These have a real feathery beauty, and are perhaps a factor in the
seemingly exorbitant prices demanded for the choice bungalow and
home sites they shade. Save for a casual pioneer bungalow or two,
there are no buildings to attract the notice until one reaches a
high fence that marks the beginning of the Holden lot. Back of this
fence is secreted a microcosmos, a world in little, where one may
encounter strange races of people in their native dress and behold,
by walking a block, cities actually apart by league upon league of
the earth's surface and separated by centuries of time.
To penetrate this city of many cities, and this actual present of
the remote past, one must be of a certain inner elect. Hardly may
one enter by assuming the disguise of a native, as daring explorers
have sometimes overcome the difficulty of entering other strange
cities. Its gate, reached after passing along an impressive expanse
of the reticent fence, is watched by a guardian. He is a stoatish
man of middle age, not neatly dressed, and of forbidding aspect. His
face is ruthless, with a very knowing cynicism. He is there, it
would seem, chiefly to keep people out of the delightful city,
though from time to time he will bow an assent or wave it with the
hand clutching his evening newspaper to one of the favoured lawful
inmates, who will then carelessly saunter or drive an expensive
motor car through the difficult portal.
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