possessed of an almost human disposition to spurt and get by San
Pasqual as quickly as possible. Hence, when the tourist approaching the
station sticks his head out of the window or unwisely remains on the
platform of the observation car, this forty-mile "zephyr," as they term
it in San Pasqual, sighs joyously past him, snatches his headgear,
whirls it down the tracks and deposits it at the western boundary of
Donna's "ranch." This boundary happens to be a seven-foot adobe wall--
so the hat sticks there.

In the days when Donna lived at the Hat Ranch she would pause at this
wall every evening on her way home from work long enough to gather up
the orphaned hats. Later, after cleaning and brushing them, she would
sell them to the boys up in San Pasqual. There was a wide variety of
style, size and color in Donna's stock of hats, and fastidious indeed
was he who could not select from the lot a hat to match his peculiar
style of masculine beauty. And, furthermore: damned was he who so far
forgot tradition and local custom as to purchase his "every-day" hat
elsewhere. He might buy his Sunday hat in Bakersfield or Los Angeles
and still retain caste, but his every-day hat--never! Such a
proceeding would have been construed by Donna's admirers as a direct
attack on home industry. In fact, one made money by purchasing his hats
of Donna Corblay. If she never accepted less than one dollar for a hat,
regardless of age, color, original price and previous condition of
servitude, she never charged more. Hence, everybody was satisfied--or,
if not satisfied at the time, all they had to do was to await the
arrival of the next train. The "zephyrs" were steady and reliable and
in San Pasqual it is an ill wind that doesn't blow somebody a hat.

In San Pasqual stray hats were not looked upon as flotsam and jetsam
and subject to a too liberal interpretation of the "Losers-weepers-