aren't half of all
The things I make each pleasant day Out in the sand bed where I play.
[Illustration: MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA, IN 1842
A view of the town as it was before the "Gringo" came. Four years later during the Mexican War Commodore Stockton captured Monterey and left Walter Colton, a naval chaplain, in charge as Alcalde.]
Under the colorless title Three Years in California was published in 1850 the diary of Walter Colton, elected Alcalde of Monterey in 1846, who, during his term of office presented what was, for that day, a singular spectacle of tolerance, humanity and purity of administration. He can, indeed, be reasonably compared with Judge Lindsey in the courage and originality displayed in his dealings with the criminal cases brought before him.
Colton's work in Monterey succeeded a period spent as editor of the Philadelphia _North American_, and he established later _The Californian_, the first newspaper published in California.
The office of the Alcalde combined administrative and judicial functions and, not seldom, even legislative ones. Colton was oppressed by his power and its responsibility. "Such absolute disposal of questions affecting property and personal liberty," he observes, "never ought to be confided to one man. There is not a judge on any bench in England or the United States whose power is so absolute as that of the Alcalde of Monterey." But he brought to his work in all its details an unflagging zeal and constant personal attention which made his administration unique in the history of the time.