Title: The Valley of the Moon
Author: London, Jack
Language: English
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THE VALLEY OF THE MOON

By Jack London



BOOK I



CHAPTER 1

“You hear me, Saxon? Come on along. What if it is the Bricklayers? I’ll
have gentlemen friends there, and so’ll you. The Al Vista band’ll be
along, an’ you know it plays heavenly. An’ you just love dancin’---”

Twenty feet away, a stout, elderly woman interrupted the girl’s
persuasions. The elderly woman’s back was turned, and the back--loose,
bulging, and misshapen--began a convulsive heaving.

“Gawd!” she cried out. “O Gawd!”

She flung wild glances, like those of an entrapped animal, up and down
the big whitewashed room that panted with heat and that was thickly
humid with the steam that sizzled from the damp cloth under the irons of
the many ironers. From the girls and women near her, all swinging irons
steadily but at high pace, came quick glances, and labor efficiency
suffered to the extent of a score of suspended or inadequate movements.
The elderly woman’s cry had caused a tremor of money-loss to pass among
the piece-work ironers of fancy starch.

She gripped herself and her iron with a visible effort, and dabbed
futilely at the frail, frilled garment on the board under her hand.

“I thought she’d got’em again--didn’t you?” the girl said.

“It’s a shame, a woman of her age, and... condition,” Saxon answered,
as she frilled a lace ruffle with a hot fluting-iron. Her movements were
delicate, safe, and swift, and though her face was wan with fatigue and
exhausting heat, there was no slackening in her pace.

“An’ her with seven, an’ two of ‘em in reform school,” the girl at the
next board sniffed sympathetic agreement. “But you just got to come
to Weasel Park to-morrow, Saxon. The Bricklayers’ is always
lively--tugs-of-war, fat-man races, real Irish jiggin’, an’... an’
everything. An’ the floor of the pavilion’s swell.”

But the elderly woman brought another interruption. She dropped her iron
on the shirtwaist, clutched at the board, fumbled it, caved in at the
knees and hips, and like a half-empty sack collapsed on the floor, her
long shriek rising in the pent room to the acrid smell of scorching
cloth. The women at the boards near to her scrambled, first, to the hot
iron to save the cloth, and then to her, while the forewoman hurried
belligerently down the aisle. The women farther away continued
unsteadily at their work, losing movements to the extent of a minute’s
set-back to the totality of the efficiency of the fancy-starch room.

“Enough to kill a dog,” the girl muttered, thumping her iron down on its
rest with reckless determination. “Workin’ girls’ life ain’t what it’s
cracked up. Me to quit--that’s what I’m comin’ to.”

“Mary!” Saxon uttered the other’s name with a reproach so profound that
she was compelled to rest her own iron for emphasis and so lose a dozen
movements.

Mary flashed a half-frightened look across.

“I didn’t mean it, Saxon,” she whimpered. “Honest, I didn’t. I wouldn’t
never go that way. But I leave it to you, if a day like this don’t get
on anybody’s nerves. Listen to that!”

The stricken woman, on her back, drumming her heels on the floor, was
shrieking persistently and monotonously, like a mechanical siren. Two
women, clutching her under the arms, were dragging her down the aisle.
She drummed and shrieked the length of it. The door opened, and a vast,
muffled roar of machinery burst in; and in the roar of it the drumming
and the shrieking were drowned ere the door swung shut. Remained of the
episode only the scorch of cloth drifting ominously through the air.

“It’s sickenin’,” said Mary.

And thereafter, for a long time, the many irons rose and fell, the pace
of the room in no wise diminished; while the forewoman strode the
aisles with a threatening eye for incipient breakdown and hysteria.
Occasionally an ironer lost the stride for an instant, gasped or sighed,
then caught it up again with weary determination. The long summer day
waned, but not the heat, and under the raw flare of electric light the
work went on.

By nine o’clock the first women began to go home. The mountain of fancy
starch had been demolished--all save the few remnants, here and there,
on the boards, where the ironers still labored.

Saxon finished ahead of Mary, at whose board she paused on the way out.

“Saturday night an’ another week gone,” Mary said mournfully, her young
cheeks pallid and hollowed, her black eyes blue-shadowed and tired.
“What d’you think you’ve made, Saxon?”

“Twelve and a quarter,” was the answer, just touched with pride. “And I’d
a-made more if it wasn’t for that fake bunch of starchers.”

“My! I got to pass it to you,” Mary congratulated. “You’re a sure fierce
hustler--just eat it up. Me--I’ve only ten an’ a half, an’ for a hard
week... See you on the nine-forty. Sure now. We can just fool around
until the dancin’ begins. A lot of my gentlemen friends’ll be there in
the afternoon.”

Two blocks from the laundry, where an arc-light showed a gang of toughs
on the corner, Saxon quickened her pace. Unconsciously her face set
and hardened as she passed. She did not catch the words of the muttered
comment, but the rough laughter it raised made her guess and warmed her
checks with resentful blood. Three blocks more, turning once to left and
once to right, she walked on through the night that was already growing
cool. On either side were workingmen’s houses, of weathered wood,
the ancient paint grimed with the dust of years, conspicuous only for
cheapness and ugliness.

Dark it was, but she made no mistake, the familiar sag and screeching
reproach of the front gate welcome under her hand. She went along the
narrow walk to the rear, avoided the missing step without thinking about
it, and entered the kitchen, where a solitary gas-jet flickered.
She turned it up to the best of its flame. It was a small room, not
disorderly, because of lack of furnishings to disorder it. The plaster,
discolored by the steam of many wash-days, was crisscrossed with cracks
from the big earthquake of the previous spring. The floor was ridged,
wide-cracked, and uneven, and in front of the stove it was worn through
and repaired with a five-gallon oil-can hammered flat and double. A
sink, a dirty roller-towel, several chairs, and a wooden table completed
the picture.

An apple-core crunched under her foot as she drew a chair to the table.
On the frayed oilcloth, a supper waited. She attempted the cold beans,
thick with grease, but gave them up, and buttered a slice of bread.

The rickety house shook to a heavy, prideless tread, and through the
inner door came Sarah, middle-aged, lop-breasted, hair-tousled, her face
lined with care and fat petulance.

“Huh, it’s you,” she grunted a greeting. “I just couldn’t keep things
warm. Such a day! I near died of the heat. An’ little Henry cut his lip
awful. The doctor had to put four stitches in it.”

Sarah came over and stood mountainously by the table.

“What’s the matter with them beans?” she challenged.

“Nothing, only...” Saxon caught her breath and avoided the threatened
outburst. “Only I’m not hungry. It’s been so hot all day. It was
terrible in the laundry.”

Recklessly she took a mouthful of the cold tea that had been steeped so
long that it was like acid in her mouth, and recklessly, under the eye
of her sister-in-law, she swallowed it and the rest of the cupful. She
wiped her mouth on her handkerchief and got up.

“I guess I’ll go to bed.”

“Wonder you ain’t out to a dance,” Sarah sniffed. “Funny, ain’t it, you
come home so dead tired every night, an’ yet any night in the week you
can get out an’ dance unearthly hours.”

Saxon started to speak, suppressed herself with tightened lips, then
lost control and blazed out. “Wasn’t you ever young?”

Without waiting for reply, she turned to her bedroom, which opened
directly off the kitchen. It was a small room, eight by twelve, and the
earthquake had left its marks upon the plaster. A bed and chair of cheap
pine and a very ancient chest of drawers constituted the furniture.
Saxon had known this chest of drawers all her life. The vision of it
was woven into her earliest recollections. She knew it had crossed the
plains with her people in a prairie schooner. It was of solid mahogany.
One end was cracked and dented from the capsize of the wagon in Rock
Canyon. A bullet-hole, plugged, in the face of the top drawer, told of
the fight with the Indians at Little Meadow. Of these happenings her
mother had told her; also had she told that the chest had come with the
family originally from England in a day even earlier than the day on
which George Washington was born.

Above the chest of drawers, on the wall, hung a small looking-glass.
Thrust under the molding were photographs of young men and women, and of
picnic groups wherein the young men, with hats rakishly on the backs of
their heads, encircled the girls with their arms. Farther along on the
wall were a colored calendar and numerous colored advertisements and
sketches torn out of magazines. Most of these sketches were of horses.
From the gas-fixture hung a tangled bunch of well-scribbled dance
programs.

Saxon started to take off her hat, but suddenly sat down on the bed.
She sobbed softly, with considered repression, but the weak-latched
door swung noiselessly open, and she was startled by her sister-in-law’s
voice.

“NOW what’s the matter with you? If you didn’t like them beans--”

“No, no,” Saxon explained hurriedly. “I’m just tired, that’s all, and my
feet hurt. I wasn’t hungry, Sarah. I’m just beat out.”

“If you took care of this house,” came the retort, “an’ cooked an’
baked, an’ washed, an’ put up with what I put up, you’d have something
to be beat out about. You’ve got a snap, you have. But just wait.” Sarah
broke off to cackle gloatingly. “Just wait, that’s all, an’ you’ll
be fool enough to get married some day, like me, an’ then you’ll get
yours--an’ it’ll be brats, an’ brats, an’ brats, an’ no more dancin’,
an’ silk stockin’s, an’ three pairs of shoes at one time. You’ve got a
cinch--nobody to think of but your own precious self--an’ a lot of young
hoodlums makin’ eyes at you an’ tellin’ you how beautiful your eyes
are. Huh! Some fine day you’ll tie up to one of ‘em, an’ then, mebbe, on
occasion, you’ll wear black eyes for a change.”

“Don’t say that, Sarah,” Saxon protested. “My brother never laid hands
on you. You know that.”

“No more he didn’t. He never had the gumption. Just the same, he’s
better stock than that tough crowd you run with, if he can’t make a
livin’ an’ keep his wife in three pairs of shoes. Just the same he’s
oodles better’n your bunch of hoodlums that no decent woman’d wipe her
one pair of shoes on. How you’ve missed trouble this long is beyond me.
Mebbe the younger generation is wiser in such things--I don’t know. But I
do know that a young woman that has three pairs of shoes ain’t thinkin’
of anything but her own enjoyment, an’ she’s goin’ to get hers, I can
tell her that much. When I was a girl there wasn’t such doin’s. My
mother’d taken the hide off me if I done the things you do. An’ she
was right, just as everything in the world is wrong now. Look at your
brother, a-runnin’ around to socialist meetin’s, an’ chewin’ hot air,
an’ diggin’ up extra strike dues to the union that means so much bread
out of the mouths of his children, instead of makin’ good with his
bosses. Why, the dues he pays would keep me in seventeen pairs of shoes
if I was nannygoat enough to want ‘em. Some day, mark my words, he’ll
get his time, an’ then what’ll we do? What’ll I do, with five mouths to
feed an’ nothin’ comin’ in?”

She stopped, out of breath but seething with the tirade yet to come.

“Oh, Sarah, please won’t you shut the door?” Saxon pleaded.

The door slammed violently, and Saxon, ere she fell to crying again,
could hear her sister-in-law lumbering about the kitchen and talking
loudly to herself.



CHAPTER II

Each bought her own ticket at the entrance to Weasel Park. And each, as
she laid her half-dollar down, was distinctly aware of how many pieces
of fancy starch were represented by the coin. It was too early for the
crowd, but bricklayers and their families, laden with huge lunch-baskets
and armfuls of babies, were already going in--a healthy, husky race
of workmen, well-paid and robustly fed. And with them, here and there,
undisguised by their decent American clothing, smaller in bulk and
stature, weazened not alone by age but by the pinch of lean years and
early hardship, were grandfathers and mothers who had patently first
seen the light of day on old Irish soil. Their faces showed content and
pride as they limped along with this lusty progeny of theirs that had
fed on better food.

Not with these did Mary and Saxon belong. They knew them not, had no
acquaintances among them. It did not matter whether the festival were
Irish, German, or Slavonian; whether the picnic was the Bricklayers’,
the Brewers’, or the Butchers’. They, the girls, were of the dancing
crowd that swelled by a certain constant percentage the gate receipts of
all the picnics.

They strolled about among the booths where peanuts were grinding
and popcorn was roasting in preparation for the day, and went on
and inspected the dance floor of the pavilion. Saxon, clinging to an
imaginary partner, essayed a few steps of the dip-waltz. Mary clapped
her hands.

“My!” she cried. “You’re just swell! An’ them stockin’s is peaches.”

Saxon smiled with appreciation, pointed out her foot, velvet-slippered
with high Cuban heels, and slightly lifted the tight black skirt,
exposing a trim ankle and delicate swell of calf, the white flesh
gleaming through the thinnest and flimsiest of fifty-cent black silk
stockings. She was slender, not tall, yet the due round lines of
womanhood were hers. On her white shirtwaist was a pleated jabot of
cheap lace, caught with a large novelty pin of imitation coral. Over the
shirtwaist was a natty jacket, elbow-sleeved, and to the elbows she wore
gloves of imitation suede. The one essentially natural touch about her
appearance was the few curls, strangers to curling-irons, that escaped
from under the little naughty hat of black velvet pulled low over the
eyes.

Mary’s dark eyes flashed with joy at the sight, and with a swift
little run she caught the other girl in her arms and kissed her in
a breast-crushing embrace. She released her, blushing at her own
extravagance.

“You look good to me,” she cried, in extenuation. “If I was a man I
couldn’t keep my hands off you. I’d eat you, I sure would.”

They went out of the pavilion hand in hand, and on through the sunshine
they strolled, swinging hands gaily, reacting exuberantly from the week
of deadening toil. They hung over the railing of the bear-pit, shivering
at the huge and lonely denizen, and passed quickly on to ten minutes of
laughter at the monkey cage. Crossing the grounds, they looked down into
the little race track on the bed of a natural amphitheater where the
early afternoon games were to take place. After that they explored the
woods, threaded by countless paths, ever opening out in new surprises
of green-painted rustic tables and benches in leafy nooks, many of
which were already pre-empted by family parties. On a grassy slope,
tree-surrounded, they spread a newspaper and sat down on the short grass
already tawny-dry under the California sun. Half were they minded to
do this because of the grateful indolence after six days of insistent
motion, half in conservation for the hours of dancing to come.

“Bert Wanhope’ll be sure to come,” Mary chattered. “An’ he said he was
going to bring Billy Roberts--‘Big Bill,’ all the fellows call him. He’s
just a big boy, but he’s awfully tough. He’s a prizefighter, an’ all the
girls run after him. I’m afraid of him. He ain’t quick in talkin’. He’s
more like that big bear we saw. Brr-rf! Brr-rf!--bite your head
off, just like that. He ain’t really a prize-fighter. He’s a
teamster--belongs to the union. Drives for Coberly and Morrison. But
sometimes he fights in the clubs. Most of the fellows are scared of him.
He’s got a bad temper, an’ he’d just as soon hit a fellow as eat, just
like that. You won’t like him, but he’s a swell dancer. He’s heavy,
you know, an’ he just slides and glides around. You wanta have a dance
with’m anyway. He’s a good spender, too. Never pinches. But my!--he’s
got one temper.”

The talk wandered on, a monologue on Mary’s part, that centered always
on Bert Wanhope.

“You and he are pretty thick,” Saxon ventured.

“I’d marry’m to-morrow,” Mary flashed out impulsively. Then her face
went bleakly forlorn, hard almost in its helpless pathos. “Only, he
never asks me. He’s...” Her pause was broken by sudden passion. “You
watch out for him, Saxon, if he ever comes foolin’ around you. He’s no
good. Just the same, I’d marry him to-morrow. He’ll never get me any
other way.” Her mouth opened, but instead of speaking she drew a long
sigh. “It’s a funny world, ain’t it?” she added. “More like a scream.
And all the stars are worlds, too. I wonder where God hides. Bert
Wanhope says there ain’t no God. But he’s just terrible. He says the
most terrible things. I believe in God. Don’t you? What do you think
about God, Saxon?”

Saxon shrugged her shoulders and laughed.

“But if we do wrong we get ours, don’t we?” Mary persisted. “That’s what
they all say, except Bert. He says he don’t care what he does, he’ll
never get his, because when he dies he’s dead, an’ when he’s dead he’d
like to see any one put anything across on him that’d wake him up. Ain’t
he terrible, though? But it’s all so funny. Sometimes I get scared when
I think God’s keepin’ an eye on me all the time. Do you think he knows
what I’m sayin’ now? What do you think he looks like, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Saxon answered. “He’s just a funny proposition.”

“Oh!” the other gasped.

“He IS, just the same, from what all people say of him,” Saxon went on
stoutly. “My brother thinks he looks like Abraham Lincoln. Sarah thinks
he has whiskers.”

“An’ I never think of him with his hair parted,” Mary confessed, daring
the thought and shivering with apprehension. “He just couldn’t have his
hair parted. THAT’D be funny.”

“You know that little, wrinkly Mexican that sells wire puzzles?” Saxon
queried. “Well, God somehow always reminds me of him.”

Mary laughed outright.

“Now that IS funny. I never thought of him like that. How do you make it
out?”

“Well, just like the little Mexican, he seems to spend his time peddling
puzzles. He passes a puzzle out to everybody, and they spend all their
lives tryin’ to work it out. They all get stuck. I can’t work mine out.
I don’t know where to start. And look at the puzzle he passed Sarah. And
she’s part of Tom’s puzzle, and she only makes his worse. And they all,
an’ everybody I know--you, too--are part of my puzzle.”

“Mebbe the puzzles is all right,” Mary considered. “But God don’t look
like that yellow little Greaser. THAT I won’t fall for. God don’t look
like anybody. Don’t you remember on the wall at the Salvation Army it
says ‘God is a spirit’?”

“That’s another one of his puzzles, I guess, because nobody knows what a
spirit looks like.”

“That’s right, too.” Mary shuddered with reminiscent fear. “Whenever I
try to think of God as a spirit, I can see Hen Miller all wrapped up in
a sheet an’ runnin’ us girls. We didn’t know, an’ it scared the life out
of us. Little Maggie Murphy fainted dead away, and Beatrice Peralta fell
an’ scratched her face horrible. When I think of a spirit all I can see
is a white sheet runnin’ in the dark. Just the same, God don’t look like
a Mexican, an’ he don’t wear his hair parted.”

A strain of music from the dancing pavilion brought both girls
scrambling to their feet.

“We can get a couple of dances in before we eat,” Mary proposed. “An’
then it’ll be afternoon an’ all the fellows ‘ll be here. Most of them
are pinchers--that’s why they don’t come early, so as to get out of
taking the girls to dinner. But Bert’s free with his money, an’ so is
Billy. If we can beat the other girls to it, they’ll take us to the
restaurant. Come on, hurry, Saxon.”

There were few couples on the floor when they arrived at the pavilion,
and the two girls essayed the first waltz together.

“There’s Bert now,” Saxon whispered, as they came around the second
time.

“Don’t take any notice of them,” Mary whispered back. “We’ll just keep
on goin’. They needn’t think we’re chasin’ after them.”

But Saxon noted the heightened color in the other’s cheek, and felt her
quicker breathing.

“Did you see that other one?” Mary asked, as she backed Saxon in a long
slide across the far end of the pavilion. “That was Billy Roberts. Bert
said he’d come. He’ll take you to dinner, and Bert’ll take me. It’s
goin’ to be a swell day, you’ll see. My! I only wish the music’ll hold
out till we can get back to the other end.”

Down the floor they danced, on man-trapping and dinner-getting intent,
two fresh young things that undeniably danced well and that were
delightfully surprised when the music stranded them perilously near to
their desire.

Bert and Mary addressed each other by their given names, but to Saxon
Bert was “Mr. Wanhope,” though he called her by her first name. The only
introduction was of Saxon and Billy Roberts. Mary carried it off with a
flurry of nervous carelessness.

“Mr. Robert--Miss Brown. She’s my best friend. Her first name’s Saxon.
Ain’t it a scream of a name?”

“Sounds good to me,” Billy retorted, hat off and hand extended. “Pleased
to meet you, Miss Brown.”

As their hands clasped and she felt the teamster callouses on his palm,
her quick eyes saw a score of things. About all that he saw was her
eyes, and then it was with a vague impression that they were blue. Not
till later in the day did he realize that they were gray. She, on
the contrary, saw his eyes as they really were--deep blue, wide,
and handsome in a sullen-boyish way. She saw that they were
straight-looking, and she liked them, as she had liked the glimpse she
had caught of his hand, and as she liked the contact of his hand itself.
Then, too, but not sharply, she had perceived the short, square-set
nose, the rosiness of cheek, and the firm, short upper lip, ere delight
centered her flash of gaze on the well-modeled, large clean mouth where
red lips smiled clear of the white, enviable teeth. A BOY, A GREAT BIG
MAN-BOY, was her thought; and, as they smiled at each other and their
hands slipped apart, she was startled by a glimpse of his hair--short
and crisp and sandy, hinting almost of palest gold save that it was too
flaxen to hint of gold at all.

So blond was he that she was reminded of stage-types she had seen, such
as Ole Olson and Yon Yonson; but there resemblance ceased. It was a
matter of color only, for the eyes were dark-lashed and -browed, and
were cloudy with temperament rather than staring a child-gaze of wonder,
and the suit of smooth brown cloth had been made by a tailor. Saxon
appraised the suit on the instant, and her secret judgment was NOT A
CENT LESS THAN FIFTY DOLLARS. Further, he had none of the awkwardness
of the Scandinavian immigrant. On the contrary, he was one of those
rare individuals that radiate muscular grace through the ungraceful
man-garments of civilization. Every movement was supple, slow, and
apparently considered. This she did not see nor analyze. She saw only a
clothed man with grace of carriage and movement. She felt, rather than
perceived, the calm and certitude of all the muscular play of him, and
she felt, too, the promise of easement and rest that was especially
grateful and craved-for by one who had incessantly, for six days and at
top-speed, ironed fancy starch. As the touch of his hand had been good,
so, to her, this subtler feel of all of him, body and mind, was good.

As he took her program and skirmished and joked after the way of young
men, she realized the immediacy of delight she had taken in him.
Never in her life had she been so affected by any man. She wondered to
herself: IS THIS THE MAN?

He danced beautifully. The joy was hers that good dancers take when they
have found a good dancer for a partner. The grace of those slow-moving,
certain muscles of his accorded perfectly with the rhythm of the music.
There was never doubt, never a betrayal of indecision. She glanced at
Bert, dancing “tough” with Mary, caroming down the long floor with more
than one collision with the increasing couples. Graceful himself in his
slender, tall, lean-stomached way, Bert was accounted a good dancer; yet
Saxon did not remember ever having danced with him with keen pleasure.
Just a hit of a jerk spoiled his dancing--a jerk that did not occur,
usually, but that always impended. There was something spasmodic in his
mind. He was too quick, or he continually threatened to be too quick.
He always seemed just on the verge of overrunning the time. It was
disquieting. He made for unrest.

“You’re a dream of a dancer,” Billy Roberts was saying. “I’ve heard lots
of the fellows talk about your dancing.”

“I love it,” she answered.

But from the way she said it he sensed her reluctance to speak, and
danced on in silence, while she warmed with the appreciation of a
woman for gentle consideration. Gentle consideration was a thing rarely
encountered in the life she lived. IS THIS THE MAN? She remembered
Mary’s “I’d marry him to-morrow,” and caught herself speculating on
marrying Billy Roberts by the next day--if he asked her.

With eyes that dreamily desired to close, she moved on in the arms of
this masterful, guiding pressure. A PRIZE-FIGHTER! She experienced a
thrill of wickedness as she thought of what Sarah would say could she
see her now. Only he wasn’t a prizefighter, but a teamster.

Came an abrupt lengthening of step, the guiding pressure grew more
compelling, and she was caught up and carried along, though her
velvet-shod feet never left the floor. Then came the sudden control down
to the shorter step again, and she felt herself being held slightly from
him so that he might look into her face and laugh with her in joy at
the exploit. At the end, as the band slowed in the last bars, they, too,
slowed, their dance fading with the music in a lengthening glide that
ceased with the last lingering tone.

“We’re sure cut out for each other when it comes to dancin’,” he said,
as they made their way to rejoin the other couple.

“It was a dream,” she replied.

So low was her voice that he bent to hear, and saw the flush in her
cheeks that seemed communicated to her eyes, which were softly warm
and sensuous. He took the program from her and gravely and gigantically
wrote his name across all the length of it.

“An’ now it’s no good,” he dared. “Ain’t no need for it.”

He tore it across and tossed it aside.

“Me for you, Saxon, for the next,” was Bert’s greeting, as they came up.
“You take Mary for the next whirl, Bill.”

“Nothin’ doin’, Bo,” was the retort. “Me an’ Saxon’s framed up to last
the day.”

“Watch out for him, Saxon,” Mary warned facetiously. “He’s liable to get
a crush on you.”

“I guess I know a good thing when I see it,” Billy responded gallantly.

“And so do I,” Saxon aided and abetted.

“I’d ‘a’ known you if I’d seen you in the dark,” Billy added.

Mary regarded them with mock alarm, and Bert said good-naturedly:

“All I got to say is you ain’t wastin’ any time gettin’ together. Just
the same, if’ you can spare a few minutes from each other after a couple
more whirls, Mary an’ me’d be complimented to have your presence at
dinner.”

“Just like that,” chimed Mary.

“Quit your kiddin’,” Billy laughed back, turning his head to look into
Saxon’s eyes. “Don’t listen to ‘em. They’re grouched because they got to
dance together. Bert’s a rotten dancer, and Mary ain’t so much. Come on,
there she goes. See you after two more dances.”



CHAPTER III

They had dinner in the open-air, tree-walled dining-room, and Saxon
noted that it was Billy who paid the reckoning for the four. They knew
many of the young men and women at the other tables, and greetings and
fun flew back and forth. Bert was very possessive with Mary, almost
roughly so, resting his hand on hers, catching and holding it, and,
once, forcibly slipping off her two rings and refusing to return them
for a long while. At times, when he put his arm around her waist, Mary
promptly disengaged it; and at other times, with elaborate obliviousness
that deceived no one, she allowed it to remain.

And Saxon, talking little but studying Billy Roberts very intently, was
satisfied that there would be an utter difference in the way he would do
such things... if ever he would do them. Anyway, he’d never paw a girl
as Bert and lots of the other fellows did. She measured the breadth of
Billy’s heavy shoulders.

“Why do they call you ‘Big’ Bill?” she asked. “You’re not so very tall.”

“Nope,” he agreed. “I’m only five feet eight an’ three-quarters. I guess
it must be my weight.”

“He fights at a hundred an’ eighty,” Bert interjected.

“Oh, cut it,” Billy said quickly, a cloud-rift of displeasure showing
in his eyes. “I ain’t a fighter. I ain’t fought in six months. I’ve quit
it. It don’t pay.”

“Yon got two hundred the night you put the Frisco Slasher to the bad,”
 Bert urged proudly.

“Cut it. Cut it now.--Say, Saxon, you ain’t so big yourself, are you?
But you’re built just right if anybody should ask you. You’re round an’
slender at the same time. I bet I can guess your weight.”

“Everybody guesses over it,” she warned, while inwardly she was puzzled
that she should at the same time be glad and regretful that he did not
fight any more.

“Not me,” he was saying. “I’m a wooz at weight-guessin’. Just you watch
me.” He regarded her critically, and it was patent that warm approval
played its little rivalry with the judgment of his gaze. “Wait a
minute.”

He reached over to her and felt her arm at the biceps. The pressure of
the encircling fingers was firm and honest, and Saxon thrilled to it.
There was magic in this man-boy. She would have known only irritation
had Bert or any other man felt her arm. But this man! IS HE THE MAN? she
was questioning, when he voiced his conclusion.

“Your clothes don’t weigh more’n seven pounds. And seven from--hum--say
one hundred an’ twenty-three--one hundred an’ sixteen is your stripped
weight.”

But at the penultimate word, Mary cried out with sharp reproof:

“Why, Billy Roberts, people don’t talk about such things.”

He looked at her with slow-growing, uncomprehending surprise.

“What things?” he demanded finally.

“There you go again! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Look! You’ve
got Saxon blushing!”

“I am not,” Saxon denied indignantly.

“An’ if you keep on, Mary, you’ll have me blushing,” Billy growled. “I
guess I know what’s right an’ what ain’t. It ain’t what a guy says, but
what he thinks. An’ I’m thinkin’ right, an’ Saxon knows it. An’ she an’
I ain’t thinkin’ what you’re thinkin’ at all.”

“Oh! Oh!” Mary cried. “You’re gettin’ worse an’ worse. I never think
such things.”

“Whoa, Mary! Back up!” Bert checked her peremptorily. “You’re in the
wrong stall. Billy never makes mistakes like that.”

“But he needn’t be so raw,” she persisted.

“Come on, Mary, an’ be good, an’ cut that stuff,” was Billy’s dismissal
of her, as he turned to Saxon. “How near did I come to it?”

“One hundred and twenty-two,” she answered, looking deliberately at
Mary. “One twenty two with my clothes.”

Billy burst into hearty laughter, in which Bert joined.

“I don’t care,” Mary protested, “You’re terrible, both of you--an’ you,
too, Saxon. I’d never a-thought it of you.”

“Listen to me, kid,” Bert began soothingly, as his arm slipped around
her waist.

But in the false excitement she had worked herself into, Mary rudely
repulsed the arm, and then, fearing that she had wounded her lover’s
feelings, she took advantage of the teasing and banter to recover
her good humor. His arm was permitted to return, and with heads bent
together, they talked in whispers.

Billy discreetly began to make conversation with Saxon.

“Say, you know, your name is a funny one. I never heard it tagged on
anybody before. But it’s all right. I like it.”

“My mother gave it to me. She was educated, and knew all kinds of words.
She was always reading books, almost until she died. And she wrote lots
and lots. I’ve got some of her poetry published in a San Jose newspaper
long ago. The Saxons were a race of people--she told me all about them
when I was a little girl. They were wild, like Indians, only they were
white. And they had blue eyes, and yellow hair, and they were awful
fighters.”

As she talked, Billy followed her solemnly, his eyes steadily turned on
hers.

“Never heard of them,” he confessed. “Did they live anywhere around
here?”

She laughed.

“No. They lived in England. They were the first English, and you know
the Americans came from the English. We’re Saxons, you an’ me, an’ Mary,
an’ Bert, and all the Americans that are real Americans, you know, and
not Dagoes and Japs and such.”

“My folks lived in America a long time,” Billy said slowly, digesting
the information she had given and relating himself to it. “Anyway, my
mother’s folks did. They crossed to Maine hundreds of years ago.”

“My father was ‘State of Maine,” she broke in, with a little gurgle of
joy. “And my mother was born in Ohio, or where Ohio is now. She used to
call it the Great Western Reserve. What was your father?”

“Don’t know.” Billy shrugged his shoulders. “He didn’t know himself.
Nobody ever knew, though he was American, all right, all right.”

“His name’s regular old American,” Saxon suggested. “There’s a big
English general right now whose name is Roberts. I’ve read it in the
papers.”

“But Roberts wasn’t my father’s name. He never knew what his name was.
Roberts was the name of a gold-miner who adopted him. You see, it was
this way. When they was Indian-fightin’ up there with the Modoc Indians,
a lot of the miners an’ settlers took a hand. Roberts was captain of one
outfit, and once, after a fight, they took a lot of prisoners--squaws,
an’ kids an’ babies. An’ one of the kids was my father. They figured he
was about five years old. He didn’t know nothin’ but Indian.”

Saxon clapped her hands, and her eyes sparkled: “He’d been captured on
an Indian raid!”

“That’s the way they figured it,” Billy nodded. “They recollected a
wagon-train of Oregon settlers that’d been killed by the Modocs four
years before. Roberts adopted him, and that’s why I don’t know his real
name. But you can bank on it, he crossed the plains just the same.”

“So did my father,” Saxon said proudly.

“An’ my mother, too,” Billy added, pride touching his own voice.
“Anyway, she came pretty close to crossin’ the plains, because she was
born in a wagon on the River Platte on the way out.”

“My mother, too,” said Saxon. “She was eight years old, an’ she walked
most of the way after the oxen began to give out.”

Billy thrust out his hand.

“Put her there, kid,” he said. “We’re just like old friends, what with
the same kind of folks behind us.”

With shining eyes, Saxon extended her hand to his, and gravely they
shook.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” she murmured. “We’re both old American stock. And
if you aren’t a Saxon there never was one--your hair, your eyes, your
skin, everything. And you’re a fighter, too.”

“I guess all our old folks was fighters when it comes to that. It come
natural to ‘em, an’ dog-gone it, they just had to fight or they’d never
come through.”

“What are you two talkin’ about?” Mary broke in upon them.

“They’re thicker’n mush in no time,” Bert girded. “You’d think they’d
known each other a week already.”

“Oh, we knew each other longer than that,” Saxon returned. “Before ever
we were born our folks were walkin’ across the plains together.”

“When your folks was waitin’ for the railroad to be built an’ all the
Indians killed off before they dasted to start for California,” was
Billy’s way of proclaiming the new alliance. “We’re the real goods,
Saxon an’ me, if anybody should ride up on a buzz-wagon an’ ask you.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mary boasted with quiet petulance. “My father stayed
behind to fight in the Civil War. He was a drummer-boy. That’s why he
didn’t come to California until afterward.”

“And my father went back to fight in the Civil War,” Saxon said.

“And mine, too,” said Billy.

They looked at each other gleefully. Again they had found a new contact.

“Well, they’re all dead, ain’t they?” was Bert’s saturnine comment.
“There ain’t no difference dyin’ in battle or in the poorhouse. The
thing is they’re deado. I wouldn’t care a rap if my father’d been
hanged. It’s all the same in a thousand years. This braggin’ about folks
makes me tired. Besides, my father couldn’t a-fought. He wasn’t born
till two years after the war. Just the same, two of my uncles were
killed at Gettysburg. Guess we done our share.”

“Just like that,” Mary applauded.

Bert’s arm went around her waist again.

“We’re here, ain’t we?” he said. “An’ that’s what counts. The dead are
dead, an’ you can bet your sweet life they just keep on stayin’ dead.”

Mary put her hand over his mouth and began to chide him for his
awfulness, whereupon he kissed the palm of her hand and put his head
closer to hers.

The merry clatter of dishes was increasing as the dining-room filled up.
Here and there voices were raised in snatches of song. There were
shrill squeals and screams and bursts of heavier male laughter as the
everlasting skirmishing between the young men and girls played on. Among
some of the men the signs of drink were already manifest. At a near
table girls were calling out to Billy. And Saxon, the sense of temporary
possession already strong on her, noted with jealous eyes that he was a
favorite and desired object to them.

“Ain’t they awful?” Mary voiced her disapproval. “They got a nerve. I
know who they are. No respectable girl ‘d have a thing to do with them.
Listen to that!”

“Oh, you Bill, you,” one of them, a buxom young brunette, was calling.
“Hope you ain’t forgotten me, Bill.”

“Oh, you chicken,” he called back gallantly.

Saxon flattered herself that he showed vexation, and she conceived an
immense dislike for the brunette.

“Goin’ to dance?” the latter called.

“Mebbe,” he answered, and turned abruptly to Saxon. “Say, we old
Americans oughta stick together, don’t you think? They ain’t many of us
left. The country’s fillin’ up with all kinds of foreigners.”

He talked on steadily, in a low, confidential voice, head close to hers,
as advertisement to the other girl that he was occupied.

From the next table on the opposite side, a young man had singled out
Saxon. His dress was tough. His companions, male and female, were tough.
His face was inflamed, his eyes touched with wildness.

“Hey, you!” he called. “You with the velvet slippers. Me for you.”

The girl beside him put her arm around his neck and tried to hush him,
and through the mufflement of her embrace they could hear him gurgling:

“I tell you she’s some goods. Watch me go across an’ win her from them
cheap skates.”

“Butchertown hoodlums,” Mary sniffed.

Saxon’s eyes encountered the eyes of the girl, who glared hatred across
at her. And in Billy’s eyes she saw moody anger smouldering. The eyes
were more sullen, more handsome than ever, and clouds and veils and
lights and shadows shifted and deepened in the blue of them until they
gave her a sense of unfathomable depth. He had stopped talking, and he
made no effort to talk.

“Don’t start a rough house, Bill,” Bert cautioned. “They’re from across
the bay an’ they don’t know you, that’s all.”

Bert stood up suddenly, stepped over to the other table, whispered
briefly, and came back. Every face at the table was turned on Billy. The
offender arose brokenly, shook off the detaining hand of his girl, and
came over. He was a large man, with a hard, malignant face and bitter
eyes. Also, he was a subdued man.

“You’re Big Bill Roberts,” he said thickly, clinging to the table as he
reeled. “I take my hat off to you. I apologize. I admire your taste in
skirts, an’ take it from me that’s a compliment; but I didn’t know who
you was. If I’d knowed you was Bill Roberts there wouldn’t been a peep
from my fly-trap. D’ye get me? I apologize. Will you shake hands?”

Gruffly, Billy said, “It’s all right--forget it, sport;” and sullenly
he shook hands and with a slow, massive movement thrust the other back
toward his own table.

Saxon was glowing. Here was a man, a protector, something to lean
against, of whom even the Butchertown toughs were afraid as soon as his
name was mentioned.



CHAPTER IV

After dinner there were two dances in the pavilion, and then the band
led the way to the race track for the games. The dancers followed, and
all through the grounds the picnic parties left their tables to join in.
Five thousand packed the grassy slopes of the amphitheater and swarmed
inside the race track. Here, first of the events, the men were lining
up for a tug of war. The contest was between the Oakland Bricklayers and
the San Francisco Bricklayers, and the picked braves, huge and heavy,
were taking their positions along the rope. They kicked heel-holds in
the soft earth, rubbed their hands with the soil from underfoot, and
laughed and joked with the crowd that surged about them.

The judges and watchers struggled vainly to keep back this crowd of
relatives and friends. The Celtic blood was up, and the Celtic faction
spirit ran high. The air was filled with cries of cheer, advice,
warning, and threat. Many elected to leave the side of their own team
and go to the side of the other team with the intention of circumventing
foul play. There were as many women as men among the jostling
supporters. The dust from the trampling, scuffling feet rose in the air,
and Mary gasped and coughed and begged Bert to take her away. But he,
the imp in him elated with the prospect of trouble, insisted on urging
in closer. Saxon clung to Billy, who slowly and methodically elbowed and
shouldered a way for her.

“No place for a girl,” he grumbled, looking down at her with a masked
expression of absent-mindedness, while his elbow powerfully crushed on
the ribs of a big Irishman who gave room. “Things’ll break loose when
they start pullin’. They’s been too much drink, an’ you know what the
Micks are for a rough house.”

Saxon was very much out of place among these large-bodied men and women.
She seemed very small and childlike, delicate and fragile, a creature
from another race. Only Billy’s skilled bulk and muscle saved her.
He was continually glancing from face to face of the women and always
returning to study her face, nor was she unaware of the contrast he was
making.

Some excitement occurred a score of feet away from them, and to the
sound of exclamations and blows a surge ran through the crowd. A large
man, wedged sidewise in the jam, was shoved against Saxon, crushing her
closely against Billy, who reached across to the man’s shoulder with a
massive thrust that was not so slow as usual. An involuntary grunt came
from the victim, who turned his head, showing sun-reddened blond skin
and unmistakable angry Irish eyes.

“What’s eatin’ yeh?” he snarled.

“Get off your foot; you’re standin’ on it,” was Billy’s contemptuous
reply, emphasized by an increase of thrust.

The Irishman grunted again and made a frantic struggle to twist his body
around, but the wedging bodies on either side held him in a vise.

“I’ll break yer ugly face for yeh in a minute,” he announced in
wrath-thick tones.

Then his own face underwent transformation. The snarl left the lips, and
the angry eyes grew genial.

“An’ sure an’ it’s yerself,” he said. “I didn’t know it was yeh
a-shovin’. I seen yeh lick the Terrible Swede, if yeh WAS robbed on the
decision.”

“No, you didn’t, Bo,” Billy answered pleasantly. “You saw me take a good
beatin’ that night. The decision was all right.”

The Irishman was now beaming. He had endeavored to pay a compliment with
a lie, and the prompt repudiation of the lie served only to increase his
hero-worship.

“Sure, an’ a bad beatin’ it was,” he acknowledged, “but yeh showed the
grit of a bunch of wildcats. Soon as I can get me arm free I’m goin’ to
shake yeh by the hand an’ help yeh aise yer young lady.”

Frustrated in the struggle to get the crowd back, the referee fired his
revolver in the air, and the tug-of-war was on. Pandemonium broke loose.
Saxon, protected by the two big men, was near enough to the front to
see much that ensued. The men on the rope pulled and strained till their
faces were red with effort and their joints crackled. The rope was
new, and, as their hands slipped, their wives and daughters sprang in,
scooping up the earth in double handfuls and pouring it on the rope and
the hands of their men to give them better grip.

A stout, middle-aged woman, carried beyond herself by the passion of the
contest, seized the rope and pulled beside her husband, encouraged him
with loud cries. A watcher from the opposing team dragged her screaming
away and was dropped like a steer by an ear-blow from a partisan from
the woman’s team. He, in turn, went down, and brawny women joined with
their men in the battle. Vainly the judges and watchers begged,
pleaded, yelled, and swung with their fists. Men, as well as women,
were springing in to the rope and pulling. No longer was it team against
team, but all Oakland against all San Francisco, festooned with a
free-for-all fight. Hands overlaid hands two and three deep in the
struggle to grasp the rope. And hands that found no holds, doubled into
bunches of knuckles that impacted on the jaws of the watchers who strove
to tear hand-holds from the rope.

Bert yelped with joy, while Mary clung to him, mad with fear. Close to
the rope the fighters were going down and being trampled. The dust arose
in clouds, while from beyond, all around, unable to get into the battle,
could be heard the shrill and impotent rage-screams and rage-yells of
women and men.

“Dirty work, dirty work,” Billy muttered over and over; and, though he
saw much that occurred, assisted by the friendly Irishman he was coolly
and safely working Saxon back out of the melee.

At last the break came. The losing team, accompanied by its host of
volunteers, was dragged in a rush over the ground and disappeared under
the avalanche of battling forms of the onlookers.

Leaving Saxon under the protection of the Irishman in an outer eddy
of calm, Billy plunged back into the mix-up. Several minutes later he
emerged with the missing couple--Bert bleeding from a blow on the ear,
but hilarious, and Mary rumpled and hysterical.

“This ain’t sport,” she kept repeating. “It’s a shame, a dirty shame.”

“We got to get outa this,” Billy said. “The fun’s only commenced.”

“Aw, wait,” Bert begged. “It’s worth eight dollars. It’s cheap at any
price. I ain’t seen so many black eyes and bloody noses in a month of
Sundays.”

“Well, go on back an’ enjoy yourself,” Billy commended. “I’ll take the
girls up there on the side hill where we can look on. But I won’t give
much for your good looks if some of them Micks lands on you.”

The trouble was over in an amazingly short time, for from the judges’
stand beside the track the announcer was bellowing the start of the
boys’ foot-race; and Bert, disappointed, joined Billy and the two girls
on the hillside looking down upon the track.

There were boys’ races and girls’ races, races of young women and old
women, of fat men and fat women, sack races and three-legged races,
and the contestants strove around the small track through a Bedlam of
cheering supporters. The tug-of-war was already forgotten, and good
nature reigned again.

Five young men toed the mark, crouching with fingertips to the
ground and waiting the starter’s revolver-shot. Three were in their
stocking-feet, and the remaining two wore spiked running-shoes.

“Young men’s race,” Bert read from the program. “An’ only one
prize--twenty-five dollars. See the red-head with the spikes--the one
next to the outside. San Francisco’s set on him winning. He’s their
crack, an’ there’s a lot of bets up.”

“Who’s goin’ to win?” Mary deferred to Billy’s superior athletic
knowledge.

“How can I tell!” he answered. “I never saw any of ‘em before. But they
all look good to me. May the best one win, that’s all.”

The revolver was fired, and the five runners were off and away. Three
were outdistanced at the start. Redhead led, with a black-haired young
man at his shoulder, and it was plain that the race lay between these
two. Halfway around, the black-haired one took the lead in a spurt
that was intended to last to the finish. Ten feet he gained, nor could
Red-head cut it down an inch.

“The boy’s a streak,” Billy commented. “He ain’t tryin’ his hardest, an’
Red-head’s just bustin’ himself.”

Still ten feet in the lead, the black-haired one breasted the tape in a
hubbub of cheers. Yet yells of disapproval could be distinguished. Bert
hugged himself with joy.

“Mm-mm,” he gloated. “Ain’t Frisco sore? Watch out for fireworks now.
See! He’s bein’ challenged. The judges ain’t payin’ him the money. An’
he’s got a gang behind him. Oh! Oh! Oh! Ain’t had so much fun since my
old woman broke her leg!”

“Why don’t they pay him, Billy?” Saxon asked. “He won.”

“The Frisco bunch is challengin’ him for a professional,” Billy
elucidated. “That’s what they’re all beefin’ about. But it ain’t right.
They all ran for that money, so they’re all professional.”

The crowd surged and argued and roared in front of the judges’ stand.
The stand was a rickety, two-story affair, the second story open at the
front, and here the judges could be seen debating as heatedly as the
crowd beneath them.

“There she starts!” Bert cried. “Oh, you rough-house!”

The black-haired racer, backed by a dozen supporters, was climbing the
outside stairs to the judges.

“The purse-holder’s his friend,” Billy said. “See, he’s paid him, an’
some of the judges is willin’ an’ some are beefin’. An’ now that
other gang’s going up--they’re Redhead’s.” He turned to Saxon with a
reassuring smile. “We’re well out of it this time. There’s goin’ to be
rough stuff down there in a minute.”

“The judges are tryin’ to make him give the money back,” Bert explained.
“An’ if he don’t the other gang’ll take it away from him. See! They’re
reachin’ for it now.”

High above his head, the winner held the roll of paper containing the
twenty-five silver dollars. His gang, around him, was shouldering back
those who tried to seize the money. No blows had been struck yet, but
the struggle increased until the frail structure shook and swayed. From
the crowd beneath the winner was variously addressed: “Give it back, you
dog!” “Hang on to it, Tim!” “You won fair, Timmy!” “Give it back, you
dirty robber!” Abuse unprintable as well as friendly advice was hurled
at him.

The struggle grew more violent. Tim’s supporters strove to hold him off
the floor so that his hand would still be above the grasping hands that
shot up. Once, for an instant, his arm was jerked down. Again it went
up. But evidently the paper had broken, and with a last desperate
effort, before he went down, Tim flung the coin out in a silvery shower
upon the heads of the crowd beneath. Then ensued a weary period of
arguing and quarreling.

“I wish they’d finish, so as we could get back to the dancin’,” Mary
complained. “This ain’t no fun.”

Slowly and painfully the judges’ stand was cleared, and an announcer,
stepping to the front of the stand, spread his arms appealing for
silence. The angry clamor died down.

 “The judges have decided,” he shouted, “that this day of good
fellowship an’ brotherhood--”

“Hear! Hear!” Many of the cooler heads applauded. “That’s the stuff!”
 “No fightin’!” “No hard feelin’s!”

“An’ therefore,” the announcer became audible again, “the judges have
decided to put up another purse of twenty-five dollars an’ run the race
over again!”

“An’ Tim?” bellowed scores of throats. “What about Tim?” “He’s been
robbed!” “The judges is rotten!”

Again the announcer stilled the tumult with his arm appeal.

“The judges have decided, for the sake of good feelin’, that Timothy
McManus will also run. If he wins, the money’s his.”

“Now wouldn’t that jar you?” Billy grumbled disgustedly. “If Tim’s
eligible now, he was eligible the first time. An’ if he was eligible the
first time, then the money was his.”

“Red-head’ll bust himself wide open this time,” Bert jubilated.

“An’ so will Tim,” Billy rejoined. “You can bet he’s mad clean through,
and he’ll let out the links he was holdin’ in last time.”

Another quarter of an hour was spent in clearing the track of the
excited crowd, and this time only Tim and Red-head toed the mark. The
other three young men had abandoned the contest.

The leap of Tim, at the report of the revolver, put him a clean yard in
the lead.

“I guess he’s professional, all right, all right,” Billy remarked. “An’
just look at him go!”

Half-way around, Tim led by fifty feet, and, running swiftly,
maintaining the same lead, he came down the homestretch an easy winner.
When directly beneath the group on the hillside, the incredible and
unthinkable happened. Standing close to the inside edge of the track was
a dapper young man with a light switch cane. He was distinctly out of
place in such a gathering, for upon him was no ear-mark of the working
class. Afterward, Bert was of the opinion that he looked like a swell
dancing master, while Billy called him “the dude.”

So far as Timothy McManus was concerned, the dapper young man was
destiny; for as Tim passed him, the young man, with utmost deliberation,
thrust his cane between Tim’s flying legs. Tim sailed through the air in
a headlong pitch, struck spread-eagled on his face, and plowed along in
a cloud of dust.

There was an instant of vast and gasping silence. The young man, too,
seemed petrified by the ghastliness of his deed. It took an appreciable
interval of time for him, as well as for the onlookers, to realize what
he had done. They recovered first, and from a thousand throats the wild
Irish yell went up. Red-head won the race without a cheer. The storm
center had shifted to the young man with the cane. After the yell, he
had one moment of indecision; then he turned and darted up the track.

“Go it, sport!” Bert cheered, waving his hat in the air. “You’re the
goods for me! Who’d a-thought it? Who’d a-thought it? Say!--wouldn’t it,
now? Just wouldn’t it?”

“Phew! He’s a streak himself,” Billy admired. “But what did he do it
for? He’s no bricklayer.”

Like a frightened rabbit, the mad roar at his heels, the young man tore
up the track to an open space on the hillside, up which he clawed
and disappeared among the trees. Behind him toiled a hundred vengeful
runners.

“It’s too bad he’s missing the rest of it,” Billy said. “Look at ‘em
goin’ to it.”

Bert was beside himself. He leaped up and down and cried continuously.

“Look at ‘em! Look at ‘em! Look at ‘em!”

The Oakland faction was outraged. Twice had its favorite runner been
jobbed out of the race. This last was only another vile trick of the
Frisco faction. So Oakland doubled its brawny fists and swung into San
Francisco for blood. And San Francisco, consciously innocent, was no
less willing to join issues. To be charged with such a crime was no less
monstrous than the crime itself. Besides, for too many tedious hours
had the Irish heroically suppressed themselves. Five thousands of them
exploded into joyous battle. The women joined with them. The whole
amphitheater was filled with the conflict. There were rallies, retreats,
charges, and counter-charges. Weaker groups were forced fighting up
the hillsides. Other groups, bested, fled among the trees to carry
on guerrilla warfare, emerging in sudden dashes to overwhelm isolated
enemies. Half a dozen special policemen, hired by the Weasel Park
management, received an impartial trouncing from both sides.

“Nobody’s the friend of a policeman,” Bert chortled, dabbing his
handkerchief to his injured ear, which still bled.

The bushes crackled behind him, and he sprang aside to let the locked
forms of two men go by, rolling over and over down the hill, each
striking when uppermost, and followed by a screaming woman who rained
blows on the one who was patently not of her clan.

The judges, in the second story of the stand, valiantly withstood
a fierce assault until the frail structure toppled to the ground in
splinters.

“What’s that woman doing?” Saxon asked, calling attention to an elderly
woman beneath them on the track, who had sat down and was pulling from
her foot an elastic-sided shoe of generous dimensions.

“Goin’ swimming,” Bert chuckled, as the stocking followed.

They watched, fascinated. The shoe was pulled on again over the bare
foot. Then the woman slipped a rock the size of her fist into the
stocking, and, brandishing this ancient and horrible weapon, lumbered
into the nearest fray.

“Oh!--Oh!--Oh!” Bert screamed, with every blow she struck. “Hey, old
flannel-mouth! Watch out! You’ll get yours in a second. Oh! Oh! A peach!
Did you see it? Hurray for the old lady! Look at her tearin’ into ‘em!
Watch out, old girl!... Ah-h-h.”

His voice died away regretfully, as the one with the stocking, whose
hair had been clutched from behind by another Amazon, was whirled about
in a dizzy semicircle.

Vainly Mary clung to his arm, shaking him back and forth and
remonstrating.

“Can’t you be sensible?” she cried. “It’s awful! I tell you it’s awful!”

But Bert was irrepressible.

“Go it, old girl!” he encouraged. “You win! Me for you every time! Now’s
your chance! Swat! Oh! My! A peach! A peach!”

“It’s the biggest rough-house I ever saw,” Billy confided to Saxon. “It
sure takes the Micks to mix it. But what did that dude wanta do it for?
That’s what gets me. He wasn’t a bricklayer--not even a workingman--just
a regular sissy dude that didn’t know a livin’ soul in the grounds. But
if he wanted to raise a rough-house he certainly done it. Look at ‘em.
They’re fightin’ everywhere.”

He broke into sudden laughter, so hearty that the tears came into his
eyes.

“What is it?” Saxon asked, anxious not to miss anything.

“It’s that dude,” Billy explained between gusts. “What did he wanta do
it for? That’s what gets my goat. What’d he wanta do it for?”

There was more crashing in the brush, and two women erupted upon the
scene, one in flight, the other pursuing. Almost ere they could realize
it, the little group found itself merged in the astounding conflict that
covered, if not the face of creation, at least all the visible landscape
of Weasel Park.

The fleeing woman stumbled in rounding the end of a picnic bench, and
would have been caught had she not seized Mary’s arm to recover balance,
and then flung Mary full into the arms of the woman who pursued. This
woman, largely built, middle-aged, and too irate to comprehend, clutched
Mary’s hair by one hand and lifted the other to smack her. Before the
blow could fall, Billy had seized both the woman’s wrists.

“Come on, old girl, cut it out,” he said appeasingly. “You’re in wrong.
She ain’t done nothin’.”

Then the woman did a strange thing. Making no resistance, but
maintaining her hold on the girl’s hair, she stood still and calmly
began to scream. The scream was hideously compounded of fright and fear.
Yet in her face was neither fright nor fear. She regarded Billy coolly
and appraisingly, as if to see how he took it--her scream merely the cry
to the clan for help.

“Aw, shut up, you battleax!” Bert vociferated, trying to drag her off by
the shoulders.

The result was that the four rocked back and forth, while the woman
calmly went on screaming. The scream became touched with triumph as more
crashing was heard in the brush.

Saxon saw Billy’s slow eyes glint suddenly to the hardness of steel, and
at the same time she saw him put pressure on his wrist-holds. The woman
released her grip on Mary and was shoved back and free. Then the first
man of the rescue was upon them. He did not pause to inquire into the
merits of the affair. It was sufficient that he saw the woman reeling
away from Billy and screaming with pain that was largely feigned.

“It’s all a mistake,” Billy cried hurriedly. “We apologize, sport--”

The Irishman swung ponderously. Billy ducked, cutting his apology short,
and as the sledge-like fist passed over his head, he drove his left to
the other’s jaw. The big Irishman toppled over sidewise and sprawled
on the edge of the slope. Half-scrambled back to his feet and out of
balance, he was caught by Bert’s fist, and this time went clawing down
the slope that was slippery with short, dry grass. Bert was redoubtable.
“That for you, old girl--my compliments,” was his cry, as he shoved the
woman over the edge on to the treacherous slope. Three more men were
emerging from the brush.

In the meantime, Billy had put Saxon in behind the protection of the
picnic table. Mary, who was hysterical, had evinced a desire to cling to
him, and he had sent her sliding across the top of the table to Saxon.

“Come on, you flannel-mouths!” Bert yelled at the newcomers, himself
swept away by passion, his black eyes flashing wildly, his dark face
inflamed by the too-ready blood. “Come on, you cheap skates! Talk about
Gettysburg. We’ll show you all the Americans ain’t dead yet!”

“Shut your trap--we don’t want a scrap with the girls here,” Billy
growled harshly, holding his position in front of the table. He turned
to the three rescuers, who were bewildered by the lack of anything
visible to rescue. “Go on, sports. We don’t want a row. You’re in wrong.
They ain’t nothin’ doin’ in the fight line. We don’t wanta fight--d’ye
get me?”

They still hesitated, and Billy might have succeeded in avoiding trouble
had not the man who had gone down the bank chosen that unfortunate
moment to reappear, crawling groggily on hands and knees and showing a
bleeding face. Again Bert reached him and sent him downslope, and the
other three, with wild yells, sprang in on Billy, who punched, shifted
position, ducked and punched, and shifted again ere he struck the third
time. His blows were clean and hard, scientifically delivered, with the
weight of his body behind.

Saxon, looking on, saw his eyes and learned more about him. She was
frightened, but clear-seeing, and she was startled by the disappearance
of all depth of light and shadow in his eyes. They showed surface
only--a hard, bright surface, almost glazed, devoid of all expression
save deadly seriousness. Bert’s eyes showed madness. The eyes of the
Irishmen were angry and serious, and yet not all serious. There was a
wayward gleam in them, as if they enjoyed the fracas. But in Billy’s
eyes was no enjoyment. It was as if he had certain work to do and had
doggedly settled down to do it.

Scarcely more expression did she note in the face, though there was
nothing in common between it and the one she had seen all day. The
boyishness had vanished. This face was mature in a terrifying, ageless
way. There was no anger in it, nor was it even pitiless. It seemed to
have glazed as hard and passionlessly as his eyes. Something came to her
of her wonderful mother’s tales of the ancient Saxons, and he seemed to
her one of those Saxons, and she caught a glimpse, on the well of her
consciousness, of a long, dark boat, with a prow like the beak of a bird
of prey, and of huge, half-naked men, wing-helmeted, and one of their
faces, it seemed to her, was his face. She did not reason this. She felt
it, and visioned it as by an unthinkable clairvoyance, and gasped, for
the flurry of war was over. It had lasted only seconds, Bert was dancing
on the edge of the slippery slope and mocking the vanquished who had
slid impotently to the bottom. But Billy took charge.

“Come on, you girls,” he commanded. “Get onto yourself, Bert. We got to
get outa this. We can’t fight an army.”

He led the retreat, holding Saxon’s arm, and Bert, giggling and
jubilant, brought up the rear with an indignant Mary who protested
vainly in his unheeding ears.

For a hundred yards they ran and twisted through the trees, and then,
no signs of pursuit appearing, they slowed down to a dignified saunter.
Bert, the trouble-seeker, pricked his ears to the muffled sound of blows
and sobs, and stepped aside to investigate.

“Oh! look what I’ve found!” he called.

They joined him on the edge of a dry ditch and looked down. In the
bottom were two men, strays from the fight, grappled together and still
fighting. They were weeping out of sheer fatigue and helplessness,
and the blows they only occasionally struck were open-handed and
ineffectual.

“Hey, you, sport--throw sand in his eyes,” Bert counseled. “That’s it,
blind him an’ he’s your’n.”

“Stop that!” Billy shouted at the man, who was following instructions,
“Or I’ll come down there an’ beat you up myself. It’s all over--d’ye get
me? It’s all over an’ everybody’s friends. Shake an’ make up. The drinks
are on both of you. That’s right--here, gimme your hand an’ I’ll pull
you out.”

They left them shaking hands and brushing each other’s clothes.

“It soon will be over,” Billy grinned to Saxon. “I know ‘em. Fight’s fun
with them. An’ this big scrap’s made the day a howlin’ success. What did
I tell you!--look over at that table there.”

A group of disheveled men and women, still breathing heavily, were
shaking hands all around.

“Come on, let’s dance,” Mary pleaded, urging them in the direction of
the pavilion.

All over the park the warring bricklayers were shaking hands and making
up, while the open-air bars were crowded with the drinkers.

Saxon walked very close to Billy. She was proud of him. He could fight,
and he could avoid trouble. In all that had occurred he had striven
to avoid trouble. And, also, consideration for her and Mary had been
uppermost in his mind.

“You are brave,” she said to him.

“It’s like takin’ candy from a baby,” he disclaimed. “They only
rough-house. They don’t know boxin’. They’re wide open, an’ all you
gotta do is hit ‘em. It ain’t real fightin’, you know.” With a troubled,
boyish look in his eyes, he stared at his bruised knuckles. “An’ I’ll
have to drive team to-morrow with ‘em,” he lamented. “Which ain’t fun,
I’m tellin’ you, when they stiffen up.”



CHAPTER V

At eight o’clock the Al Vista band played “Home, Sweet Home,” and,
following the hurried rush through the twilight to the picnic train, the
four managed to get double seats facing each other. When the aisles and
platforms were packed by the hilarious crowd, the train pulled out for
the short run from the suburbs into Oakland. All the car was singing
a score of songs at once, and Bert, his head pillowed on Mary’s breast
with her arms around him, started “On the Banks of the Wabash.” And he
sang the song through, undeterred by the bedlam of two general fights,
one on the adjacent platform, the other at the opposite end of the car,
both of which were finally subdued by special policemen to the screams
of women and the crash of glass.

Billy sang a lugubrious song of many stanzas about a cowboy, the refrain
of which was, “Bury me out on the lone pr-rairie.”

“That’s one you never heard before; my father used to sing it,” he told
Saxon, who was glad that it was ended.

She had discovered the first flaw in him. He was tonedeaf. Not once had
he been on the key.

“I don’t sing often,” he added.

“You bet your sweet life he don’t,” Bert exclaimed. “His friends’d kill
him if he did.”

“They all make fun of my singin’,” he complained to Saxon. “Honest, now,
do you find it as rotten as all that?”

“It’s... it’s maybe flat a bit,” she admitted reluctantly.

“It don’t sound flat to me,” he protested. “It’s a regular josh on me.
I’ll bet Bert put you up to it. You sing something now, Saxon. I bet you
sing good. I can tell it from lookin’ at you.”

She began “When the Harvest Days Are Over.” Bert and Mary joined in; but
when Billy attempted to add his voice he was dissuaded by a shin-kick
from Bert. Saxon sang in a clear, true soprano, thin but sweet, and she
was aware that she was singing to Billy.

“Now THAT is singing what is,” he proclaimed, when she had finished.
“Sing it again. Aw, go on. You do it just right. It’s great.”

His hand slipped to hers and gathered it in, and as she sang again she
felt the tide of his strength flood warmingly through her.

“Look at ‘em holdin’ hands,” Bert jeered. “Just a-holdin’ hands
like they was afraid. Look at Mary an’ me. Come on an’ kick in, you
cold-feets. Get together. If you don’t, it’ll look suspicious. I got my
suspicions already. You’re framin’ somethin’ up.”

There was no mistaking his innuendo, and Saxon felt her cheeks flaming.

“Get onto yourself, Bert,” Billy reproved.

“Shut up!” Mary added the weight of her indignation. “You’re
awfully raw, Bert Wanhope, an’ I won’t have anything more to do with
you--there!”

She withdrew her arms and shoved him away, only to receive him
forgivingly half a dozen seconds afterward.

 “Come on, the four of us,” Bert went on irrepressibly. “The
night’s young. Let’s make a time of it--Pabst’s Cafe first, and then
some. What you say, Bill? What you say, Saxon? Mary’s game.”

Saxon waited and wondered, half sick with apprehension of this man
beside her whom she had known so short a time.

“Nope,” he said slowly. “I gotta get up to a hard day’s work to-morrow,
and I guess the girls has got to, too.”

Saxon forgave him his tone-deafness. Here was the kind of man she always
had known existed. It was for some such man that she had waited. She was
twenty-two, and her first marriage offer had come when she was sixteen.
The last had occurred only the month before, from the foreman of the
washing-room, and he had been good and kind, but not young. But this
one beside her--he was strong and kind and good, and YOUNG. She was too
young herself not to desire youth. There would have been rest from fancy
starch with the foreman, but there would have been no warmth. But this
man beside her.... She caught herself on the verge involuntarily of
pressing his hand that held hers.

“No, Bert, don’t tease; he’s right,” Mary was saying. “We’ve got to get
some sleep. It’s fancy starch to-morrow, and all day on our feet.”

It came to Saxon with a chill pang that she was surely older than Billy.
She stole glances at the smoothness of his face, and the essential
boyishness of him, so much desired, shocked her. Of course he would
marry some girl years younger than himself, than herself. How old was
he? Could it be that he was too young for her? As he seemed to grow
inaccessible, she was drawn toward him more compellingly. He was so
strong, so gentle. She lived over the events of the day. There was no
flaw there. He had considered her and Mary, always. And he had torn
the program up and danced only with her. Surely he had liked her, or he
would not have done it.

She slightly moved her hand in his and felt the harsh contact of his
teamster callouses. The sensation was exquisite. He, too, moved his
hand, to accommodate the shift of hers, and she waited fearfully. She
did not want him to prove like other men, and she could have hated him
had he dared to take advantage of that slight movement of her fingers
and put his arm around her. He did not, and she flamed toward him.
There was fineness in him. He was neither rattle-brained, like Bert, nor
coarse like other men she had encountered. For she had had experiences,
not nice, and she had been made to suffer by the lack of what was termed
chivalry, though she, in turn, lacked that word to describe what she
divined and desired.

And he was a prizefighter. The thought of it almost made her gasp. Yet
he answered not at all to her conception of a prizefighter. But, then,
he wasn’t a prizefighter. He had said he was not. She resolved to ask
him about it some time if... if he took her out again. Yet there was
little doubt of that, for when a man danced with one girl a whole day
he did not drop her immediately. Almost she hoped that he was a
prizefighter. There was a delicious tickle of wickedness about it.
Prizefighters were such terrible and mysterious men. In so far as they
were out of the ordinary and were not mere common workingmen such as
carpenters and laundrymen, they represented romance. Power also they
represented. They did not work for bosses, but spectacularly and
magnificently, with their own might, grappled with the great world and
wrung splendid living from its reluctant hands. Some of them even
owned automobiles and traveled with a retinue of trainers and servants.
Perhaps it had been only Billy’s modesty that made him say he had quit
fighting. And yet, there were the callouses on his hands. That showed he
had quit.



CHAPTER VI

They said good-bye at the gate. Billy betrayed awkwardness that was
sweet to Saxon. He was not one of the take-it-for-granted young men.
There was a pause, while she feigned desire to go into the house, yet
waited in secret eagerness for the words she wanted him to say.

“When am I goin’ to see you again?” he asked, holding her hand in his.

She laughed consentingly.

“I live ‘way up in East Oakland,” he explained. “You know there’s where
the stable is, an’ most of our teaming is done in that section, so I
don’t knock around down this way much. But, say--” His hand tightened
on hers. “We just gotta dance together some more. I’ll tell you, the
Orindore Club has its dance Wednesday. If you haven’t a date--have you?”

“No,” she said.

“Then Wednesday. What time’ll I come for you?”

And when they had arranged the details, and he had agreed that she
should dance some of the dances with the other fellows, and said good
night again, his hand closed more tightly on hers and drew her toward
him. She resisted slightly, but honestly. It was the custom, but she
felt she ought not for fear he might misunderstand. And yet she wanted
to kiss him as she had never wanted to kiss a man. When it came, her
face upturned to his, she realized that on his part it was an honest
kiss. There hinted nothing behind it. Rugged and kind as himself, it
was virginal almost, and betrayed no long practice in the art of saying
good-bye. All men were not brutes after all, was her thought.

“Good night,” she murmured; the gate screeched under her hand; and
she hurried along the narrow walk that led around to the corner of the
house.

“Wednesday,” he called softly.

“Wednesday,” she answered.

But in the shadow of the narrow alley between the two houses she stood
still and pleasured in the ring of his foot falls down the cement
sidewalk. Not until they had quite died away did she go on. She crept
up the back stairs and across the kitchen to her room, registering her
thanksgiving that Sarah was asleep.

She lighted the gas, and, as she removed the little velvet hat, she felt
her lips still tingling with the kiss. Yet it had meant nothing. It was
the way of the young men. They all did it. But their good-night kisses
had never tingled, while this one tingled in her brain as well as on her
lip. What was it? What did it mean? With a sudden impulse she looked
at herself in the glass. The eyes were happy and bright. The color that
tinted her cheeks so easily was in them and glowing. It was a pretty
reflection, and she smiled, partly in joy, partly in appreciation, and
the smile grew at sight of the even rows of strong white teeth. Why
shouldn’t Billy like that face? was her unvoiced query. Other men had
liked it. Other men did like it. Even the other girls admitted she was
a good-looker. Charley Long certainly liked it from the way he made life
miserable for her.

She glanced aside to the rim of the looking-glass where his photograph
was wedged, shuddered, and made a moue of distaste. There was cruelty
in those eyes, and brutishness. He was a brute. For a year, now, he had
bullied her. Other fellows were afraid to go with her. He warned them
off. She had been forced into almost slavery to his attentions. She
remembered the young bookkeeper at the laundry--not a workingman, but
a soft-handed, soft-voiced gentleman--whom Charley had beaten up at
the corner because he had been bold enough to come to take her to the
theater. And she had been helpless. For his own sake she had never dared
accept another invitation to go out with him.

And now, Wednesday night, she was going with Billy. Billy! Her heart
leaped. There would be trouble, but Billy would save her from him. She’d
like to see him try and beat Billy up.

With a quick movement, she jerked the photograph from its niche and
threw it face down upon the chest of drawers. It fell beside a small
square case of dark and tarnished leather. With a feeling as of
profanation she again seized the offending photograph and flung it
across the room into a corner. At the same time she picked up the
leather case. Springing it open, she gazed at the daguerreotype of a
worn little woman with steady gray eyes and a hopeful, pathetic mouth.
Opposite, on the velvet lining, done in gold lettering, was, CARLTON
FROM DAISY. She read it reverently, for it represented the father she
had never known, and the mother she had so little known, though she
could never forget that those wise sad eyes were gray.

Despite lack of conventional religion, Saxon’s nature was deeply
religious. Her thoughts of God were vague and nebulous, and there
she was frankly puzzled. She could not vision God. Here, in the
daguerreotype, was the concrete; much she had grasped from it, and
always there seemed an infinite more to grasp. She did not go to church.
This was her high altar and holy of holies. She came to it in trouble,
in loneliness, for counsel, divination, and comfort. In so far as she
found herself different from the girls of her acquaintance, she quested
here to try to identify her characteristics in the pictured face. Her
mother had been different from other women, too. This, forsooth, meant
to her what God meant to others. To this she strove to be true, and not
to hurt nor vex. And how little she really knew of her mother, and of
how much was conjecture and surmise, she was unaware; for it was through
many years she had erected this mother-myth.

Yet was it all myth? She resented the doubt with quick jealousy, and,
opening the bottom drawer of the chest, drew forth a battered portfolio.
Out rolled manuscripts, faded and worn, and arose a faint far scent of
sweet-kept age. The writing was delicate and curled, with the quaint
fineness of half a century before. She read a stanza to herself:

“Sweet as a wind-lute’s airy strains Your gentle muse has learned to
sing, And California’s boundless plains Prolong the soft notes echoing.”

She wondered, for the thousandth time, what a windlute was; yet much
of beauty, much of beyondness, she sensed of this dimly remembered
beautiful mother of hers. She communed a while, then unrolled a second
manuscript. “To C. B.,” it read. To Carlton Brown, she knew, to her
father, a love-poem from her mother. Saxon pondered the opening lines:

“I have stolen away from the crowd in the groves, Where the nude statues
stand, and the leaves point and shiver At ivy-crowned Bacchus, the Queen
of the Loves, Pandora and Psyche, struck voiceless forever.”

This, too, was beyond her. But she breathed the beauty of it. Bacchus,
and Pandora and Psyche--talismans to conjure with! But alas! the
necromancy was her mother’s. Strange, meaningless words that meant so
much! Her marvelous mother had known their meaning. Saxon spelled
the three words aloud, letter by letter, for she did not dare their
pronunciation; and in her consciousness glimmered august connotations,
profound and unthinkable. Her mind stumbled and halted on the
star-bright and dazzling boundaries of a world beyond her world in which
her mother had roamed at will. Again and again, solemnly, she went over
the four lines. They were radiance and light to the world, haunted with
phantoms of pain and unrest, in which she had her being. There, hidden
among those cryptic singing lines, was the clue. If she could only grasp
it, all would be made clear. Of this she was sublimely confident. She
would understand Sarah’s sharp tongue, her unhappy brother, the cruelty
of Charley Long, the justness of the bookkeeper’s beating, the day-long,
month-long, year-long toil at the ironing-board.

She skipped a stanza that she knew was hopelessly beyond her, and tried
again:

     “The dusk of the greenhouse is luminous yet
     With quivers of opal and tremors of gold;
     For the sun is at rest, and the light from the west,
     Like delicate wine that is mellow and old,

“Flushes faintly the brow of a naiad that stands In the spray of a
fountain, whose seed-amethysts Tremble lightly a moment on bosom and
hands, Then dip in their basin from bosom and wrists.”

“It’s beautiful, just beautiful,” she sighed. And then, appalled at the
length of all the poem, at the volume of the mystery, she rolled the
manuscript and put it away. Again she dipped in the drawer, seeking the
clue among the cherished fragments of her mother’s hidden soul.

This time it was a small package, wrapped in tissue paper and tied with
ribbon. She opened it carefully, with the deep gravity and circumstance
of a priest before an altar. Appeared a little red-satin Spanish
girdle, whale-boned like a tiny corset, pointed, the pioneer finery of
a frontier woman who had crossed the plains. It was hand-made after the
California-Spanish model of forgotten days. The very whalebone had been
home-shaped of the raw material from the whaleships traded for in hides
and tallow. The black lace trimming her mother had made. The triple
edging of black velvet strips--her mother’s hands had sewn the stitches.

Saxon dreamed over it in a maze of incoherent thought. This was
concrete. This she understood. This she worshiped as man-created gods
have been worshiped on less tangible evidence of their sojourn on earth.

Twenty-two inches it measured around. She knew it out of many
verifications. She stood up and put it about her waist. This was part of
the ritual. It almost met. In places it did meet. Without her dress it
would meet everywhere as it had met on her mother. Closest of all, this
survival of old California-Ventura days brought Saxon in touch. Hers was
her mother’s form. Physically, she was like her mother. Her grit, her
ability to turn off work that was such an amazement to others, were
her mother’s. Just so had her mother been an amazement to her
generation--her mother, the toy-like creature, the smallest and the
youngest of the strapping pioneer brood, who nevertheless had mothered
the brood. Always it had been her wisdom that was sought, even by the
brothers and sisters a dozen years her senior. Daisy, it was, who
had put her tiny foot down and commanded the removal from the fever
flatlands of Colusa to the healthy mountains of Ventura; who had backed
the savage old Indian-fighter of a father into a corner and fought the
entire family that Vila might marry the man of her choice; who had flown
in the face of the family and of community morality and demanded the
divorce of Laura from her criminally weak husband; and who on the
other hand, had held the branches of the family together when only
misunderstanding and weak humanness threatened to drive them apart.

The peacemaker and the warrior! All the old tales trooped before Saxon’s
eyes. They were sharp with detail, for she had visioned them many times,
though their content was of things she had never seen. So far as details
were concerned, they were her own creation, for she had never seen an
ox, a wild Indian, nor a prairie schooner. Yet, palpitating and real,
shimmering in the sun-flashed dust of ten thousand hoofs, she saw
pass, from East to West, across a continent, the great hegira of the
land-hungry Anglo-Saxon. It was part and fiber of her. She had been
nursed on its traditions and its facts from the lips of those who had
taken part. Clearly she saw the long wagon-train, the lean, gaunt men
who walked before, the youths goading the lowing oxen that fell and
were goaded to their feet to fall again. And through it all, a flying
shuttle, weaving the golden dazzling thread of personality, moved the
form of her little, indomitable mother, eight years old, and nine ere
the great traverse was ended, a necromancer and a law-giver, willing her
way, and the way and the willing always good and right.

Saxon saw Punch, the little, rough-coated Skye-terrier with the honest
eyes (who had plodded for weary months), gone lame and abandoned; she
saw Daisy, the chit of a child, hide Punch in the wagon. She saw the
savage old worried father discover the added burden of the several
pounds to the dying oxen. She saw his wrath, as he held Punch by
the scruff of the neck. And she saw Daisy, between the muzzle of the
long-barreled rifle and the little dog. And she saw Daisy thereafter,
through days of alkali and heat, walking, stumbling, in the dust of the
wagons, the little sick dog, like a baby, in her arms.

But most vivid of all, Saxon saw the fight at Little Meadow--and Daisy,
dressed as for a gala day, in white, a ribbon sash about her waist,
ribbons and a round-comb in her hair, in her hands small water-pails,
step forth into the sunshine on the flower-grown open ground from the
wagon circle, wheels interlocked, where the wounded screamed their
delirium and babbled of flowing fountains, and go on, through the
sunshine and the wonder-inhibition of the bullet-dealing Indians, a
hundred yards to the waterhole and back again.

Saxon kissed the little, red satin Spanish girdle passionately, and
wrapped it up in haste, with dewy eyes, abandoning the mystery and
godhead of mother and all the strange enigma of living.

In bed, she projected against her closed eyelids the few rich scenes of
her mother that her child-memory retained. It was her favorite way
of wooing sleep. She had done it all her life--sunk into the
death-blackness of sleep with her mother limned to the last on her
fading consciousness. But this mother was not the Daisy of the plains
nor of the daguerreotype. They had been before Saxon’s time. This that
she saw nightly was an older mother, broken with insomnia and brave
with sorrow, who crept, always crept, a pale, frail creature, gentle
and unfaltering, dying from lack of sleep, living by will, and by will
refraining from going mad, who, nevertheless, could not will sleep, and
whom not even the whole tribe of doctors could make sleep. Crept--always
she crept, about the house, from weary bed to weary chair and back again
through long days and weeks of torment, never complaining, though her
unfailing smile was twisted with pain, and the wise gray eyes, still
wise and gray, were grown unutterably larger and profoundly deep.

But on this night Saxon did not win to sleep quickly; the little
creeping mother came and went; and in the intervals the face of Billy,
with the cloud-drifted, sullen, handsome eyes, burned against her
eyelids. And once again, as sleep welled up to smother her, she put to
herself the question IS THIS THE MAN?



CHAPTER VII

The work in the ironing-room slipped off, but the three days until
Wednesday night were very long. She hummed over the fancy starch that
flew under the iron at an astounding rate.

“I can’t see how you do it,” Mary admired. “You’ll make thirteen or
fourteen this week at that rate.”

Saxon laughed, and in the steam from the iron she saw dancing golden
letters that spelled WEDNESDAY.

“What do you think of Billy?” Mary asked.

“I like him,” was the frank answer.

“Well, don’t let it go farther than that.”

“I will if I want to,” Saxon retorted gaily.

“Better not,” came the warning. “You’ll only make trouble for yourself.
He ain’t marryin’. Many a girl’s found that out. They just throw
themselves at his head, too.”

“I’m not going to throw myself at him, or any other man.”

“Just thought I’d tell you,” Mary concluded. “A word to the wise.”

Saxon had become grave.

“He’s not... not...” she began, than looked the significance of the
question she could not complete.

“Oh, nothin’ like that--though there’s nothin’ to stop him. He’s
straight, all right, all right. But he just won’t fall for anything
in skirts. He dances, an’ runs around, an’ has a good time, an’ beyond
that--nitsky. A lot of ‘em’s got fooled on him. I bet you there’s a
dozen girls in love with him right now. An’ he just goes on turnin’
‘em down. There was Lily Sanderson--you know her. You seen her at that
Slavonic picnic last summer at Shellmound--that tall, nice-lookin’
blonde that was with Butch Willows?”

“Yes, I remember her,” Saxon said. “What about her?”

“Well, she’d been runnin’ with Butch Willows pretty steady, an’ just
because she could dance, Billy dances a lot with her. Butch ain’t afraid
of nothin’. He wades right in for a showdown, an’ nails Billy outside,
before everybody, an’ reads the riot act. An’ Billy listens in that
slow, sleepy way of his, an’ Butch gets hotter an’ hotter, an’ everybody
expects a scrap.

“An’ then Billy says to Butch, ‘Are you done?’ ‘Yes,’ Butch says; ‘I’ve
said my say, an’ what are you goin’ to do about it?’ An’ Billy says--an’
what d’ye think he said, with everybody lookin’ on an’ Butch with blood
in his eye? Well, he said, ‘I guess nothin’, Butch.’ Just like that.
Butch was that surprised you could knocked him over with a feather. ‘An’
never dance with her no more?’ he says. ‘Not if you say I can’t, Butch,’
Billy says. Just like that.

“Well, you know, any other man to take water the way he did from
Butch--why, everybody’d despise him. But not Billy. You see, he can
afford to. He’s got a rep as a fighter, an’ when he just stood back
‘an’ let Butch have his way, everybody knew he wasn’t scared, or backin’
down, or anything. He didn’t care a rap for Lily Sanderson, that was
all, an’ anybody could see she was just crazy after him.”

The telling of this episode caused Saxon no little worry. Hers was the
average woman’s pride, but in the matter of man-conquering prowess
she was not unduly conceited. Billy had enjoyed her dancing, and she
wondered if that were all. If Charley Long bullied up to him would he
let her go as he had let Lily Sanderson go? He was not a marrying
man; nor could Saxon blind her eyes to the fact that he was eminently
marriageable. No wonder the girls ran after him. And he was a
man-subduer as well as a woman-subduer. Men liked him. Bert Wanhope
seemed actually to love him. She remembered the Butchertown tough in the
dining-room at Weasel Park who had come over to the table to apologize,
and the Irishman at the tug-of-war who had abandoned all thought of
fighting with him the moment he learned his identity.

A very much spoiled young man was a thought that flitted frequently
through Saxon’s mind; and each time she condemned it as ungenerous. He
was gentle in that tantalizing slow way of his. Despite his strength,
he did not walk rough-shod over others. There was the affair with Lily
Sanderson. Saxon analysed it again and again. He had not cared for the
girl, and he had immediately stepped from between her and Butch. It was
just the thing that Bert, out of sheer wickedness and love of trouble,
would not have done. There would have been a fight, hard feelings, Butch
turned into an enemy, and nothing profited to Lily. But Billy had done
the right thing--done it slowly and imperturbably and with the least
hurt to everybody. All of which made him more desirable to Saxon and
less possible.

She bought another pair of silk stockings that she had hesitated at
for weeks, and on Tuesday night sewed and drowsed wearily over a new
shirtwaist and earned complaint from Sarah concerning her extravagant
use of gas.

Wednesday night, at the Orindore dance, was not all undiluted pleasure.
It was shameless the way the girls made up to Billy, and, at times,
Saxon found his easy consideration for them almost irritating. Yet she
was compelled to acknowledge to herself that he hurt none of the other
fellows’ feelings in the way the girls hurt hers. They all but asked
him outright to dance with them, and little of their open pursuit of him
escaped her eyes. She resolved that she would not be guilty of throwing
herself at him, and withheld dance after dance, and yet was secretly
and thrillingly aware that she was pursuing the right tactics. She
deliberately demonstrated that she was desirable to other men, as he
involuntarily demonstrated his own desirableness to the women.

Her happiness came when he coolly overrode her objections and insisted
on two dances more than she had allotted him. And she was pleased, as
well as angered, when she chanced to overhear two of the strapping young
cannery girls. “The way that little sawed-off is monopolizin’ him,” said
one. And the other: “You’d think she might have the good taste to run
after somebody of her own age.” “Cradle-snatcher,” was the final sting
that sent the angry blood into Saxon’s cheeks as the two girls moved
away, unaware that they had been overheard.

Billy saw her home, kissed her at the gate, and got her consent to go
with him to the dance at Germania Hall on Friday night.

“I wasn’t thinkin’ of goin’,” he said. “But if you’ll say the word...
Bert’s goin’ to be there.”

Next day, at the ironing boards, Mary told her that she and Bert were
dated for Germania Hall.

“Are you goin’?” Mary asked.

Saxon nodded.

“Billy Roberts?”

The nod was repeated, and Mary, with suspended iron, gave her a long and
curious look.

“Say, an’ what if Charley Long butts in?”

Saxon shrugged her shoulders.

They ironed swiftly and silently for a quarter of an hour.

“Well,” Mary decided, “if he does butt in maybe he’ll get his. I’d like
to see him get it--the big stiff! It all depends how Billy feels--about
you, I mean.”

“I’m no Lily Sanderson,” Saxon answered indignantly. “I’ll never give
Billy Roberts a chance to turn me down.”

“You will, if Charley Long butts in. Take it from me, Saxon, he ain’t no
gentleman. Look what he done to Mr. Moody. That was a awful beatin’.
An’ Mr. Moody only a quiet little man that wouldn’t harm a fly. Well, he
won’t find Billy Roberts a sissy by a long shot.”

That night, outside the laundry entrance, Saxon found Charley Long
waiting. As he stepped forward to greet her and walk alongside, she felt
the sickening palpitation that he had so thoroughly taught her to
know. The blood ebbed from her face with the apprehension and fear his
appearance caused. She was afraid of the rough bulk of the man; of the
heavy brown eyes, dominant and confident; of the big blacksmith-hands
and the thick strong fingers with the hair-pads on the back to every
first joint. He was unlovely to the eye, and he was unlovely to all her
finer sensibilities. It was not his strength itself, but the quality of
it and the misuse of it, that affronted her. The beating he had given
the gentle Mr. Moody had meant half-hours of horror to her afterward.
Always did the memory of it come to her accompanied by a shudder. And
yet, without shock, she had seen Billy fight at Weasel Park in the same
primitive man-animal way. But it had been different. She recognized, but
could not analyze, the difference. She was aware only of the brutishness
of this man’s hands and mind.

“You’re lookin’ white an’ all beat to a frazzle,” he was saying. “Why
don’t you cut the work? You got to some time, anyway. You can’t lose me,
kid.”

“I wish I could,” she replied.

He laughed with harsh joviality. “Nothin’ to it, Saxon. You’re just cut
out to be Mrs. Long, an’ you’re sure goin’ to be.”

“I wish I was as certain about all things as you are,” she said with
mild sarcasm that missed.

“Take it from me,” he went on, “there’s just one thing you can be
certain of--an’ that is that I am certain.” He was pleased with the
cleverness of his idea and laughed approvingly. “When I go after
anything I get it, an’ if anything gets in between it gets hurt. D’ye
get that? It’s me for you, an’ that’s all there is to it, so you might
as well make up your mind and go to workin’ in my home instead of the
laundry. Why, it’s a snap. There wouldn’t be much to do. I make good
money, an’ you wouldn’t want for anything. You know, I just washed up
from work an’ skinned over here to tell it to you once more, so you
wouldn’t forget. I ain’t ate yet, an’ that shows how much I think of
you.”

“You’d better go and eat then,” she advised, though she knew the
futility of attempting to get rid of him.

She scarcely heard what he said. It had come upon her suddenly that she
was very tired and very small and very weak alongside this colossus of
a man. Would he dog her always? she asked despairingly, and seemed to
glimpse a vision of all her future life stretched out before her, with
always the form and face of the burly blacksmith pursuing her.

“Come on, kid, an’ kick in,” he continued. “It’s the good old summer
time, an’ that’s the time to get married.”

“But I’m not going to marry you,” she protested. “I’ve told you a
thousand times already.”

“Aw, forget it. You want to get them ideas out of your think-box. Of
course, you’re goin’ to marry me. It’s a pipe. An’ I’ll tell you another
pipe. You an’ me’s goin’ acrost to Frisco Friday night. There’s goin’ to
be big doin’s with the Horseshoers.”

“Only I’m not,” she contradicted.

“Oh, yes you are,” he asserted with absolute assurance. “We’ll catch the
last boat back, an’ you’ll have one fine time. An’ I’ll put you next
to some of the good dancers. Oh, I ain’t a pincher, an’ I know you like
dancin’.”

“But I tell you I can’t,” she reiterated.

He shot a glance of suspicion at her from under the black thatch of
brows that met above his nose and were as one brow.

“Why can’t you?”

“A date,” she said.

“Who’s the bloke?”

“None of your business, Charley Long. I’ve got a date, that’s all.”

“I’ll make it my business. Remember that lah-de-dah bookkeeper rummy?
Well, just keep on rememberin’ him an’ what he got.”

“I wish you’d leave me alone,” she pleaded resentfully. “Can’t you be
kind just for once?”

The blacksmith laughed unpleasantly.

“If any rummy thinks he can butt in on you an’ me, he’ll learn
different, an’ I’m the little boy that’ll learn ‘m.--Friday night, eh?
Where?”

“I won’t tell you.”

“Where?” he repeated.

Her lips were drawn in tight silence, and in her cheeks were little
angry spots of blood.

“Huh!--As if I couldn’t guess! Germania Hall. Well, I’ll be there, an’
I’ll take you home afterward. D’ye get that? An’ you’d better tell the
rummy to beat it unless you want to see’m get his face hurt.”

Saxon, hurt as a prideful woman can be hurt by cavalier treatment, was
tempted to cry out the name and prowess of her new-found protector. And
then came fear. This was a big man, and Billy was only a boy. That was
the way he affected her. She remembered her first impression of his
hands and glanced quickly at the hands of the man beside her. They
seemed twice as large as Billy’s, and the mats of hair seemed to
advertise a terrible strength. No, Billy could not fight this big brute.
He must not. And then to Saxon came a wicked little hope that by the
mysterious and unthinkable ability that prizefighters possessed, Billy
might be able to whip this bully and rid her of him. With the next
glance doubt came again, for her eye dwelt on the blacksmith’s broad
shoulders, the cloth of the coat muscle-wrinkled and the sleeves bulging
above the biceps.

“If you lay a hand on anybody I’m going with again---” she began.

“Why, they’ll get hurt, of course,” Long grinned. “And they’ll deserve
it, too. Any rummy that comes between a fellow an’ his girl ought to get
hurt.”

“But I’m not your girl, and all your saying so doesn’t make it so.”

“That’s right, get mad,” he approved. “I like you for that, too. You’ve
got spunk an’ fight. I like to see it. It’s what a man needs in his
wife--and not these fat cows of women. They’re the dead ones. Now you’re
a live one, all wool, a yard long and a yard wide.”

She stopped before the house and put her hand on the gate.

“Good-bye,” she said. “I’m going in.”

“Come on out afterward for a run to Idora Park,” he suggested.

“No, I’m not feeling good, and I’m going straight to bed as soon as I
eat supper.”

“Huh!” he sneered. “Gettin’ in shape for the fling to-morrow night, eh?”

With an impatient movement she opened the gate and stepped inside.

“I’ve given it to you straight,” he went on. “If you don’t go with me
to-morrow night somebody’ll get hurt.”

“I hope it will be you,” she cried vindictively.

He laughed as he threw his head back, stretched his big chest, and
half-lifted his heavy arms. The action reminded her disgustingly of a
great ape she had once seen in a circus.

“Well, good-bye,” he said. “See you to-morrow night at Germania Hall.”

“I haven’t told you it was Germania Hall.”

“And you haven’t told me it wasn’t. All the same, I’ll be there. And
I’ll take you home, too. Be sure an’ keep plenty of round dances open
fer me. That’s right. Get mad. It makes you look fine.”



CHAPTER VIII

The music stopped at the end of the waltz, leaving Billy and Saxon at
the big entrance doorway of the ballroom. Her hand rested lightly on
his arm, and they were promenading on to find seats, when Charley Long,
evidently just arrived, thrust his way in front of them.

“So you’re the buttinsky, eh?” he demanded, his face malignant with
passion and menace.

“Who?--me?” Billy queried gently. “Some mistake, sport. I never butt
in.”

“You’re goin’ to get your head beaten off if you don’t make yourself
scarce pretty lively.”

“I wouldn’t want that to happen for the world,” Billy drawled. “Come on,
Saxon. This neighborhood’s unhealthy for us.”

He started to go on with her, but Long thrust in front again.

“You’re too fresh to keep, young fellow,” he snarled. “You need saltin’
down. D’ye get me?”

Billy scratched his head, on his face exaggerated puzzlement.

“No, I don’t get you,” he said. “Now just what was it you said?”

But the big blacksmith turned contemptuously away from him to Saxon.

“Come here, you. Let’s see your program.”

“Do you want to dance with him?” Billy asked.

She shook her head.

“Sorry, sport, nothin’ doin’,” Billy said, again making to start on.

For the third time the blacksmith blocked the way.

“Get off your foot,” said Billy. “You’re standin’ on it.”

Long all but sprang upon him, his hands clenched, one arm just starting
back for the punch while at the same instant shoulders and chest were
coming forward. But he restrained himself at sight of Billy’s unstartled
body and cold and cloudy eyes. He had made no move of mind or muscle.
It was as if he were unaware of the threatened attack. All of which
constituted a new thing in Long’s experience.

“Maybe you don’t know who I am,” he bullied.

“Yep, I do,” Billy answered airily. “You’re a record-breaker at
rough-housin’.” (Here Long’s face showed pleasure.) “You ought to have
the Police Gazette diamond belt for rough-housin’ baby buggies’. I guess
there ain’t a one you’re afraid to tackle.”

“Leave ‘m alone, Charley,” advised one of the young men who had crowded
about them. “He’s Bill Roberts, the fighter. You know’m. Big Bill.”

“I don’t care if he’s Jim Jeffries. He can’t butt in on me this way.”

Nevertheless it was noticeable, even to Saxon, that the fire had gone
out of his fierceness. Billy’s name seemed to have a quieting effect on
obstreperous males.

“Do you know him?” Billy asked her.

She signified yes with her eyes, though it seemed she must cry out a
thousand things against this man who so steadfastly persecuted her.
Billy turned to the blacksmith.

“Look here, sport, you don’t want trouble with me. I’ve got your number.
Besides, what do we want to fight for? Hasn’t she got a say so in the
matter?”

“No, she hasn’t. This is my affair an’ yourn.”

Billy shook his head slowly. “No; you’re in wrong. I think she has a say
in the matter.”

“Well, say it then,” Long snarled at Saxon, “who’re you goin’ to go
with?--me or him? Let’s get it settled.”

For reply, Saxon reached her free hand over to the hand that rested on
Billy’s arm.

“Nuff said,” was Billy’s remark.

Long glared at Saxon, then transferred the glare to her protector.

“I’ve a good mind to mix it with you anyway,” Long gritted through his
teeth.

Saxon was elated as they started to move away. Lily Sanderson’s fate had
not been hers, and her wonderful man-boy, without the threat of a blow,
slow of speech and imperturbable, had conquered the big blacksmith.

“He’s forced himself upon me all the time,” she whispered to Billy.
“He’s tried to run me, and beaten up every man that came near me. I
never want to see him again.”

Billy halted immediately. Long, who was reluctantly moving to get out of
the way, also halted.

“She says she don’t want anything more to do with you,” Billy said to
him. “An’ what she says goes. If I get a whisper any time that you’ve
been botherin’ her, I’ll attend to your case. D’ye get that?”

Long glowered and remained silent.

“D’ye get that?” Billy repeated, more imperatively.

A growl of assent came from the blacksmith

“All right, then. See you remember it. An’ now get outa the way or I’ll
walk over you.”

Long slunk back, muttering inarticulate threats, and Saxon moved on as
in a dream. Charley Long had taken water. He had been afraid of this
smooth-skinned, blue-eyed boy. She was quit of him--something no other
man had dared attempt for her. And Billy had liked her better than Lily
Sanderson.

Twice Saxon tried to tell Billy the details of her acquaintance with
Long, but each time was put off.

“I don’t care a rap about it,” Billy said the second time. “You’re here,
ain’t you?”

But she insisted, and when, worked up and angry by the recital, she had
finished, he patted her hand soothingly.

“It’s all right, Saxon,” he said. “He’s just a big stiff. I took his
measure as soon as I looked at him. He won’t bother you again. I know
his kind. He’s a dog. Roughhouse? He couldn’t rough-house a milk wagon.”

“But how do you do it?” she asked breathlessly. “Why are men so afraid
of you? You’re just wonderful.”

He smiled in an embarrassed way and changed the subject.

“Say,” he said, “I like your teeth. They’re so white an’ regular, an’
not big, an’ not dinky little baby’s teeth either. They’re ... they’re
just right, an’ they fit you. I never seen such fine teeth on a girl
yet. D’ye know, honest, they kind of make me hungry when I look at ‘em.
They’re good enough to eat.”

At midnight, leaving the insatiable Bert and Mary still dancing, Billy
and Saxon started for home. It was on his suggestion that they left
early, and he felt called upon to explain.

“It’s one thing the fightin’ game’s taught me,” he said. “To take care
of myself. A fellow can’t work all day and dance all night and keep in
condition. It’s the same way with drinkin’--an’ not that I’m a little
tin angel. I know what it is. I’ve been soused to the guards an’ all the
rest of it. I like my beer--big schooners of it; but I don’t drink all
I want of it. I’ve tried, but it don’t pay. Take that big stiff to-night
that butted in on us. He ought to had my number. He’s a dog anyway, but
besides he had beer bloat. I sized that up the first rattle, an’ that’s
the difference about who takes the other fellow’s number. Condition,
that’s what it is.”

“But he is so big,” Saxon protested. “Why, his fists are twice as big as
yours.”

“That don’t mean anything. What counts is what’s behind the fists. He’d
turn loose like a buckin’ bronco. If I couldn’t drop him at the start,
all I’d do is to keep away, smother up, an’ wait. An’ all of a sudden
he’d blow up--go all to pieces, you know, wind, heart, everything, and
then I’d have him where I wanted him. And the point is he knows it,
too.”

“You’re the first prizefighter I ever knew,” Saxon said, after a pause.

“I’m not any more,” he disclaimed hastily. “That’s one thing the
fightin’ game taught me--to leave it alone. It don’t pay. A fellow
trains as fine as silk--till he’s all silk, his skin, everything, and
he’s fit to live for a hundred years; an’ then he climbs through the
ropes for a hard twenty rounds with some tough customer that’s just as
good as he is, and in those twenty rounds he frazzles out all his silk
an’ blows in a year of his life. Yes, sometimes he blows in five years
of it, or cuts it in half, or uses up all of it. I’ve watched ‘em. I’ve
seen fellows strong as bulls fight a hard battle and die inside the year
of consumption, or kidney disease, or anything else. Now what’s the good
of it? Money can’t buy what they throw away. That’s why I quit the game
and went back to drivin’ team. I got my silk, an’ I’m goin’ to keep it,
that’s all.”

“It must make you feel proud to know you are the master of other men,”
 she said softly, aware herself of pride in the strength and skill of
him.

“It does,” he admitted frankly. “I’m glad I went into the game--just as
glad as I am that I pulled out of it.... Yep, it’s taught me a lot--to
keep my eyes open an’ my head cool. Oh, I’ve got a temper, a peach of a
temper. I get scared of myself sometimes. I used to be always breakin’
loose. But the fightin’ taught me to keep down the steam an’ not do
things I’d be sorry for afterward.”

“Why, you’re the sweetest, easiest tempered man I know,” she
interjected.

“Don’t you believe it. Just watch me, and sometime you’ll see me break
out that bad that I won’t know what I’m doin’ myself. Oh, I’m a holy
terror when I get started!”

This tacit promise of continued acquaintance gave Saxon a little
joy-thrill.

“Say,” he said, as they neared her neighborhood, “what are you doin’
next Sunday?”

“Nothing. No plans at all.”

“Well, suppose you an’ me go buggy-riding all day out in the hills?”

She did not answer immediately, and for the moment she was seeing the
nightmare vision of her last buggy-ride; of her fear and her leap from
the buggy; and of the long miles and the stumbling through the darkness
in thin-soled shoes that bruised her feet on every rock. And then it
came to her with a great swell of joy that this man beside her was not
such a man.

“I love horses,” she said. “I almost love them better than I do dancing,
only I don’t know anything about them. My father rode a great roan
war-horse. He was a captain of cavalry, you know. I never saw him, but
somehow I always can see him on that big horse, with a sash around his
waist and his sword at his side. My brother George has the sword now,
but Tom--he’s the brother I live with says it is mine because it wasn’t
his father’s. You see, they’re only my half-brothers. I was the only
child by my mother’s second marriage. That was her real marriage--her
love-marriage, I mean.”

Saxon ceased abruptly, embarrassed by her own garrulity; and yet the
impulse was strong to tell this young man all about herself, and it
seemed to her that these far memories were a large part of her.

“Go on an’ tell me about it,” Billy urged. “I like to hear about the old
people of the old days. My people was along in there, too, an’ somehow
I think it was a better world to live in than now. Things was more
sensible and natural. I don’t exactly say what I mean. But it’s like
this: I don’t understand life to-day. There’s the labor unions an’
employers’ associations, an’ strikes’, an’ hard times, an’ huntin’
for jobs, an’ all the rest. Things wasn’t like that in the old days.
Everybody farmed, an’ shot their meat, an’ got enough to eat, an’
took care of their old folks. But now it’s all a mix-up that I can’t
understand. Mebbe I’m a fool, I don’t know. But, anyway, go ahead an’
tell us about your mother.”

“Well, you see, when she was only a young woman she and Captain Brown
fell in love. He was a soldier then, before the war. And he was ordered
East for the war when she was away nursing her sister Laura. And then
came the news that he was killed at Shiloh. And she married a man who
had loved her for years and years. He was a boy in the same wagon-train
coming across the plains. She liked him, but she didn’t love him. And
afterward came the news that my father wasn’t killed after all. So it
made her very sad, but it did not spoil her life. She was a good mother
and a good wife and all that, but she was always sad, and sweet, and
gentle, and I think her voice was the most beautiful in the world.”

“She was game, all right,” Billy approved.

“And my father never married. He loved her all the time. I’ve got a
lovely poem home that she wrote to him. It’s just wonderful, and it
sings like music. Well, long, long afterward her husband died, and then
she and my father made their love marriage. They didn’t get married
until 1882, and she was pretty well along.”

More she told him, as they stood by the gate, and Saxon tried to think
that the good-bye kiss was a trifle longer than just ordinary.

“How about nine o’clock?” he queried across the gate. “Don’t bother
about lunch or anything. I’ll fix all that up. You just be ready at
nine.”



CHAPTER IX

Sunday morning Saxon was beforehand in getting ready, and on her
return to the kitchen from her second journey to peep through the front
windows, Sarah began her customary attack.

“It’s a shame an’ a disgrace the way some people can afford silk
stockings,” she began. “Look at me, a-toilin’ and a-stewin’ day an’
night, and I never get silk stockings--nor shoes, three pairs of them
all at one time. But there’s a just God in heaven, and there’ll be some
mighty big surprises for some when the end comes and folks get passed
out what’s comin’ to them.”

Tom, smoking his pipe and cuddling his youngest-born on his knees,
dropped an eyelid surreptitiously on his cheek in token that Sarah was
in a tantrum. Saxon devoted herself to tying a ribbon in the hair of one
of the little girls. Sarah lumbered heavily about the kitchen, washing
and putting away the breakfast dishes. She straightened her back from
the sink with a groan and glared at Saxon with fresh hostility.

“You ain’t sayin’ anything, eh? An’ why don’t you? Because I guess you
still got some natural shame in you a-runnin’ with a prizefighter. Oh,
I’ve heard about your goings-on with Bill Roberts. A nice specimen he
is. But just you wait till Charley Long gets his hands on him, that’s
all.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Tom intervened. “Bill Roberts is a pretty good boy
from what I hear.”

Saxon smiled with superior knowledge, and Sarah, catching her, was
infuriated.

“Why don’t you marry Charley Long? He’s crazy for you, and he ain’t a
drinkin’ man.”

“I guess he gets outside his share of beer,” Saxon retorted.

“That’s right,” her brother supplemented. “An’ I know for a fact that he
keeps a keg in the house all the time as well.”

“Maybe you’ve been guzzling from it,” Sarah snapped.

“Maybe I have,” Tom said, wiping his mouth reminiscently with the back
of his hand.

“Well, he can afford to keep a keg in the house if he wants to,” she
returned to the attack, which now was directed at her husband as well.
“He pays his bills, and he certainly makes good money--better than most
men, anyway.”

“An’ he hasn’t a wife an’ children to watch out for,” Tom said.

“Nor everlastin’ dues to unions that don’t do him no good.”

“Oh, yes, he has,” Tom urged genially. “Blamed little he’d work in that
shop, or any other shop in Oakland, if he didn’t keep in good standing
with the Blacksmiths. You don’t understand labor conditions, Sarah. The
unions have got to stick, if the men aren’t to starve to death.”

“Oh, of course not,” Sarah sniffed. “I don’t understand anything.
I ain’t got a mind. I’m a fool, an’ you tell me so right before the
children.” She turned savagely on her eldest, who startled and shrank
away. “Willie, your mother is a fool. Do you get that? Your father says
she’s a fool--says it right before her face and yourn. She’s just a
plain fool. Next he’ll be sayin’ she’s crazy an’ puttin’ her away in
the asylum. An’ how will you like that, Willie? How will you like to see
your mother in a straitjacket an’ a padded cell, shut out from the light
of the sun an’ beaten like a nigger before the war, Willie, beaten an’
clubbed like a regular black nigger? That’s the kind of a father you’ve
got, Willie. Think of it, Willie, in a padded cell, the mother that
bore you, with the lunatics screechin’ an’ screamin’ all around, an’ the
quick-lime eatin’ into the dead bodies of them that’s beaten to death by
the cruel wardens--”

She continued tirelessly, painting with pessimistic strokes the growing
black future her husband was meditating for her, while the boy, fearful
of some vague, incomprehensible catastrophe, began to weep silently,
with a pendulous, trembling underlip. Saxon, for the moment, lost
control of herself.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, can’t we be together five minutes without
quarreling?” she blazed.

Sarah broke off from asylum conjurations and turned upon her
sister-in-law.

“Who’s quarreling? Can’t I open my head without bein’ jumped on by the
two of you?”

Saxon shrugged her shoulders despairingly, and Sarah swung about on her
husband.

“Seein’ you love your sister so much better than your wife, why did you
want to marry me, that’s borne your children for you, an’ slaved for
you, an’ toiled for you, an’ worked her fingernails off for you, with
no thanks, an ‘insultin’ me before the children, an’ sayin’ I’m crazy
to their faces. An’ what have you ever did for me? That’s what I want to
know--me, that’s cooked for you, an’ washed your stinkin’ clothes,
and fixed your socks, an’ sat up nights with your brats when they was
ailin’. Look at that!”

She thrust out a shapeless, swollen foot, encased in a monstrous,
untended shoe, the dry, raw leather of which showed white on the edges
of bulging cracks.

“Look at that! That’s what I say. Look at that!” Her voice was
persistently rising and at the same time growing throaty. “The only
shoes I got. Me. Your wife. Ain’t you ashamed? Where are my three pairs?
Look at that stockin’.”

Speech failed her, and she sat down suddenly on a chair at the table,
glaring unutterable malevolence and misery. She arose with the abrupt
stiffness of an automaton, poured herself a cup of cold coffee, and
in the same jerky way sat down again. As if too hot for her lips,
she filled her saucer with the greasy-looking, nondescript fluid, and
continued her set glare, her breast rising and falling with staccato,
mechanical movement.

“Now, Sarah, be c’am, be c’am,” Tom pleaded anxiously.

In response, slowly, with utmost deliberation, as if the destiny of
empires rested on the certitude of her act, she turned the saucer of
coffee upside down on the table. She lifted her right hand, slowly,
hugely, and in the same slow, huge way landed the open palm with a
sounding slap on Tom’s astounded cheek. Immediately thereafter she
raised her voice in the shrill, hoarse, monotonous madness of hysteria,
sat down on the floor, and rocked back and forth in the throes of an
abysmal grief.

Willie’s silent weeping turned to noise, and the two little girls, with
the fresh ribbons in their hair, joined him. Tom’s face was drawn and
white, though the smitten cheek still blazed, and Saxon wanted to put
her arms comfortingly around him, yet dared not. He bent over his wife.

“Sarah, you ain’t feelin’ well. Let me put you to bed, and I’ll finish
tidying up.”

“Don’t touch me!--don’t touch me!” she screamed, jerking violently away
from him.

“Take the children out in the yard, Tom, for a walk, anything--get them
away,” Saxon said. She was sick, and white, and trembling. “Go, Tom,
please, please. There’s your hat. I’ll take care of her. I know just
how.”

Left to herself, Saxon worked with frantic haste, assuming the calm she
did not possess, but which she must impart to the screaming bedlamite
upon the floor. The light frame house leaked the noise hideously, and
Saxon knew that the houses on either side were hearing, and the street
itself and the houses across the street. Her fear was that Billy should
arrive in the midst of it. Further, she was incensed, violated. Every
fiber rebelled, almost in a nausea; yet she maintained cool control and
stroked Sarah’s forehead and hair with slow, soothing movements. Soon,
with one arm around her, she managed to win the first diminution in
the strident, atrocious, unceasing scream. A few minutes later, sobbing
heavily, the elder woman lay in bed, across her forehead and eyes a
wet-pack of towel for easement of the headache she and Saxon tacitly
accepted as substitute for the brain-storm.

When a clatter of hoofs came down the street and stopped, Saxon was able
to slip to the front door and wave her hand to Billy. In the kitchen she
found Tom waiting in sad anxiousness.

“It’s all right,” she said. “Billy Roberts has come, and I’ve got to go.
You go in and sit beside her for a while, and maybe she’ll go to sleep.
But don’t rush her. Let her have her own way. If she’ll let you take her
hand, why do it. Try it, anyway. But first of all, as an opener and just
as a matter of course, start wetting the towel over her eyes.”

He was a kindly, easy-going man; but, after the way of a large
percentage of the Western stock, he was undemonstrative. He nodded,
turned toward the door to obey, and paused irresolutely. The look he
gave back to Saxon was almost dog-like in gratitude and all-brotherly in
love. She felt it, and in spirit leapt toward it.

“It’s all right--everything’s all right,” she cried hastily.

Tom shook his head.

“No, it ain’t. It’s a shame, a blamed shame, that’s what it is.” He
shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, I don’t care for myself. But it’s for you.
You got your life before you yet, little kid sister. You’ll get old,
and all that means, fast enough. But it’s a bad start for a day off.
The thing for you to do is to forget all this, and skin out with your
fellow, an’ have a good time.” In the open door, his hand on the knob
to close it after him, he halted a second time. A spasm contracted his
brow. “Hell! Think of it! Sarah and I used to go buggy-riding once on
a time. And I guess she had her three pairs of shoes, too. Can you beat
it?”

In her bedroom Saxon completed her dressing, for an instant stepping
upon a chair so as to glimpse critically in the small wall-mirror
the hang of her ready-made linen skirt. This, and the jacket, she had
altered to fit, and she had double-stitched the seams to achieve the
coveted tailored effect. Still on the chair, all in the moment of quick
clear-seeing, she drew the skirt tightly back and raised it. The sight
was good to her, nor did she under-appraise the lines of the slender
ankle above the low tan tie nor did she under-appraise the delicate
yet mature swell of calf outlined in the fresh brown of a new cotton
stocking. Down from the chair, she pinned on a firm sailor hat of white
straw with a brown ribbon around the crown that matched her ribbon belt.
She rubbed her cheeks quickly and fiercely to bring back the color Sarah
had driven out of them, and delayed a moment longer to put on her tan
lisle-thread gloves. Once, in the fashion-page of a Sunday supplement,
she had read that no lady ever put on her gloves after she left the
door.

With a resolute self-grip, as she crossed the parlor and passed the
door to Sarah’s bedroom, through the thin wood of which came elephantine
moanings and low slubberings, she steeled herself to keep the color in
her cheeks and the brightness in her eyes. And so well did she succeed
that Billy never dreamed that the radiant, live young thing, tripping
lightly down the steps to him, had just come from a bout with
soul-sickening hysteria and madness.

To her, in the bright sun, Billy’s blondness was startling. His cheeks,
smooth as a girl’s, were touched with color. The blue eyes seemed more
cloudily blue than usual, and the crisp, sandy hair hinted more than
ever of the pale straw-gold that was not there. Never had she seen him
quite so royally young. As he smiled to greet her, with a slow white
flash of teeth from between red lips, she caught again the promise
of easement and rest. Fresh from the shattering chaos of her
sister-in-law’s mind, Billy’s tremendous calm was especially satisfying,
and Saxon mentally laughed to scorn the terrible temper he had charged
to himself.

She had been buggy-riding before, but always behind one horse, jaded,
and livery, in a top-buggy, heavy and dingy, such as livery stables
rent because of sturdy unbreakableness. But here stood two horses,
head-tossing and restless, shouting in every high-light glint of their
satin, golden-sorrel coats that they had never been rented out in
all their glorious young lives. Between them was a pole inconceivably
slender, on them were harnesses preposterously string-like and fragile.
And Billy belonged here, by elemental right, a part of them and of it,
a master-part and a component, along with the spidery-delicate,
narrow-boxed, wide- and yellow-wheeled, rubber-tired rig, efficient and
capable, as different as he was different from the other man who had
taken her out behind stolid, lumbering horses. He held the reins in
one hand, yet, with low, steady voice, confident and assuring, held the
nervous young animals more by the will and the spirit of him.

It was no time for lingering. With the quick glance and fore-knowledge
of a woman, Saxon saw, not merely the curious children clustering about,
but the peering of adult faces from open doors and windows, and past
window-shades lifted up or held aside. With his free hand, Billy
drew back the linen robe and helped her to a place beside him. The
high-backed, luxuriously upholstered seat of brown leather gave her
a sense of great comfort; yet even greater, it seemed to her, was the
nearness and comfort of the man himself and of his body.

“How d’ye like ‘em?” he asked, changing the reins to both hands and
chirruping the horses, which went out with a jerk in an immediacy of
action that was new to her. “They’re the boss’s, you know. Couldn’t rent
animals like them. He lets me take them out for exercise sometimes. If
they ain’t exercised regular they’re a handful.--Look at King, there,
prancin’. Some style, eh? Some style! The other one’s the real goods,
though. Prince is his name. Got to have some bit on him to hold’m.--Ah!
Would you?--Did you see’m, Saxon? Some horse! Some horse!”

From behind came the admiring cheer of the neighborhood children, and
Saxon, with a sigh of content, knew that the happy day had at last
begun.



CHAPTER X

“I don’t know horses,” Saxon said. “I’ve never been on one’s back,
and the only ones I’ve tried to drive were single, and lame, or almost
falling down, or something. But I’m not afraid of horses. I just love
them. I was born loving them, I guess.”

Billy threw an admiring, appreciative glance at her.

“That’s the stuff. That’s what I like in a woman--grit. Some of the
girls I’ve had out--well, take it from me, they made me sick. Oh, I’m
hep to ‘em. Nervous, an’ trembly, an’ screechy, an’ wabbly. I reckon
they come out on my account an’ not for the ponies. But me for the brave
kid that likes the ponies. You’re the real goods, Saxon, honest to God
you are. Why, I can talk like a streak with you. The rest of ‘em make me
sick. I’m like a clam. They don’t know nothin’, an’ they’re that scared
all the time--well, I guess you get me.”

“You have to be born to love horses, maybe,” she answered. “Maybe it’s
because I always think of my father on his roan war-horse that makes me
love horses. But, anyway, I do. When I was a little girl I was drawing
horses all the time. My mother always encouraged me. I’ve a scrapbook
mostly filled with horses I drew when I was little. Do you know, Billy,
sometimes I dream I actually own a horse, all my own. And lots of times
I dream I’m on a horse’s back, or driving him.”

“I’ll let you drive ‘em, after a while, when they’ve worked their edge
off. They’re pullin’ now.--There, put your hands in front of mine--take
hold tight. Feel that? Sure you feel it. An’ you ain’t feelin’ it all by
a long shot. I don’t dast slack, you bein’ such a lightweight.”

Her eyes sparkled as she felt the apportioned pull of the mouths of the
beautiful, live things; and he, looking at her, sparkled with her in her
delight.

“What’s the good of a woman if she can’t keep up with a man?” he broke
out enthusiastically.

“People that like the same things always get along best together,” she
answered, with a triteness that concealed the joy that was hers at being
so spontaneously in touch with him.

“Why, Saxon, I’ve fought battles, good ones, frazzlin’ my silk away
to beat the band before whisky-soaked, smokin’ audiences of rotten
fight-fans, that just made me sick clean through. An’ them, that
couldn’t take just one stiff jolt or hook to jaw or stomach, a-cheerin’
me an’ yellin’ for blood. Blood, mind you! An’ them without the blood of
a shrimp in their bodies. Why, honest, now, I’d sooner fight before an
audience of one--you for instance, or anybody I liked. It’d do me proud.
But them sickenin’, sap-headed stiffs, with the grit of rabbits and the
silk of mangy ky-yi’s, a-cheerin’ me--ME! Can you blame me for quittin’
the dirty game?--Why, I’d sooner fight before broke-down old plugs of
work-horses that’s candidates for chicken-meat, than before them rotten
bunches of stiffs with nothin’ thicker’n water in their veins, an’
Contra Costa water at that when the rains is heavy on the hills.”

“I... I didn’t know prizefighting was like that,” she faltered, as she
released her hold on the lines and sank back again beside him.

“It ain’t the fightin’, it’s the fight-crowds,” he defended with instant
jealousy. “Of course, fightin’ hurts a young fellow because it frazzles
the silk outa him an’ all that. But it’s the low-lifers in the audience
that gets me. Why the good things they say to me, the praise an’
that, is insulting. Do you get me? It makes me cheap. Think of
it--booze-guzzlin’ stiffs that ‘d be afraid to mix it with a sick cat,
not fit to hold the coat of any decent man, think of them a-standin’ up
on their hind legs an’ yellin’ an’ cheerin’ me--ME!”

“Ha! ha! What d’ye think of that? Ain’t he a rogue?”

A big bulldog, sliding obliquely and silently across the street,
unconcerned with the team he was avoiding, had passed so close that
Prince, baring his teeth like a stallion, plunged his head down against
reins and check in an effort to seize the dog.

“Now he’s some fighter, that Prince. An’ he’s natural. He didn’t make
that reach just for some low-lifer to yell’m on. He just done it outa
pure cussedness and himself. That’s clean. That’s right. Because it’s
natural. But them fight-fans! Honest to God, Saxon....”

And Saxon, glimpsing him sidewise, as he watched the horses and their
way on the Sunday morning streets, checking them back suddenly and
swerving to avoid two boys coasting across street on a toy wagon, saw
in him deeps and intensities, all the magic connotations of temperament,
the glimmer and hint of rages profound, bleaknesses as cold and far as
the stars, savagery as keen as a wolf’s and clean as a stallion’s, wrath
as implacable as a destroying angel’s, and youth that was fire and life
beyond time and place. She was awed and fascinated, with the hunger of
woman bridging the vastness to him, daring to love him with arms and
breast that ached to him, murmuring to herself and through all the halls
of her soul, “You dear, you dear.”

“Honest to God, Saxon,” he took up the broken thread, “they’s times
when I’ve hated them, when I wanted to jump over the ropes and wade into
them, knock-down and drag-out, an’ show’m what fightin’ was. Take that
night with Billy Murphy. Billy Murphy!--if you only knew him. My friend.
As clean an’ game a boy as ever jumped inside the ropes to take the
decision. Him! We went to the Durant School together. We grew up chums.
His fight was my fight. My trouble was his trouble. We both took to the
fightin’ game. They matched us. Not the first time. Twice we’d fought
draws. Once the decision was his; once it was mine. The fifth fight of
two lovin’ men that just loved each other. He’s three years older’n me.
He’s a wife and two or three kids, an’ I know them, too. And he’s my
friend. Get it?

“I’m ten pounds heavier--but with heavyweights that ‘s all right. He
can’t time an’ distance as good as me, an’ I can keep set better, too.
But he’s cleverer an’ quicker. I never was quick like him. We both can
take punishment, an’ we’re both two-handed, a wallop in all our fists.
I know the kick of his, an’ he knows my kick, an’ we’re both real
respectful. And we’re even-matched. Two draws, and a decision to each.
Honest, I ain’t any kind of a hunch who’s goin’ to win, we’re that even.

“Now, the fight.--You ain’t squeamish, are you?”

“No, no,” she cried. “I’d just love to hear--you are so wonderful.”

He took the praise with a clear, unwavering look, and without hint of
acknowledgment.

“We go along--six rounds--seven rounds--eight rounds; an’ honors even.
I’ve been timin’ his rushes an’ straight-leftin’ him, an’ meetin’ his
duck with a wicked little right upper-cut, an’ he’s shaken me on the
jaw an’ walloped my ears till my head’s all singin’ an’ buzzin’. An’
everything lovely with both of us, with a noise like a draw decision in
sight. Twenty rounds is the distance, you know.

“An’ then his bad luck comes. We’re just mixin’ into a clinch that ain’t
arrived yet, when he shoots a short hook to my head--his left, an’ a
real hay-maker if it reaches my jaw. I make a forward duck, not quick
enough, an’ he lands bingo on the side of my head. Honest to God, Saxon,
it’s that heavy I see some stars. But it don’t hurt an’ ain’t serious,
that high up where the bone’s thick. An’ right there he finishes
himself, for his bad thumb, which I’ve known since he first got it as a
kid fightin’ in the sandlot at Watts Tract--he smashes that thumb right
there, on my hard head, back into the socket with an out-twist, an’ all
the old cords that’d never got strong gets theirs again. I didn’t mean
it. A dirty trick, fair in the game, though, to make a guy smash his
hand on your head. But not between friends. I couldn’t a-done that to
Bill Murphy for a million dollars. It was a accident, just because I was
slow, because I was born slow.

“The hurt of it! Honest, Saxon, you don’t know what hurt is till you’ve
got a old hurt like that hurt again. What can Billy Murphy do but slow
down? He’s got to. He ain’t fightin’ two-handed any more. He knows it; I
know it; The referee knows it; but nobody else. He goes on a-moving that
left of his like it’s all right. But it ain’t. It’s hurtin’ him like a
knife dug into him. He don’t dast strike a real blow with that left of
his. But it hurts, anyway. Just to move it or not move it hurts, an’
every little dab-feint that I’m too wise to guard, knowin’ there’s no
weight behind, why them little dab-touches on that poor thumb goes right
to the heart of him, an’ hurts worse than a thousand boils or a thousand
knockouts--just hurts all over again, an’ worse, each time an’ touch.

“Now suppose he an’ me was boxin’ for fun, out in the back yard, an’ he
hurts his thumb that way, why we’d have the gloves off in a jiffy an’
I’d be putting cold compresses on that poor thumb of his an’ bandagin’
it that tight to keep the inflammation down. But no. This is a fight
for fight-fans that’s paid their admission for blood, an’ blood they’re
goin’ to get. They ain’t men. They’re wolves.

“He has to go easy, now, an’ I ain’t a-forcin’ him none. I’m all shot to
pieces. I don’t know what to do. So I slow down, an’ the fans get hep to
it. ‘Why don’t you fight?’ they begin to yell; ‘Fake! Fake!’ ‘Why don’t
you kiss’m?’ ‘Lovin’ cup for yours, Bill Roberts!’ an’ that sort of
bunk.

“‘Fight!’ says the referee to me, low an’ savage. ‘Fight, or I’ll
disqualify you--you, Bill, I mean you.’ An’ this to me, with a touch on
the shoulder so they’s no mistakin’.

“It ain’t pretty. It ain’t right. D’ye know what we was fightin’ for? A
hundred bucks. Think of it! An’ the game is we got to do our best to
put our man down for the count because of the fans has bet on us. Sweet,
ain’t it? Well, that’s my last fight. It finishes me deado. Never again
for yours truly.

“‘Quit,’ I says to Billy Murphy in a clinch; ‘for the love of God, Bill,
quit.’ An’ he says back, in a whisper, ‘I can’t, Bill--you know that.’

“An’ then the referee drags us apart, an’ a lot of the fans begins to
hoot an’ boo.

“‘Now kick in, damn you, Bill Roberts, an’ finish’m’ the referee says to
me, an’ I tell’m to go to hell as Bill an’ me flop into the next clinch,
not hittin’, an’ Bill touches his thumb again, an’ I see the pain shoot
across his face. Game? That good boy’s the limit. An’ to look into the
eyes of a brave man that’s sick with pain, an’ love ‘m, an’ see love
in them eyes of his, an’ then have to go on givin’ ‘m pain--call that
sport? I can’t see it. But the crowd’s got its money on us. We don’t
count. We’ve sold ourselves for a hundred bucks, an’ we gotta deliver
the goods.

“Let me tell you, Saxon, honest to God, that was one of the times I
wanted to go through the ropes an’ drop them fans a-yellin’ for blood
an’ show ‘em what blood is.

“‘For God’s sake finish me, Bill,’ Bill says to me in that clinch; ‘put
her over an’ I’ll fall for it, but I can’t lay down.’

“D’ye want to know? I cry there, right in the ring, in that clinch. The
weeps for me. ‘I can’t do it, Bill,’ I whisper back, hangin’ onto’m like
a brother an’ the referee ragin’ an’ draggin’ at us to get us apart, an’
all the wolves in the house snarlin’.

“‘You got ‘m!’ the audience is yellin’. ‘Go in an’ finish ‘m!’ ‘The hay
for him, Bill; put her across to the jaw an’ see ‘m fall!’

“‘You got to, Bill, or you’re a dog,’ Bill says, lookin’ love at me in
his eyes as the referee’s grip untangles us clear.

“An’ them wolves of fans yellin’: ‘Fake! Fake! Fake!’ like that, an’
keepin’ it up.

“Well, I done it. They’s only that way out. I done it. By God, I done
it. I had to. I feint for ‘m, draw his left, duck to the right past it,
takin’ it across my shoulder, an come up with my right to his jaw. An’
he knows the trick. He’s hep. He’s beaten me to it an’ blocked it with
his shoulder a thousan’ times. But this time he don’t. He keeps himself
wide open on purpose. Blim! It lands. He’s dead in the air, an’ he goes
down sideways, strikin’ his face first on the rosin-canvas an’ then
layin’ dead, his head twisted under ‘m till you’d a-thought his neck was
broke. ME--I did that for a hundred bucks an’ a bunch of stiffs I’d
be ashamed to wipe my feet on. An’ then I pick Bill up in my arms an’
carry’m to his corner, an’ help bring’m around. Well, they ain’t no kick
comin’. They pay their money an’ they get their blood, an’ a knockout.
An’ a better man than them, that I love, layin’ there dead to the world
with a skinned face on the mat.”

For a moment he was still, gazing straight before him at the horses, his
face hard and angry. He sighed, looked at Saxon, and smiled.

“An’ I quit the game right there. An’ Billy Murphy’s laughed at me for
it. He still follows it. A side-line, you know, because he works at a
good trade. But once in a while, when the house needs paintin’, or the
doctor bills are up, or his oldest kid wants a bicycle, he jumps out an’
makes fifty or a hundred bucks before some of the clubs. I want you to
meet him when it comes handy. He’s some boy I’m tellin’ you. But it did
make me sick that night.”

Again the harshness and anger were in his face, and Saxon amazed herself
by doing unconsciously what women higher in the social scale have done
with deliberate sincerity. Her hand went out impulsively to his holding
the lines, resting on top of it for a moment with quick, firm pressure.
Her reward was a smile from lips and eyes, as his face turned toward
her.

“Gee!” he exclaimed. “I never talk a streak like this to anybody. I just
hold my hush an’ keep my thinks to myself. But, somehow, I guess it’s
funny, I kind of have a feelin’ I want to make good with you. An’ that’s
why I’m tellin’ you my thinks. Anybody can dance.”

The way led uptown, past the City Hall and the Fourteenth Street
skyscrapers, and out Broadway to Mountain View. Turning to the right
at the cemetery, they climbed the Piedmont Heights to Blair Park and
plunged into the green coolness of Jack Hayes Canyon. Saxon could not
suppress her surprise and joy at the quickness with which they covered
the ground.

“They are beautiful,” she said. “I never dreamed I’d ever ride behind
horses like them. I’m afraid I’ll wake up now and find it’s a dream.
You know, I dream horses all the time. I’d give anything to own one some
time.”

“It’s funny, ain’t it?” Billy answered. “I like horses that way. The
boss says I’m a wooz at horses. An’ I know he’s a dub. He don’t know the
first thing. An’ yet he owns two hundred big heavy draughts besides this
light drivin’ pair, an’ I don’t own one.”

“Yet God makes the horses,” Saxon said.

“It’s a sure thing the boss don’t. Then how does he have so many?--two
hundred of ‘em, I’m tellin’ you. He thinks he likes horses. Honest to
God, Saxon, he don’t like all his horses as much as I like the last
hair on the last tail of the scrubbiest of the bunch. Yet they’re his.
Wouldn’t it jar you?”

“Wouldn’t it?” Saxon laughed appreciatively. “I just love fancy
shirtwaists, an’ I spent my life ironing some of the beautifullest I’ve
ever seen. It’s funny, an’ it isn’t fair.”

Billy gritted his teeth in another of his rages.

“An’ the way some of them women gets their shirtwaists. It makes me
sick, thinkin’ of you ironin’ ‘em. You know what I mean, Saxon. They
ain’t no use wastin’ words over it. You know. I know. Everybody knows.
An’ it’s a hell of a world if men an’ women sometimes can’t talk to each
other about such things.” His manner was almost apologetic yet it was
defiantly and assertively right. “I never talk this way to other girls.
They’d think I’m workin up to designs on ‘em. They make me sick the way
they’re always lookin’ for them designs. But you’re different. I can talk
to you that way. I know I’ve got to. It’s the square thing. You’re like
Billy Murphy, or any other man a man can talk to.”

She sighed with a great happiness, and looked at him with unconscious,
love-shining eyes.

“It’s the same way with me,” she said. “The fellows I’ve run with I’ve
never dared let talk about such things, because I knew they’d take
advantage of it. Why, all the time, with them, I’ve a feeling that we’re
cheating and lying to each other, playing a game like at a masquerade
ball.” She paused for a moment, hesitant and debating, then went on in
a queer low voice. “I haven’t been asleep. I’ve seen... and heard.
I’ve had my chances, when I was that tired of the laundry I’d have done
almost anything. I could have got those fancy shirtwaists... an’ all the
rest... and maybe a horse to ride. There was a bank cashier... married,
too, if you please. He talked to me straight out. I didn’t count,
you know. I wasn’t a girl, with a girl’s feelings, or anything. I was
nobody. It was just like a business talk. I learned about men from him.
He told me what he’d do. He...”

Her voice died away in sadness, and in the silence she could hear Billy
grit his teeth.

“You can’t tell me,” he cried. “I know. It’s a dirty world--an unfair,
lousy world. I can’t make it out. They’s no squareness in it.--Women,
with the best that’s in ‘em, bought an’ sold like horses. I don’t
understand women that way. I don’t understand men that way. I can’t
see how a man gets anything but cheated when he buys such things. It’s
funny, ain’t it? Take my boss an’ his horses. He owns women, too. He
might a-owned you, just because he’s got the price. An’, Saxon, you was
made for fancy shirtwaists an’ all that, but, honest to God, I can’t see
you payin’ for them that way. It’d be a crime--”

He broke off abruptly and reined in the horses. Around a sharp turn,
speeding down the grade upon them, had appeared an automobile. With
slamming of brakes it was brought to a stop, while the faces of the
occupants took new lease of interest of life and stared at the young man
and woman in the light rig that barred the way. Billy held up his hand.

“Take the outside, sport,” he said to the chauffeur.

“Nothin’ doin’, kiddo,” came the answer, as the chauffeur measured with
hard, wise eyes the crumbling edge of the road and the downfall of the
outside bank.

“Then we camp,” Billy announced cheerfully. “I know the rules of the
road. These animals ain’t automobile broke altogether, an’ if you think
I’m goin’ to have ‘em shy off the grade you got another guess comin’.”

A confusion of injured protestation arose from those that sat in the
car.

“You needn’t be a road-hog because you’re a Rube,” said the chauffeur.
“We ain’t a-goin’ to hurt your horses. Pull out so we can pass. If you
don’t...”

“That’ll do you, sport,” was Billy’s retort. “You can’t talk that way to
yours truly. I got your number an’ your tag, my son. You’re standin’ on
your foot. Back up the grade an’ get off of it. Stop on the outside at
the first psssin’-place an’ we’ll pass you. You’ve got the juice. Throw
on the reverse.”

After a nervous consultation, the chauffeur obeyed, and the car backed
up the hill and out of sight around the turn.

“Them cheap skates,” Billy sneered to Saxon, “with a couple of gallons
of gasoline an’ the price of a machine a-thinkin’ they own the roads
your folks an’ my folks made.”

“Talkin’ all night about it?” came the chauffeur’s voice from around the
bend. “Get a move on. You can pass.”

“Get off your foot,” Billy retorted contemptuously. “I’m a-comin’ when
I’m ready to come, an’ if you ain’t given room enough I’ll go clean over
you an’ your load of chicken meat.”

He slightly slacked the reins on the restless, head-tossing animals, and
without need of chirrup they took the weight of the light vehicle and
passed up the hill and apprehensively on the inside of the purring
machine.

“Where was we?” Billy queried, as the clear road showed in front. “Yep,
take my boss. Why should he own two hundred horses, an’ women, an’ the
rest, an’ you an’ me own nothin’?”

“You own your silk, Billy,” she said softly.

“An’ you yours. Yet we sell it to ‘em like it was cloth across the
counter at so much a yard. I guess you’re hep to what a few more years
in the laundry’ll do to you. Take me. I’m sellin’ my silk slow every day
I work. See that little finger?” He shifted the reins to one hand for a
moment and held up the free hand for inspection. “I can’t straighten
it like the others, an’ it’s growin’. I never put it out fightin’. The
teamin’s done it. That’s silk gone across the counter, that’s all. Ever
see a old four-horse teamster’s hands? They look like claws they’re that
crippled an’ twisted.”

“Things weren’t like that in the old days when our folks crossed the
plains,” she answered. “They might a-got their fingers twisted, but they
owned the best goin’ in the way of horses and such.”

“Sure. They worked for themselves. They twisted their fingers for
themselves. But I’m twistin’ my fingers for my boss. Why, d’ye know,
Saxon, his hands is soft as a woman’s that’s never done any work. Yet
he owns the horses an’ the stables, an’ never does a tap of work, an’
I manage to scratch my meal-ticket an’ my clothes. It’s got my goat
the way things is run. An’ who runs ‘em that way? That’s what I want to
know. Times has changed. Who changed ‘em?”

“God didn’t.”

“You bet your life he didn’t. An’ that’s another thing that gets me.
Who’s God anyway? If he’s runnin’ things--an’ what good is he if he
ain’t?--then why does he let my boss, an’ men like that cashier you
mentioned, why does he let them own the horses, an’ buy the women, the
nice little girls that oughta be lovin’ their own husbands, an’ havin’
children they’re not ashamed of, an’ just bein’ happy accordin’ to their
nature?”



CHAPTER XI

The horses, resting frequently and lathered by the work, had climbed the
steep grade of the old road to Moraga Valley, and on the divide of the
Contra Costa hills the way descended sharply through the green and sunny
stillness of Redwood Canyon.

“Say, ain’t it swell?” Billy queried, with a wave of his hand indicating
the circled tree-groups, the trickle of unseen water, and the summer hum
of bees.

“I love it,” Saxon affirmed. “It makes me want to live in the country,
and I never have.”

“Me, too, Saxon. I’ve never lived in the country in my life--an’ all my
folks was country folks.”

“No cities then. Everybody lived in the country.”

“I guess you’re right,” he nodded. “They just had to live in the
country.”

There was no brake on the light carriage, and Billy became absorbed in
managing his team down the steep, winding road. Saxon leaned back, eyes
closed, with a feeling of ineffable rest. Time and again he shot glances
at her closed eyes.

“What’s the matter?” he asked finally, in mild alarm. “You ain’t sick?”

“It’s so beautiful I’m afraid to look,” she answered. “It’s so brave it
hurts.”

“BRAVE?--now that’s funny.”

“Isn’t it? But it just makes me feel that way. It’s brave. Now the
houses and streets and things in the city aren’t brave. But this is. I
don’t know why. It just is.”

“By golly, I think you’re right,” he exclaimed. “It strikes me that way,
now you speak of it. They ain’t no games or tricks here, no cheatin’
an’ no lyin’. Them trees just stand up natural an’ strong an’ clean
like young boys their first time in the ring before they’ve learned its
rottenness an’ how to double-cross an’ lay down to the bettin’ odds an’
the fight-fans. Yep; it is brave. Say, Saxon, you see things, don’t you?”
 His pause was almost wistful, and he looked at her and studied her with
a caressing softness that ran through her in resurgent thrills. “D’ye
know, I’d just like you to see me fight some time--a real fight, with
something doin’ every moment. I’d be proud to death to do it for you.
An’ I’d sure fight some with you lookin’ on an’ understandin’. That’d be
a fight what is, take it from me. An’ that’s funny, too. I never wanted
to fight before a woman in my life. They squeal and screech an’ don’t
understand. But you’d understand. It’s dead open an’ shut you would.”

A little later, swinging along the flat of the valley, through the
little clearings of the farmers and the ripe grain-stretches golden in
the sunshine, Billy turned to Saxon again.

“Say, you’ve ben in love with fellows, lots of times. Tell me about it.
What’s it like?”

She shook her head slowly.

“I only thought I was in love--and not many times, either--”

“Many times!” he cried.

“Not really ever,” she assured him, secretly exultant at his unconscious
jealousy. “I never was really in love. If I had been I’d be married
now. You see, I couldn’t see anything else to it but to marry a man if I
loved him.”

“But suppose he didn’t love you?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she smiled, half with facetiousness and half with
certainty and pride. “I think I could make him love me.”

“I guess you sure could,” Billy proclaimed enthusiastically.

“The trouble is,” she went on, “the men that loved me I never cared for
that way.--Oh, look!”

A cottontail rabbit had scuttled across the road, and a tiny dust cloud
lingered like smoke, marking the way of his flight. At the next turn a
dozen quail exploded into the air from under the noses of the horses.
Billy and Saxon exclaimed in mutual delight.

“Gee,” he muttered, “I almost wisht I’d ben born a farmer. Folks wasn’t
made to live in cities.”

“Not our kind, at least,” she agreed. Followed a pause and a long sigh.
“It’s all so beautiful. It would be a dream just to live all your life
in it. I’d like to be an Indian squaw sometimes.”

Several times Billy checked himself on the verge of speech.

“About those fellows you thought you was in love with,” he said finally.
“You ain’t told me, yet.”

“You want to know?” she asked. “They didn’t amount to anything.”

“Of course I want to know. Go ahead. Fire away.”

“Well, first there was Al Stanley--”

“What did he do for a livin’?” Billy demanded, almost as with authority.

“He was a gambler.”

Billy’s face abruptly stiffened, and she could see his eyes cloudy with
doubt in the quick glance he flung at her.

“Oh, it was all right,” she laughed. “I was only eight years old. You
see, I’m beginning at the beginning. It was after my mother died and
when I was adopted by Cady. He kept a hotel and saloon. It was down
in Los Angeles. Just a small hotel. Workingmen, just common laborers,
mostly, and some railroad men, stopped at it, and I guess Al Stanley
got his share of their wages. He was so handsome and so quiet and
soft-spoken. And he had the nicest eyes and the softest, cleanest hands.
I can see them now. He played with me sometimes, in the afternoon, and
gave me candy and little presents. He used to sleep most of the day. I
didn’t know why, then. I thought he was a fairy prince in disguise. And
then he got killed, right in the bar-room, but first he killed the man
that killed him. So that was the end of that love affair.

“Next was after the asylum, when I was thirteen and living with my
brother--I’ve lived with him ever since. He was a boy that drove a
bakery wagon. Almost every morning, on the way to school, I used to
pass him. He would come driving down Wood Street and turn in on Twelfth.
Maybe it was because he drove a horse that attracted me. Anyway, I
must have loved him for a couple of months. Then he lost his job, or
something, for another boy drove the wagon. And we’d never even spoken
to each other.

“Then there was a bookkeeper when I was sixteen. I seem to run to
bookkeepers. It was a bookkeeper at the laundry that Charley Long beat
up. This other one was when I was working in Hickmeyer’s Cannery. He had
soft hands, too. But I quickly got all I wanted of him. He was... well,
anyway, he had ideas like your boss. And I never really did love him,
truly and honest, Billy. I felt from the first that he wasn’t just
right. And when I was working in the paper-box factory I thought I loved
a clerk in Kahn’s Emporium--you know, on Eleventh and Washington. He was
all right. That was the trouble with him. He was too much all right. He
didn’t have any life in him, any go. He wanted to marry me, though.
But somehow I couldn’t see it. That shows I didn’t love him. He was
narrow-chested and skinny, and his hands were always cold and fishy. But
my! he could dress--just like he came out of a bandbox. He said he was
going to drown himself, and all kinds of things, but I broke with him
just the same.

“And after that... well, there isn’t any after that. I must have got
particular, I guess, but I didn’t see anybody I could love. It seemed
more like a game with the men I met, or a fight. And we never fought
fair on either side. Seemed as if we always had cards up our sleeves. We
weren’t honest or outspoken, but instead it seemed as if we were trying
to take advantage of each other. Charley Long was honest, though. And
so was that bank cashier. And even they made me have the fight feeling
harder than ever. All of them always made me feel I had to take care of
myself. They wouldn’t. That was sure.”

She stopped and looked with interest at the clean profile of his face as
he watched and guided the horses. He looked at her inquiringly, and her
eyes laughed lazily into his as she stretched her arms.

“That’s all,” she concluded. “I’ve told you everything, which I’ve never
done before to any one. And it’s your turn now.”

“Not much of a turn, Saxon. I’ve never cared for girls--that is, not
enough to want to marry ‘em. I always liked men better--fellows like
Billy Murphy. Besides, I guess I was too interested in trainin’ an’
fightin’ to bother with women much. Why, Saxon, honest, while I ain’t
ben altogether good--you understand what I mean--just the same I ain’t
never talked love to a girl in my life. They was no call to.”

“The girls have loved you just the same,” she teased, while in her heart
was a curious elation at his virginal confession.

He devoted himself to the horses.

“Lots of them,” she urged.

Still he did not reply.

“Now, haven’t they?”

“Well, it wasn’t my fault,” he said slowly. “If they wanted to look
sideways at me it was up to them. And it was up to me to sidestep if I
wanted to, wasn’t it? You’ve no idea, Saxon, how a prizefighter is run
after. Why, sometimes it’s seemed to me that girls an’ women ain’t got
an ounce of natural shame in their make-up. Oh, I was never afraid of
them, believe muh, but I didn’t hanker after ‘em. A man’s a fool that’d
let them kind get his goat.”

“Maybe you haven’t got love in you,” she challenged.

“Maybe I haven’t,” was his discouraging reply. “Anyway, I don’t
see myself lovin’ a girl that runs after me. It’s all right for
Charley-boys, but a man that is a man don’t like bein’ chased by women.”

“My mother always said that love was the greatest thing in the world,”
 Saxon argued. “She wrote poems about it, too. Some of them were
published in the San Jose Mercury.”

“What do you think about it?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she baffled, meeting his eyes with another lazy
smile. “All I know is it’s pretty good to be alive a day like this.”

“On a trip like this--you bet it is,” he added promptly.

At one o’clock Billy turned off the road and drove into an open space
among the trees.

“Here’s where we eat,” he announced. “I thought it’d be better to have
a lunch by ourselves than stop at one of these roadside dinner counters.
An’ now, just to make everything safe an’ comfortable, I’m goin’ to
unharness the horses. We got lots of time. You can get the lunch basket
out an’ spread it on the lap-robe.”

As Saxon unpacked the basket she was appalled at his extravagance.
She spread an amazing array of ham and chicken sandwiches, crab salad,
hard-boiled eggs, pickled pigs’ feet, ripe olives and dill pickles,
Swiss cheese, salted almonds, oranges and bananas, and several pint
bottles of beer. It was the quantity as well as the variety that
bothered her. It had the appearance of a reckless attempt to buy out a
whole delicatessen shop.

“You oughtn’t to blow yourself that way,” she reproved him as he sat
down beside her. “Why it’s enough for half a dozen bricklayers.”

“It’s all right, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she acknowledged. “But that’s the trouble. It’s too much so.”

“Then it’s all right,” he concluded. “I always believe in havin’ plenty.
Have some beer to wash the dust away before we begin? Watch out for the
glasses. I gotta return them.”

Later, the meal finished, he lay on his back, smoking a cigarette, and
questioned her about her earlier history. She had been telling him of
her life in her brother’s house, where she paid four dollars and a half
a week board. At fifteen she had graduated from grammar school and gone
to work in the jute mills for four dollars a week, three of which she
had paid to Sarah.

“How about that saloonkeeper?” Billy asked. “How come it he adopted
you?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know, except that all my relatives
were hard up. It seemed they just couldn’t get on. They managed to
scratch a lean living for themselves, and that was all. Cady--he was the
saloonkeeper--had been a soldier in my father’s company, and he always
swore by Captain Kit, which was their nickname for him. My father had
kept the surgeons from amputating his leg in the war, and he never
forgot it. He was making money in the hotel and saloon, and I found out
afterward he helped out a lot to pay the doctors and to bury my mother
alongside of father. I was to go to Uncle Will--that was my mother’s
wish; but there had been fighting up in the Ventura Mountains where his
ranch was, and men had been killed. It was about fences and cattlemen
or something, and anyway he was in jail a long time, and when he got
his freedom the lawyers had got his ranch. He was an old man, then, and
broken, and his wife took sick, and he got a job as night watchman
for forty dollars a month. So he couldn’t do anything for me, and Cady
adopted me.

“Cady was a good man, if he did run a saloon. His wife was a big,
handsome-looking woman. I don’t think she was all right... and I’ve
heard so since. But she was good to me. I don’t care what they say about
her, or what she was. She was awful good to me. After he died, she went
altogether bad, and so I went into the orphan asylum. It wasn’t any too
good there, and I had three years of it. And then Tom had married
and settled down to steady work, and he took me out to live with him.
And--well, I’ve been working pretty steady ever since.”

She gazed sadly away across the fields until her eyes came to rest on
a fence bright-splashed with poppies at its base. Billy, who from his
supine position had been looking up at her, studying and pleasuring in
the pointed oval of her woman’s face, reached his hand out slowly as he
murmured:

“You poor little kid.”

His hand closed sympathetically on her bare forearm, and as she looked
down to greet his eyes she saw in them surprise and delight.

“Say, ain’t your skin cool though,” he said. “Now me, I’m always warm.
Feel my hand.”

It was warmly moist, and she noted microscopic beads of sweat on his
forehead and clean-shaven upper lip.

“My, but you are sweaty.”

She bent to him and with her handkerchief dabbed his lip and forehead
dry, then dried his palms.

“I breathe through my skin, I guess,” he explained. “The wise guys in
the trainin’ camps and gyms say it’s a good sign for health. But somehow
I’m sweatin’ more than usual now. Funny, ain’t it?”

She had been forced to unclasp his hand from her arm in order to dry it,
and when she finished, it returned to its old position.

“But, say, ain’t your skin cool,” he repeated with renewed wonder. “Soft
as velvet, too, an’ smooth as silk. It feels great.”

Gently explorative, he slid his hand from wrist to elbow and came to
rest half way back. Tired and languid from the morning in the sun, she
found herself thrilling to his touch and half-dreamily deciding that
here was a man she could love, hands and all.

“Now I’ve taken the cool all out of that spot.” He did not look up to
her, and she could see the roguish smile that curled on his lips. “So I
guess I’ll try another.”

He shifted his hand along her arm with soft sensuousness, and she,
looking down at his lips, remembered the long tingling they had given
hers the first time they had met.

“Go on and talk,” he urged, after a delicious five minutes of silence.
“I like to watch your lips talking. It’s funny, but every move they make
looks like a tickly kiss.”

Greatly she wanted to stay where she was. Instead, she said:

“If I talk, you won’t like what I say.”

“Go on,” he insisted. “You can’t say anything I won’t like.”

“Well, there’s some poppies over there by the fence I want to pick. And
then it’s time for us to be going.”

“I lose,” he laughed. “But you made twenty-five tickle kisses just the
same. I counted ‘em. I’ll tell you what: you sing ‘When the Harvest Days
Are Over,’ and let me have your other cool arm while you’re doin’ it,
and then we’ll go.”

She sang looking down into his eyes, which were centered, not on hers,
but on her lips. When she finished, she slipped his hands from her arms
and got up. He was about to start for the horses, when she held her
jacket out to him. Despite the independence natural to a girl who
earned her own living, she had an innate love of the little services and
finenesses; and, also, she remembered from her childhood the talk by the
pioneer women of the courtesy and attendance of the caballeros of the
Spanish-California days.

Sunset greeted them when, after a wide circle to the east and south,
they cleared the divide of the Contra Costa hills and began dropping
down the long grade that led past Redwood Peak to Fruitvale. Beneath
them stretched the flatlands to the bay, checkerboarded into fields and
broken by the towns of Elmhurst, San Leandro, and Haywards. The smoke of
Oakland filled the western sky with haze and murk, while beyond, across
the bay, they could see the first winking lights of San Francisco.

Darkness was on them, and Billy had become curiously silent. For half
an hour he had given no recognition of her existence save once, when
the chill evening wind caused him to tuck the robe tightly about her
and himself. Half a dozen times Saxon found herself on the verge of the
remark, “What’s on your mind?” but each time let it remain unuttered.
She sat very close to him. The warmth of their bodies intermingled, and
she was aware of a great restfulness and content.

“Say, Saxon,” he began abruptly. “It’s no use my holdin’ it in any
longer. It’s ben in my mouth all day, ever since lunch. What’s the
matter with you an’ me gettin’ married?”

She knew, very quietly and very gladly, that he meant it. Instinctively
she was impelled to hold off, to make him woo her, to make herself more
desirably valuable ere she yielded. Further, her woman’s sensitiveness
and pride were offended. She had never dreamed of so forthright and bald
a proposal from the man to whom she would give herself. The simplicity
and directness of Billy’s proposal constituted almost a hurt. On the
other hand she wanted him so much--how much she had not realized until
now, when he had so unexpectedly made himself accessible.

“Well you gotta say something, Saxon. Hand it to me, good or bad; but
anyway hand it to me. An’ just take into consideration that I love you.
Why, I love you like the very devil, Saxon. I must, because I’m askin’
you to marry me, an’ I never asked any girl that before.”

Another silence fell, and Saxon found herself dwelling on the warmth,
tingling now, under the lap-robe. When she realized whither her thoughts
led, she blushed guiltily in the darkness.

“How old are you, Billy?” she questioned, with a suddenness and
irrelevance as disconcerting as his first words had been.

“Twenty-two,” he answered.

“I am twenty-four.”

“As if I didn’t know. When you left the orphan asylum and how old you
were, how long you worked in the jute mills, the cannery, the paper-box
factory, the laundry--maybe you think I can’t do addition. I knew how
old you was, even to your birthday.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I’m two years older.”

“What of it? If it counted for anything, I wouldn’t be lovin’ you, would
I? Your mother was dead right. Love’s the big stuff. It’s what counts.
Don’t you see? I just love you, an’ I gotta have you. It’s natural, I
guess; and I’ve always found with horses, dogs, and other folks, that
what’s natural is right. There’s no gettin’ away from it, Saxon; I gotta
have you, an’ I’m just hopin’ hard you gotta have me. Maybe my hands
ain’t soft like bookkeepers’ an’ clerks, but they can work for you, an’
fight like Sam Hill for you, and, Saxon, they can love you.”

The old sex antagonism which she had always experienced with men seemed
to have vanished. She had no sense of being on the defensive. This was
no game. It was what she had been looking for and dreaming about. Before
Billy she was defenseless, and there was an all-satisfaction in the
knowledge. She could deny him nothing. Not even if he proved to be
like the others. And out of the greatness of the thought rose a greater
thought--he would not so prove himself.

She did not speak. Instead, in a glow of spirit and flesh, she reached
out to his left hand and gently tried to remove it from the rein. He did
not understand; but when she persisted he shifted the rein to his right
and let her have her will with the other hand. Her head bent over it,
and she kissed the teamster callouses.

For the moment he was stunned.

“You mean it?” he stammered.

For reply, she kissed the hand again and murmured:

“I love your hands, Billy. To me they are the most beautiful hands in
the world, and it would take hours of talking to tell you all they mean
to me.”

“Whoa!” he called to the horses.

He pulled them in to a standstill, soothed them with his voice, and made
the reins fast around the whip. Then he turned to her with arms around
her and lips to lips.

“Oh, Billy, I’ll make you a good wife,” she sobbed, when the kiss was
broken.

He kissed her wet eyes and found her lips again.

“Now you know what I was thinkin’ and why I was sweatin’ when we was
eatin’ lunch. Just seemed I couldn’t hold in much longer from tellin’
you. Why, you know, you looked good to me from the first moment I
spotted you.”

“And I think I loved you from that first day, too, Billy. And I was so
proud of you all that day, you were so kind and gentle, and so strong,
and the way the men all respected you and the girls all wanted you, and
the way you fought those three Irishmen when I was behind the picnic
table. I couldn’t love or marry a man I wasn’t proud of, and I’m so
proud of you, so proud.”

“Not half as much as I am right now of myself,” he answered, “for having
won you. It’s too good to be true. Maybe the alarm clock’ll go off and
wake me up in a couple of minutes. Well, anyway, if it does, I’m goin’
to make the best of them two minutes first. Watch out I don’t eat you,
I’m that hungry for you.”

He smothered her in an embrace, holding her so tightly to him that it
almost hurt. After what was to her an age-long period of bliss, his arms
relaxed and he seemed to make an effort to draw himself together.

 “An’ the clock ain’t gone off yet,” he whispered against her
cheek. “And it’s a dark night, an’ there’s Fruitvale right ahead, an’ if
there ain’t King and Prince standin’ still in the middle of the road. I
never thought the time’d come when I wouldn’t want to take the ribbons
on a fine pair of horses. But this is that time. I just can’t let go
of you, and I’ve gotta some time to-night. It hurts worse’n poison, but
here goes.”

He restored her to herself, tucked the disarranged robe about her, and
chirruped to the impatient team.

Half an hour later he called “Whoa!”

“I know I’m awake now, but I don’t know but maybe I dreamed all the
rest, and I just want to make sure.”

And again he made the reins fast and took her in his arms.



CHAPTER XII

The days flew by for Saxon. She worked on steadily at the laundry,
even doing more overtime than usual, and all her free waking hours were
devoted to preparations for the great change and to Billy. He had proved
himself God’s own impetuous lover by insisting on getting married
the next day after the proposal, and then by resolutely refusing to
compromise on more than a week’s delay.

“Why wait?” he demanded. “We’re not gettin’ any younger so far as I can
notice, an’ think of all we lose every day we wait.”

In the end, he gave in to a month, which was well, for in two weeks he
was transferred, with half a dozen other drivers, to work from the big
stables of Corberly and Morrison in West Oakland. House-hunting in the
other end of town ceased, and on Pine Street, between Fifth and Fourth,
and in immediate proximity to the great Southern Pacific railroad
yards, Billy and Saxon rented a neat cottage of four small rooms for ten
dollars a month.

“Dog-cheap is what I call it, when I think of the small rooms I’ve ben
soaked for,” was Billy’s judgment. “Look at the one I got now, not as
big as the smallest here, an’ me payin’ six dollars a month for it.”

“But it’s furnished,” Saxon reminded him. “You see, that makes a
difference.”

But Billy didn’t see.

“I ain’t much of a scholar, Saxon, but I know simple arithmetic; I’ve
soaked my watch when I was hard up, and I can calculate interest. How
much do you figure it will cost to furnish the house, carpets on the
floor, linoleum on the kitchen, and all?”

“We can do it nicely for three hundred dollars,” she answered. “I’ve
been thinking it over and I’m sure we can do it for that.”

“Three hundred,” he muttered, wrinkling his brows with concentration.
“Three hundred, say at six per cent.--that’d be six cents on the dollar,
sixty cents on ten dollars, six dollars on the hundred, on three hundred
eighteen dollars. Say--I’m a bear at multiplyin’ by ten. Now divide
eighteen by twelve, that’d be a dollar an’ a half a month interest.”
 He stopped, satisfied that he had proved his contention. Then his face
quickened with a fresh thought. “Hold on! That ain’t all. That’d be
the interest on the furniture for four rooms. Divide by four. What’s a
dollar an’ a half divided by four?”

“Four into fifteen, three times and three to carry,” Saxon recited
glibly. “Four into thirty is seven, twenty-eight, two to carry; and
two-fourths is one-half. There you are.”

“Gee! You’re the real bear at figures.” He hesitated. “I didn’t follow
you. How much did you say it was?”

“Thirty-seven and a half cents.”

“Ah, ha! Now we’ll see how much I’ve ben gouged for my one room.
Ten dollars a month for four rooms is two an’ a half for one. Add
thirty-seven an’ a half cents interest on furniture, an’ that makes
two dollars an’ eighty-seven an’ a half cents. Subtract from six
dollars....”

“Three dollars and twelve and a half cents,” she supplied quickly.

“There we are! Three dollars an’ twelve an’ a half cents I’m jiggered
out of on the room I’m rentin’. Say! Bein’ married is like savin’ money,
ain’t it?”

“But furniture wears out, Billy.”

“By golly, I never thought of that. It ought to be figured, too. Anyway,
we’ve got a snap here, and next Saturday afternoon you’ve gotta get off
from the laundry so as we can go an’ buy our furniture. I saw Salinger’s
last night. I give’m fifty down, and the rest installment plan, ten
dollars a month. In twenty-five months the furniture’s ourn. An’
remember, Saxon, you wanta buy everything you want, no matter how much
it costs. No scrimpin’ on what’s for you an’ me. Get me?”

She nodded, with no betrayal on her face of the myriad secret economies
that filled her mind. A hint of moisture glistened in her eyes.

“You’re so good to me, Billy,” she murmured, as she came to him and was
met inside his arms.

“So you’ve gone an’ done it,” Mary commented, one morning in the
laundry. They had not been at work ten minutes ere her eye had glimpsed
the topaz ring on the third finger of Saxon’s left hand. “Who’s the
lucky one? Charley Long or Billy Roberts?”

“Billy,” was the answer.

“Huh! Takin’ a young boy to raise, eh?”

Saxon showed that the stab had gone home, and Mary was all contrition.

“Can’t you take a josh? I’m glad to death at the news. Billy’s a awful
good man, and I’m glad to see you get him. There ain’t many like him
knockin’ ‘round, an’ they ain’t to be had for the askin’. An’ you’re
both lucky. You was just made for each other, an’ you’ll make him a
better wife than any girl I know. When is it to be?”

Going home from the laundry a few days later, Saxon encountered Charley
Long. He blocked the sidewalk, and compelled speech with her.

“So you’re runnin’ with a prizefighter,” he sneered. “A blind man can
see your finish.”

For the first time she was unafraid of this big-bodied, black-browed man
with the hairy-matted hands and fingers. She held up her left hand.

“See that? It’s something, with all your strength, that you could never
put on my finger. Billy Roberts put it on inside a week. He got your
number, Charley Long, and at the same time he got me.”

“Skiddoo for you,” Long retorted. “Twenty-three’s your number.”

“He’s not like you,” Saxon went on. “He’s a man, every bit of him, a
fine, clean man.”

Long laughed hoarsely.

“He’s got your goat all right.”

“And yours,” she flashed back.

“I could tell you things about him. Saxon, straight, he ain’t no good.
If I was to tell you--”

“You’d better get out of my way,” she interrupted, “or I’ll tell him,
and you know what you’ll get, you great big bully.”

Long shuffled uneasily, then reluctantly stepped aside.

“You’re a caution,” he said, half admiringly.

“So’s Billy Roberts,” she laughed, and continued on her way. After half
a dozen steps she stopped. “Say,” she called.

The big blacksmith turned toward her with eagerness.

“About a block back,” she said, “I saw a man with hip disease. You might
go and beat him up.”

Of one extravagance Saxon was guilty in the course of the brief
engagement period. A full day’s wages she spent in the purchase of half
a dozen cabinet photographs of herself. Billy had insisted that life was
unendurable could he not look upon her semblance the last thing when he
went to bed at night and the first thing when he got up in the morning.
In return, his photographs, one conventional and one in the stripped
fighting costume of the ring, ornamented her looking glass. It was while
gazing at the latter that she was reminded of her wonderful mother’s
tales of the ancient Saxons and sea-foragers of the English coasts. From
the chest of drawers that had crossed the plains she drew forth another
of her several precious heirlooms--a scrap-book of her mother’s in which
was pasted much of the fugitive newspaper verse of pioneer California
days. Also, there were copies of paintings and old wood engravings from
the magazines of a generation and more before.

Saxon ran the pages with familiar fingers and stopped at the picture she
was seeking. Between bold headlands of rock and under a gray cloud-blown
sky, a dozen boats, long and lean and dark, beaked like monstrous birds,
were landing on a foam-whitened beach of sand. The men in the boats,
half naked, huge-muscled and fair-haired, wore winged helmets. In their
hands were swords and spears, and they were leaping, waist-deep, into
the sea-wash and wading ashore. Opposed to them, contesting the landing,
were skin-clad savages, unlike Indians, however, who clustered on the
beach or waded into the water to their knees. The first blows were being
struck, and here and there the bodies of the dead and wounded rolled in
the surf. One fair-haired invader lay across the gunwale of a boat, the
manner of his death told by the arrow that transfixed his breast. In the
air, leaping past him into the water, sword in hand, was Billy. There
was no mistaking it. The striking blondness, the face, the eyes, the
mouth were the same. The very expression on the face was what had been
on Billy’s the day of the picnic when he faced the three wild Irishmen.

Somewhere out of the ruck of those warring races had emerged Billy’s
ancestors, and hers, was her afterthought, as she closed the book and
put it back in the drawer. And some of those ancestors had made this
ancient and battered chest of drawers which had crossed the salt ocean
and the plains and been pierced by a bullet in the fight with the
Indians at Little Meadow. Almost, it seemed, she could visualize the
women who had kept their pretties and their family homespun in its
drawers--the women of those wandering generations who were grandmothers
and greater great grandmothers of her own mother. Well, she sighed, it
was a good stock to be born of, a hard-working, hard-fighting stock. She
fell to wondering what her life would have been like had she been born
a Chinese woman, or an Italian woman like those she saw, head-shawled
or bareheaded, squat, ungainly and swarthy, who carried great loads
of driftwood on their heads up from the beach. Then she laughed at
her foolishness, remembered Billy and the four-roomed cottage on Pine
Street, and went to bed with her mind filled for the hundredth time with
the details of the furniture.



CHAPTER XIII

“Our cattle were all played out,” Saxon was saying, “and winter was so
near that we couldn’t dare try to cross the Great American Desert, so
our train stopped in Salt Lake City that winter. The Mormons hadn’t got
bad yet, and they were good to us.”

“You talk as though you were there,” Bert commented.

“My mother was,” Saxon answered proudly. “She was nine years old that
winter.”

They were seated around the table in the kitchen of the little Pine
Street cottage, making a cold lunch of sandwiches, tamales, and bottled
beer. It being Sunday, the four were free from work, and they had come
early, to work harder than on any week day, washing walls and windows,
scrubbing floors, laying carpets and linoleum, hanging curtains, setting
up the stove, putting the kitchen utensils and dishes away, and placing
the furniture.

“Go on with the story, Saxon,” Mary begged. “I’m just dyin’ to hear. And
Bert, you just shut up and listen.”

“Well, that winter was when Del Hancock showed up. He was Kentucky born,
but he’d been in the West for years. He was a scout, like Kit Carson,
and he knew him well. Many’s a time Kit Carson and he slept under the
same blankets. They were together to California and Oregon with General
Fremont. Well, Del Hancock was passing on his way through Salt Lake,
going I don’t know where to raise a company of Rocky Mountain trappers
to go after beaver some new place he knew about. He was a handsome man.
He wore his hair long like in pictures, and had a silk sash around
his waist he’d learned to wear in California from the Spanish, and two
revolvers in his belt. Any woman ‘d fall in love with him first sight.
Well, he saw Sadie, who was my mother’s oldest sister, and I guess she
looked good to him, for he stopped right there in Salt Lake and didn’t
go a step. He was a great Indian fighter, too, and I heard my Aunt Villa
say, when I was a little girl, that he had the blackest, brightest eyes,
and that the way he looked was like an eagle. He’d fought duels, too,
the way they did in those days, and he wasn’t afraid of anything.

“Sadie was a beauty, and she flirted with him and drove him crazy. Maybe
she wasn’t sure of her own mind, I don’t know. But I do know that she
didn’t give in as easy as I did to Billy. Finally, he couldn’t stand it
any more. He rode up that night on horseback, wild as could be. ‘Sadie,’
he said, ‘if you don’t promise to marry me to-morrow, I’ll shoot myself
to-night right back of the corral.’ And he’d have done it, too, and
Sadie knew it, and said she would. Didn’t they make love fast in those
days?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mary sniffed. “A week after you first laid eyes on
Billy you was engaged. Did Billy say he was going to shoot himself back
of the laundry if you turned him down?”

“I didn’t give him a chance,” Saxon confessed. “Anyway Del Hancock and
Aunt Sadie got married next day. And they were very happy afterward,
only she died. And after that he was killed, with General Custer and all
the rest, by the Indians. He was an old man by then, but I guess he
got his share of Indians before they got him. Men like him always died
fighting, and they took their dead with them. I used to know Al Stanley
when I was a little girl. He was a gambler, but he was game. A railroad
man shot him in the back when he was sitting at a table. That shot
killed him, too. He died in about two seconds. But before he died he’d
pulled his gun and put three bullets into the man that killed him.”

“I don’t like fightin’,” Mary protested. “It makes me nervous. Bert
gives me the willies the way he’s always lookin’ for trouble. There
ain’t no sense in it.”

“And I wouldn’t give a snap of my fingers for a man without fighting
spirit,” Saxon answered. “Why, we wouldn’t be here to-day if it wasn’t
for the fighting spirit of our people before us.”

“You’ve got the real goods of a fighter in Billy,” Bert assured her; “a
yard long and a yard wide and genuine A Number One, long-fleeced wool.
Billy’s a Mohegan with a scalp-lock, that’s what he is. And when he gets
his mad up it’s a case of get out from under or something will fall on
you--hard.”

“Just like that,” Mary added.

Billy, who had taken no part in the conversation, got up, glanced into
the bedroom off the kitchen, went into the parlor and the bedroom off
the parlor, then returned and stood gazing with puzzled brows into the
kitchen bedroom.

“What’s eatin’ you, old man,” Bert queried. “You look as though you’d
lost something or was markin’ a three-way ticket. What you got on your
chest? Cough it up.”

“Why, I’m just thinkin’ where in Sam Hill’s the bed an’ stuff for the
back bedroom.”

“There isn’t any,” Saxon explained. “We didn’t order any.”

“Then I’ll see about it to-morrow.”

“What d’ye want another bed for?” asked Bert. “Ain’t one bed enough for
the two of you?”

“You shut up, Bert!” Mary cried. “Don’t get raw.”

“Whoa, Mary!” Bert grinned. “Back up. You’re in the wrong stall as
usual.”

“We don’t need that room,” Saxon was saying to Billy. “And so I didn’t
plan any furniture. That money went to buy better carpets and a better
stove.”

Billy came over to her, lifted her from the chair, and seated himself
with her on his knees.

“That’s right, little girl. I’m glad you did. The best for us every
time. And to-morrow night I want you to run up with me to Salinger’s
an’ pick out a good bedroom set an’ carpet for that room. And it must be
good. Nothin’ snide.”

“It will cost fifty dollars,” she objected.

“That’s right,” he nodded. “Make it cost fifty dollars and not a cent
less. We’re goin’ to have the best. And what’s the good of an empty
room? It’d make the house look cheap. Why, I go around now, seein’ this
little nest just as it grows an’ softens, day by day, from the day we
paid the cash money down an’ nailed the keys. Why, almost every moment
I’m drivin’ the horses, all day long, I just keep on seein’ this nest.
And when we’re married, I’ll go on seein’ it. And I want to see it
complete. If that room’d be bare-floored an’ empty, I’d see nothin’ but
it and its bare floor all day long. I’d be cheated. The house’d be
a lie. Look at them curtains you put up in it, Saxon. That’s to make
believe to the neighbors that it’s furnished. Saxon, them curtains are
lyin’ about that room, makin’ a noise for every one to hear that that
room’s furnished. Nitsky for us. I’m goin’ to see that them curtains
tell the truth.”

“You might rent it,” Bert suggested. “You’re close to the railroad
yards, and it’s only two blocks to a restaurant.”

“Not on your life. I ain’t marryin’ Saxon to take in lodgers. If I can’t
take care of her, d’ye know what I’ll do? Go down to Long Wharf, say
‘Here goes nothin’,’ an’ jump into the bay with a stone tied to my neck.
Ain’t I right, Saxon?”

It was contrary to her prudent judgment, but it fanned her pride. She
threw her arms around her lover’s neck, and said, ere she kissed him:

“You’re the boss, Billy. What you say goes, and always will go.”

“Listen to that!” Bert gibed to Mary. “That’s the stuff. Saxon’s onto
her job.”

“I guess we’ll talk things over together first before ever I do
anything,” Billy was saying to Saxon.

“Listen to that,” Mary triumphed. “You bet the man that marries me’ll
have to talk things over first.”

“Billy’s only givin’ her hot air,” Bert plagued. “They all do it before
they’re married.”

Mary sniffed contemptuously.

“I’ll bet Saxon leads him around by the nose. And I’m goin’ to say, loud
an’ strong, that I’ll lead the man around by the nose that marries me.”

“Not if you love him,” Saxon interposed.

“All the more reason,” Mary pursued.

Bert assumed an expression and attitude of mournful dejection.

“Now you see why me an’ Mary don’t get married,” he said. “I’m some big
Indian myself, an’ I’ll be everlastingly jiggerooed if I put up for a
wigwam I can’t be boss of.”

“And I’m no squaw,” Mary retaliated, “an’ I wouldn’t marry a big buck
Indian if all the rest of the men in the world was dead.”

“Well this big buck Indian ain’t asked you yet.”

“He knows what he’d get if he did.”

“And after that maybe he’ll think twice before he does ask you.”

Saxon, intent on diverting the conversation into pleasanter channels,
clapped her hands as if with sudden recollection.

“Oh! I forgot! I want to show you something.” From her purse she drew
a slender ring of plain gold and passed it around. “My mother’s wedding
ring. I’ve worn it around my neck always, like a locket. I cried for it
so in the orphan asylum that the matron gave it back for me to wear. And
now, just to think, after next Tuesday I’ll be wearing it on my finger.
Look, Billy, see the engraving on the inside.”

“C to D, 1879,” he read.

“Carlton to Daisy--Carlton was my father’s first name. And now, Billy,
you’ve got to get it engraved for you and me.”

Mary was all eagerness and delight.

“Oh, it’s fine,” she cried. “W to S, 1907.”

Billy considered a moment.

“No, that wouldn’t be right, because I’m not giving it to Saxon.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Saxon said. “W and S.”

“Nope.” Billy shook his head. “S and W, because you come first with me.”

“If I come first with you, you come first with us. Billy, dear, I insist
on W and S.”

“You see,” Mary said to Bert. “Having her own way and leading him by the
nose already.”

Saxon acknowledged the sting.

“Anyway you want, Billy,” she surrendered. His arms tightened about her.

“We’ll talk it over first, I guess.”



CHAPTER XIV

Sarah was conservative. Worse, she had crystallized at the end of her
love-time with the coming of her first child. After that she was as
set in her ways as plaster in a mold. Her mold was the prejudices and
notions of her girlhood and the house she lived in. So habitual was
she that any change in the customary round assumed the proportions of
a revolution. Tom had gone through many of these revolutions, three of
them when he moved house. Then his stamina broke, and he never moved
house again.

So it was that Saxon had held back the announcement of her approaching
marriage until it was unavoidable. She expected a scene, and she got it.

“A prizefighter, a hoodlum, a plug-ugly,” Sarah sneered, after she had
exhausted herself of all calamitous forecasts of her own future and the
future of her children in the absence of Saxon’s weekly four dollars and
a half. “I don’t know what your mother’d thought if she lived to see
the day when you took up with a tough like Bill Roberts. Bill! Why, your
mother was too refined to associate with a man that was called Bill. And
all I can say is you can say good-bye to silk stockings and your three
pair of shoes. It won’t be long before you’ll think yourself lucky to go
sloppin’ around in Congress gaiters and cotton stockin’s two pair for a
quarter.”

“Oh, I’m not afraid of Billy not being able to keep me in all kinds of
shoes,” Saxon retorted with a proud toss of her head.

“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” Sarah paused to laugh in
mirthless discordance. “Watch for the babies to come. They come faster
than wages raise these days.”

“But we’re not going to have any babies... that is, at first. Not until
after the furniture is all paid for anyway.”

“Wise in your generation, eh? In my days girls were more modest than to
know anything about disgraceful subjects.”

“As babies?” Saxon queried, with a touch of gentle malice.

“Yes, as babies.”

“The first I knew that babies were disgraceful. Why, Sarah, you, with
your five, how disgraceful you have been. Billy and I have decided not
to be half as disgraceful. We’re only going to have two--a boy and a
girl.”

Tom chuckled, but held the peace by hiding his face in his coffee cup.
Sarah, though checked by this flank attack, was herself an old hand
in the art. So temporary was the setback that she scarcely paused ere
hurling her assault from a new angle.

“An’ marryin’ so quick, all of a sudden, eh? If that ain’t suspicious,
nothin’ is. I don’t know what young women’s comin’ to. They ain’t
decent, I tell you. They ain’t decent. That’s what comes of Sunday
dancin’ an’ all the rest. Young women nowadays are like a lot of
animals. Such fast an’ looseness I never saw....”

Saxon was white with anger, but while Sarah wandered on in her diatribe,
Tom managed to wink privily and prodigiously at his sister and to
implore her to help in keeping the peace.

“It’s all right, kid sister,” he comforted Saxon when they were alone.
“There’s no use talkin’ to Sarah. Bill Roberts is a good boy. I know a
lot about him. It does you proud to get him for a husband. You’re bound
to be happy with him...” His voice sank, and his face seemed suddenly to
be very old and tired as he went on anxiously. “Take warning from Sarah.
Don’t nag. Whatever you do, don’t nag. Don’t give him a perpetual-motion
line of chin. Kind of let him talk once in a while. Men have some horse
sense, though Sarah don’t know it. Why, Sarah actually loves me, though
she don’t make a noise like it. The thing for you is to love your
husband, and, by thunder, to make a noise of lovin’ him, too. And then
you can kid him into doing ‘most anything you want. Let him have his way
once in a while, and he’ll let you have yourn. But you just go on lovin’
him, and leanin’ on his judgement--he’s no fool--and you’ll be all
hunky-dory. I’m scared from goin’ wrong, what of Sarah. But I’d sooner
be loved into not going wrong.”

“Oh, I’ll do it, Tom,” Saxon nodded, smiling through the tears his
sympathy had brought into her eyes. “And on top of it I’m going to do
something else, I’m going to make Billy love me and just keep on loving
me. And then I won’t have to kid him into doing some of the things I
want. He’ll do them because he loves me, you see.”

“You got the right idea, Saxon. Stick with it, an’ you’ll win out.”

Later, when she had put on her hat to start for the laundry, she found
Tom waiting for her at the corner.

“An’, Saxon,” he said, hastily and haltingly, “you won’t take anything
I’ve said... you know... --about Sarah... as bein’ in any way disloyal
to her? She’s a good woman, an’ faithful. An’ her life ain’t so easy by
a long shot. I’d bite out my tongue before I’d say anything against her.
I guess all folks have their troubles. It’s hell to be poor, ain’t it?”

“You’ve been awful good to me, Tom. I can never forget it. And I know
Sarah means right. She does do her best.”

“I won’t be able to give you a wedding present,” her brother ventured
apologetically. “Sarah won’t hear of it. Says we didn’t get none from my
folks when we got married. But I got something for you just the same. A
surprise. You’d never guess it.”

Saxon waited.

“When you told me you was goin’ to get married, I just happened to think
of it, an’ I wrote to brother George, askin’ him for it for you. An’ by
thunder he sent it by express. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know
but maybe he’d sold it. He did sell the silver spurs. He needed the
money, I guess. But the other, I had it sent to the shop so as not
to bother Sarah, an’ I sneaked it in last night an’ hid it in the
woodshed.”

“Oh, it is something of my father’s! What is it? Oh, what is it?”

“His army sword.”

“The one he wore on his roan war horse! Oh, Tom, you couldn’t give me a
better present. Let’s go back now. I want to see it. We can slip in the
back way. Sarah’s washing in the kitchen, and she won’t begin hanging
out for an hour.”

“I spoke to Sarah about lettin’ you take the old chest of drawers that
was your mother’s,” Tom whispered, as they stole along the narrow alley
between the houses. “Only she got on her high horse. Said that Daisy was
as much my mother as yourn, even if we did have different fathers, and
that the chest had always belonged in Daisy’s family and not Captain
Kit’s, an’ that it was mine, an’ what was mine she had some say-so
about.”

“It’s all right,” Saxon reassured him. “She sold it to me last night.
She was waiting up for me when I got home with fire in her eye.”

“Yep, she was on the warpath all day after I mentioned it. How much did
you give her for it?”

“Six dollars.”

“Robbery--it ain’t worth it,” Tom groaned. “It’s all cracked at one end
and as old as the hills.”

“I’d have given ten dollars for it. I’d have given ‘most anything for
it, Tom. It was mother’s, you know. I remember it in her room when she
was still alive.”

In the woodshed Tom resurrected the hidden treasure and took off the
wrapping paper. Appeared a rusty, steel-scabbarded saber of the heavy
type carried by cavalry officers in Civil War days. It was attached to
a moth-eaten sash of thick-woven crimson silk from which hung heavy silk
tassels. Saxon almost seized it from her brother in her eagerness. She
drew forth the blade and pressed her lips to the steel.

It was her last day at the laundry. She was to quit work that evening
for good. And the next afternoon, at five, she and Billy were to go
before a justice of the peace and be married. Bert and Mary were to be
the witnesses, and after that the four were to go to a private room in
Barnum’s Restaurant for the wedding supper. That over, Bert and Mary
would proceed to a dance at Myrtle Hall, while Billy and Saxon
would take the Eighth Street car to Seventh and Pine. Honeymoons are
infrequent in the working class. The next morning Billy must be at the
stable at his regular hour to drive his team out.

All the women in the fancy starch room knew it was Saxon’s last day.
Many exulted for her, and not a few were envious of her, in that she had
won a husband and to freedom from the suffocating slavery of the ironing
board. Much of bantering she endured; such was the fate of every girl
who married out of the fancy starch room. But Saxon was too happy to be
hurt by the teasing, a great deal of which was gross, but all of which
was good-natured.

In the steam that arose from under her iron, and on the surfaces of the
dainty lawns and muslins that flew under her hands, she kept visioning
herself in the Pine Street cottage; and steadily she hummed under her
breath her paraphrase of the latest popular song:

“And when I work, and when I work, I’ll always work for Billy.”

By three in the afternoon the strain of the piece-workers in the humid,
heated room grew tense. Elderly women gasped and sighed; the color went
out of the cheeks of the young women, their faces became drawn and dark
circles formed under their eyes; but all held on with weary, unabated
speed. The tireless, vigilant forewoman kept a sharp lookout for
incipient hysteria, and once led a narrow-chested, stoop-shouldered
young thing out of the place in time to prevent a collapse.

Saxon was startled by the wildest scream of terror she had ever heard.
The tense thread of human resolution snapped; wills and nerves broke
down, and a hundred women suspended their irons or dropped them. It was
Mary who had screamed so terribly, and Saxon saw a strange black animal
flapping great claw-like wings and nestling on Mary’s shoulder. With the
scream, Mary crouched down, and the strange creature, darting into the
air, fluttered full into the startled face of a woman at the next board.
This woman promptly screamed and fainted. Into the air again, the flying
thing darted hither and thither, while the shrieking, shrinking women
threw up their arms, tried to run away along the aisles, or cowered
under their ironing boards.

“It’s only a bat!” the forewoman shouted. She was furious. “Ain’t you
ever seen a bat? It won’t eat you!”

But they were ghetto people, and were not to be quieted. Some woman
who could not see the cause of the uproar, out of her overwrought
apprehension raised the cry of fire and precipitated the panic rush for
the doors. All of them were screaming the stupid, soul-sickening high
note of terror, drowning the forewoman’s voice. Saxon had been merely
startled at first, but the screaming panic broke her grip on herself and
swept her away. Though she did not scream, she fled with the rest. When
this horde of crazed women debouched on the next department, those who
worked there joined in the stampede to escape from they knew not what
danger. In ten minutes the laundry was deserted, save for a few men
wandering about with hand grenades in futile search for the cause of the
disturbance.

The forewoman was stout, but indomitable. Swept along half the length
of an aisle by the terror-stricken women, she had broken her way back
through the rout and quickly caught the light-blinded visitant in a
clothes basket.

“Maybe I don’t know what God looks like, but take it from me I’ve seen
a tintype of the devil,” Mary gurgled, emotionally fluttering back and
forth between laughter and tears.

But Saxon was angry with herself, for she had been as frightened as the
rest in that wild flight for out-of-doors.

“We’re a lot of fools,” she said. “It was only a bat. I’ve heard about
them. They live in the country. They wouldn’t hurt a fly. They can’t see
in the daytime. That was what was the matter with this one. It was only
a bat.”

“Huh, you can’t string me,” Mary replied. “It was the devil.” She
sobbed a moment, and then laughed hysterically again. “Did you see Mrs.
Bergstrom faint? And it only touched her in the face. Why, it was on
my shoulder and touching my bare neck like the hand of a corpse. And I
didn’t faint.” She laughed again. “I guess, maybe, I was too scared to
faint.”

“Come on back,” Saxon urged. “We’ve lost half an hour.”

“Not me. I’m goin’ home after that, if they fire me. I couldn’t iron for
sour apples now, I’m that shaky.”

One woman had broken a leg, another an arm, and a number nursed milder
bruises and bruises. No bullying nor entreating of the forewoman could
persuade the women to return to work. They were too upset and nervous,
and only here and there could one be found brave enough to re-enter the
building for the hats and lunch baskets of the others. Saxon was one of
the handful that returned and worked till six o’clock.



CHAPTER XV

“Why, Bert!--you’re squiffed!” Mary cried reproachfully.

The four were at the table in the private room at Barnum’s. The wedding
supper, simple enough, but seemingly too expensive to Saxon, had been
eaten. Bert, in his hand a glass of California red wine, which
the management supplied for fifty cents a bottle, was on his feet
endeavoring a speech. His face was flushed; his black eyes were
feverishly bright.

“You’ve ben drinkin’ before you met me,” Mary continued. “I can see it
stickin’ out all over you.”

“Consult an oculist, my dear,” he replied. “Bertram is himself to-night.
An’ he is here, arisin’ to his feet to give the glad hand to his old
pal. Bill, old man, here’s to you. It’s how-de-do an’ good-bye, I guess.
You’re a married man now, Bill, an’ you got to keep regular hours. No
more runnin’ around with the boys. You gotta take care of yourself,
an’ get your life insured, an’ take out an accident policy, an’ join a
buildin’ an’ loan society, an’ a buryin’ association--”

“Now you shut up, Bert,” Mary broke in. “You don’t talk about buryin’s
at weddings. You oughta be ashamed of yourself.”

“Whoa, Mary! Back up! I said what I said because I meant it. I ain’t
thinkin’ what Mary thinks. What I was thinkin’.... Let me tell you what
I was thinkin’. I said buryin’ association, didn’t I? Well, it was not
with the idea of castin’ gloom over this merry gatherin’. Far be it....”

He was so evidently seeking a way out of his predicament, that Mary
tossed her head triumphantly. This acted as a spur to his reeling wits.

“Let me tell you why,” he went on. “Because, Bill, you got such an
all-fired pretty wife, that’s why. All the fellows is crazy over her,
an’ when they get to runnin’ after her, what’ll you be doin’? You’ll be
gettin’ busy. And then won’t you need a buryin’ association to bury ‘em?
I just guess yes. That was the compliment to your good taste in skirts I
was tryin’ to come across with when Mary butted in.”

His glittering eyes rested for a moment in bantering triumph on Mary.

“Who says I’m squiffed? Me? Not on your life. I’m seein’ all things in a
clear white light. An’ I see Bill there, my old friend Bill. An’ I don’t
see two Bills. I see only one. Bill was never two-faced in his life.
Bill, old man, when I look at you there in the married harness, I’m
sorry--” He ceased abruptly and turned on Mary. “Now don’t go up in the
air, old girl. I’m onto my job. My grandfather was a state senator, and
he could spiel graceful an’ pleasin’ till the cows come home. So can
I.--Bill, when I look at you, I’m sorry. I repeat, I’m sorry.” He glared
challengingly at Mary. “For myself when I look at you an’ know all the
happiness you got a hammerlock on. Take it from me, you’re a wise guy,
bless the women. You’ve started well. Keep it up. Marry ‘em all, bless
‘em. Bill, here’s to you. You’re a Mohegan with a scalplock. An’ you
got a squaw that is some squaw, take it from me. Minnehaha, here’s to
you--to the two of you--an’ to the papooses, too, gosh-dang them!”

He drained the glass suddenly and collapsed in his chair, blinking his
eyes across at the wedded couple while tears trickled unheeded down
his cheeks. Mary’s hand went out soothingly to his, completing his
break-down.

“By God, I got a right to cry,” he sobbed. “I’m losin’ my best friend,
ain’t I? It’ll never be the same again never. When I think of the fun,
an’ scrapes, an’ good times Bill an’ me has had together, I could darn
near hate you, Saxon, sittin’ there with your hand in his.”

“Cheer up, Bert,” she laughed gently. “Look at whose hand you are
holding.”

“Aw, it’s only one of his cryin’ jags,” Mary said, with a harshness
that her free hand belied as it caressed his hair with soothing strokes.
“Buck up, Bert. Everything’s all right. And now it’s up to Bill to say
something after your dandy spiel.”

Bert recovered himself quickly with another glass of wine.

“Kick in, Bill,” he cried. “It’s your turn now.”

“I’m no hotair artist,” Billy grumbled. “What’ll I say, Saxon? They
ain’t no use tellin’ ‘em how happy we are. They know that.”

“Tell them we’re always going to be happy,” she said. “And thank them
for all their good wishes, and we both wish them the same. And we’re
always going to be together, like old times, the four of us. And tell
them they’re invited down to 507 Pine Street next Sunday for Sunday
dinner.--And, Mary, if you want to come Saturday night you can sleep in
the spare bedroom.”

“You’ve told’m yourself, better’n I could.” Billy clapped his hands.
“You did yourself proud, an’ I guess they ain’t much to add to it, but
just the same I’m goin’ to pass them a hot one.”

He stood up, his hand on his glass. His clear blue eyes under the
dark brows and framed by the dark lashes, seemed a deeper blue, and
accentuated the blondness of hair and skin. The smooth cheeks were
rosy--not with wine, for it was only his second glass--but with health
and joy. Saxon, looking up at him, thrilled with pride in him, he was so
well-dressed, so strong, so handsome, so clean-looking--her man-boy. And
she was aware of pride in herself, in her woman’s desirableness that had
won for her so wonderful a lover.

“Well, Bert an’ Mary, here you are at Saxon’s and my wedding supper.
We’re just goin’ to take all your good wishes to heart, we wish you the
same back, and when we say it we mean more than you think we mean. Saxon
an’ I believe in tit for tat. So we’re wishin’ for the day when the
table is turned clear around an’ we’re sittin’ as guests at your weddin’
supper. And then, when you come to Sunday dinner, you can both stop
Saturday night in the spare bedroom. I guess I was wised up when I
furnished it, eh?”

“I never thought it of you, Billy!” Mary exclaimed. “You’re every bit as
raw as Bert. But just the same...”

There was a rush of moisture to her eyes. Her voice faltered and broke.
She smiled through her tears at them, then turned to look at Bert, who
put his arm around her and gathered her on to his knees.

When they left the restaurant, the four walked to Eighth and Broadway,
where they stopped beside the electric car. Bert and Billy were awkward
and silent, oppressed by a strange aloofness. But Mary embraced Saxon
with fond anxiousness.

“It’s all right, dear,” Mary whispered. “Don’t be scared. It’s all
right. Think of all the other women in the world.”

The conductor clanged the gong, and the two couples separated in a
sudden hubbub of farewell.

“Oh, you Mohegan!” Bert called after, as the car got under way. “Oh, you
Minnehaha!”

“Remember what I said,” was Mary’s parting to Saxon.


The car stopped at Seventh and Pine, the terminus of the line. It was
only a little over two blocks to the cottage. On the front steps Billy
took the key from his pocket.

“Funny, isn’t it?” he said, as the key turned in the lock. “You an’ me.
Just you an’ me.”

While he lighted the lamp in the parlor, Saxon was taking off her hat.
He went into the bedroom and lighted the lamp there, then turned back
and stood in the doorway. Saxon, still unaccountably fumbling with her
hatpins, stole a glance at him. He held out his arms.

“Now,” he said.

She came to him, and in his arms he could feel her trembling.



BOOK II



CHAPTER I

The first evening after the marriage night Saxon met Billy at the door
as he came up the front steps. After their embrace, and as they crossed
the parlor hand in hand toward the kitchen, he filled his lungs through
his nostrils with audible satisfaction.

“My, but this house smells good, Saxon! It ain’t the coffee--I can smell
that, too. It’s the whole house. It smells... well, it just smells good
to me, that’s all.”

He washed and dried himself at the sink, while she heated the frying pan
on the front hole of the stove with the lid off. As he wiped his hands
he watched her keenly, and cried out with approbation as she dropped the
steak in the frying pan.

“Where’d you learn to cook steak on a dry, hot pan? It’s the only way,
but darn few women seem to know about it.”

As she took the cover off a second frying pan and stirred the savory
contents with a kitchen knife, he came behind her, passed his arms under
her arm-pits with down-drooping hands upon her breasts, and bent his
head over her shoulder till cheek touched cheek.

“Um-um-um-m-m! Fried potatoes with onions like mother used to make. Me
for them. Don’t they smell good, though! Um-um-m-m-m!”

The pressure of his hands relaxed, and his cheek slid caressingly past
hers as he started to release her. Then his hands closed down again.
She felt his lips on her hair and heard his advertised inhalation of
delight.

“Um-um-m-m-m! Don’t you smell good--yourself, though! I never understood
what they meant when they said a girl was sweet. I know, now. And you’re
the sweetest I ever knew.”

His joy was boundless. When he returned from combing his hair in the
bedroom and sat down at the small table opposite her, he paused with
knife and fork in hand.

“Say, bein’ married is a whole lot more than it’s cracked up to be by
most married folks. Honest to God, Saxon, we can show ‘em a few. We can
give ‘em cards and spades an’ little casino an’ win out on big casino
and the aces. I’ve got but one kick comin’.”

The instant apprehension in her eyes provoked a chuckle from him.

“An’ that is that we didn’t get married quick enough. Just think. I’ve
lost a whole week of this.”

Her eyes shone with gratitude and happiness, and in her heart she
solemnly pledged herself that never in all their married life would it
be otherwise.

Supper finished, she cleared the table and began washing the dishes at
the sink. When he evinced the intention of wiping them, she caught him
by the lapels of the coat and backed him into a chair.

“You’ll sit right there, if you know what’s good for you. Now be good
and mind what I say. Also, you will smoke a cigarette.--No; you’re not
going to watch me. There’s the morning paper beside you. And if you
don’t hurry to read it, I’ll be through these dishes before you’ve
started.”

As he smoked and read, she continually glanced across at him from her
work. One thing more, she thought--slippers; and then the picture of
comfort and content would be complete.

Several minutes later Billy put the paper aside with a sigh.

“It’s no use,” he complained. “I can’t read.”

“What’s the matter?” she teased. “Eyes weak?”

“Nope. They’re sore, and there’s only one thing to do ‘em any good, an’
that’s lookin’ at you.”

“All right, then, baby Billy; I’ll be through in a jiffy.”

When she had washed the dish towel and scalded out the sink, she took
off her kitchen apron, came to him, and kissed first one eye and then
the other.

“How are they now. Cured?”

“They feel some better already.”

She repeated the treatment.

“And now?”

“Still better.”

“And now?”

“Almost well.”

After he had adjudged them well, he ouched and informed her that there
was still some hurt in the right eye.

In the course of treating it, she cried out as in pain. Billy was all
alarm.

“What is it? What hurt you?”

“My eyes. They’re hurting like sixty.”

And Billy became physician for a while and she the patient. When the
cure was accomplished, she led him into the parlor, where, by the open
window, they succeeded in occupying the same Morris chair. It was the
most expensive comfort in the house. It had cost seven dollars and
a half, and, though it was grander than anything she had dreamed of
possessing, the extravagance of it had worried her in a half-guilty way
all day.

The salt chill of the air that is the blessing of all the bay cities
after the sun goes down crept in about them. They heard the switch
engines puffing in the railroad yards, and the rumbling thunder of the
Seventh Street local slowing down in its run from the Mole to stop at
West Oakland station. From the street came the noise of children playing
in the summer night, and from the steps of the house next door the low
voices of gossiping housewives.

“Can you beat it?” Billy murmured. “When I think of that six-dollar
furnished room of mine, it makes me sick to think what I was missin’
all the time. But there’s one satisfaction. If I’d changed it sooner
I wouldn’t a-had you. You see, I didn’t know you existed only until a
couple of weeks ago.”

His hand crept along her bare forearm and up and partly under the
elbow-sleeve.

“Your skin’s so cool,” he said. “It ain’t cold; it’s cool. It feels good
to the hand.”

“Pretty soon you’ll be calling me your cold-storage baby,” she laughed.

“And your voice is cool,” he went on. “It gives me the feeling just
as your hand does when you rest it on my forehead. It’s funny. I can’t
explain it. But your voice just goes all through me, cool and fine.
It’s like a wind of coolness--just right. It’s like the first of the
sea-breeze settin’ in in the afternoon after a scorchin’ hot morning.
An’ sometimes, when you talk low, it sounds round and sweet like the
‘cello in the Macdonough Theater orchestra. And it never goes high up,
or sharp, or squeaky, or scratchy, like some women’s voices when they’re
mad, or fresh, or excited, till they remind me of a bum phonograph
record. Why, your voice, it just goes through me till I’m all
trembling--like with the everlastin’ cool of it. It’s -- it’s straight
delicious. I guess angels in heaven, if they is any, must have voices
like that.”

After a few minutes, in which, so inexpressible was her happiness that
she could only pass her hand through his hair and cling to him, he broke
out again.

“I’ll tell you what you remind me of. Did you ever see a thoroughbred
mare, all shinin’ in the sun, with hair like satin an’ skin so thin an’
tender that the least touch of the whip leaves a mark--all fine nerves,
an’ delicate an’ sensitive, that’ll kill the toughest bronco when it
comes to endurance an’ that can strain a tendon in a flash or catch
death-of-cold without a blanket for a night? I wanta tell you they ain’t
many beautifuler sights in this world. An’ they’re that fine-strung, an’
sensitive, an’ delicate. You gotta handle ‘em right-side up, glass, with
care. Well, that’s what you remind me of. And I’m goin’ to make it
my job to see you get handled an’ gentled in the same way. You’re
as different from other women as that kind of a mare is from scrub
work-horse mares. You’re a thoroughbred. You’re clean-cut an’ spirited,
an’ your lines...

“Say, d’ye know you’ve got some figure? Well, you have. Talk about
Annette Kellerman. You can give her cards and spades. She’s Australian,
an’ you’re American, only your figure ain’t. You’re different. You’re
nifty--I don’t know how to explain it. Other women ain’t built like you.
You belong in some other country. You’re Frenchy, that’s what. You’re
built like a French woman an’ more than that--the way you walk, move,
stand up or sit down, or don’t do anything.”

And he, who had never been out of California, or, for that matter, had
never slept a night away from his birthtown of Oakland, was right in
his judgment. She was a flower of Anglo-Saxon stock, a rarity in the
exceptional smallness and fineness of hand and foot and bone and grace
of flesh and carriage--some throw-back across the face of time to the
foraying Norman-French that had intermingled with the sturdy Saxon
breed.

“And in the way you carry your clothes. They belong to you. They seem
just as much part of you as the cool of your voice and skin. They’re
always all right an’ couldn’t be better. An’ you know, a fellow kind of
likes to be seen taggin’ around with a woman like you, that wears her
clothes like a dream, an’ hear the other fellows say: ‘Who’s Bill’s new
skirt? She’s a peach, ain’t she? Wouldn’t I like to win her, though.’
And all that sort of talk.”

And Saxon, her cheek pressed to his, knew that she was paid in full for
all her midnight sewings and the torturing hours of drowsy stitching
when her head nodded with the weariness of the day’s toil, while she
recreated for herself filched ideas from the dainty garments that had
steamed under her passing iron.

“Say, Saxon, I got a new name for you. You’re my Tonic Kid. That’s what
you are, the Tonic Kid.”

“And you’ll never get tired of me?” she queried.

“Tired? Why we was made for each other.”

“Isn’t it wonderful, our meeting, Billy? We might never have met. It was
just by accident that we did.”

“We was born lucky,” he proclaimed. “That’s a cinch.”

“Maybe it was more than luck,” she ventured.

“Sure. It just had to be. It was fate. Nothing could a-kept us apart.”

They sat on in a silence that was quick with unuttered love, till she
felt him slowly draw her more closely and his lips come near to her ear
as they whispered: “What do you say we go to bed?”


Many evenings they spent like this, varied with an occasional dance,
with trips to the Orpheum and to Bell’s Theater, or to the moving
picture shows, or to the Friday night band concerts in City Hall Park.
Often, on Sunday, she prepared a lunch, and he drove her out into the
hills behind Prince and King, whom Billy’s employer was still glad to
have him exercise.

Each morning Saxon was called by the alarm clock. The first morning
he had insisted upon getting up with her and building the fire in the
kitchen stove. She gave in the first morning, but after that she laid
the fire in the evening, so that all that was required was the touching
of a match to it. And in bed she compelled him to remain for a last
little doze ere she called him for breakfast. For the first several
weeks she prepared his lunch for him. Then, for a week, he came down
to dinner. After that he was compelled to take his lunch with him. It
depended on how far distant the teaming was done.

“You’re not starting right with a man,” Mary cautioned. “You wait on him
hand and foot. You’ll spoil him if you don’t watch out. It’s him that
ought to be waitin’ on you.”

“He’s the bread-winner,” Saxon replied. “He works harder than I, and
I’ve got more time than I know what to do with--time to burn. Besides,
I want to wait on him because I love to, and because... well, anyway, I
want to.”



CHAPTER II

Despite the fastidiousness of her housekeeping, Saxon, once she had
systematized it, found time and to spare on her hands. Especially during
the periods in which her husband carried his lunch and there was no
midday meal to prepare, she had a number of hours each day to herself.
Trained for years to the routine of factory and laundry work, she could
not abide this unaccustomed idleness. She could not bear to sit and do
nothing, while she could not pay calls on her girlhood friends, for they
still worked in factory and laundry. Nor was she acquainted with the
wives of the neighborhood, save for one strange old woman who lived
in the house next door and with whom Saxon had exchanged snatches of
conversation over the backyard division fence.

One time-consuming diversion of which Saxon took advantage was free and
unlimited baths. In the orphan asylum and in Sarah’s house she had been
used to but one bath a week. As she grew to womanhood she had attempted
more frequent baths. But the effort proved disastrous, arousing, first,
Sarah’s derision, and next, her wrath. Sarah had crystallized in the era
of the weekly Saturday night bath, and any increase in this cleansing
function was regarded by her as putting on airs and as an insinuation
against her own cleanliness. Also, it was an extravagant misuse of fuel,
and occasioned extra towels in the family wash. But now, in Billy’s
house, with her own stove, her own tub and towels and soap, and no one
to say her nay, Saxon was guilty of a daily orgy. True, it was only a
common washtub that she placed on the kitchen floor and filled by hand;
but it was a luxury that had taken her twenty-four years to achieve. It
was from the strange woman next door that Saxon received a hint, dropped
in casual conversation, of what proved the culminating joy of bathing. A
simple thing--a few drops of druggist’s ammonia in the water; but Saxon
had never heard of it before.

She was destined to learn much from the strange woman. The acquaintance
had begun one day when Saxon, in the back yard, was hanging out a couple
of corset covers and several pieces of her finest undergarments. The
woman leaning on the rail of her back porch, had caught her eye, and
nodded, as it seemed to Saxon, half to her and half to the underlinen on
the line.

“You’re newly married, aren’t you?” the woman asked. “I’m Mrs. Higgins.
I prefer my first name, which is Mercedes.”

“And I’m Mrs. Roberts,” Saxon replied, thrilling to the newness of the
designation on her tongue. “My first name is Saxon.”

“Strange name for a Yankee woman,” the other commented.

“Oh, but I’m not Yankee,” Saxon exclaimed. “I’m Californian.”

“La la,” laughed Mercedes Higgins. “I forgot I was in America. In other
lands all Americans are called Yankees. It is true that you are newly
married?”

Saxon nodded with a happy sigh. Mercedes sighed, too.

“Oh, you happy, soft, beautiful young thing. I could envy you to
hatred--you with all the man-world ripe to be twisted about your pretty
little fingers. And you don’t realize your fortune. No one does until
it’s too late.”

Saxon was puzzled and disturbed, though she answered readily:

“Oh, but I do know how lucky I am. I have the finest man in the world.”

Mercedes Higgins sighed again and changed the subject. She nodded her
head at the garments.

“I see you like pretty things. It is good judgment for a young woman.
They’re the bait for men--half the weapons in the battle. They win men,
and they hold men--” She broke off to demand almost fiercely: “And you,
you would keep your husband?--always, always--if you can?”

“I intend to. I will make him love me always and always.”

Saxon ceased, troubled and surprised that she should be so intimate with
a stranger.

“‘Tis a queer thing, this love of men,” Mercedes said. “And a failing of
all women is it to believe they know men like books. And with breaking
hearts, die they do, most women, out of their ignorance of men and still
foolishly believing they know all about them. Oh, la la, the little
fools. And so you say, little new-married woman, that you will make your
man love you always and always? And so they all say it, knowing men and
the queerness of men’s love the way they think they do. Easier it is
to win the capital prize in the Little Louisiana, but the little
new-married women never know it until too late. But you--you have begun
well. Stay by your pretties and your looks. ‘Twas so you won your man,
‘tis so you’ll hold him. But that is not all. Some time I will talk with
you and tell what few women trouble to know, what few women ever come to
know.--Saxon!--‘tis a strong, handsome name for a woman. But you don’t
look it. Oh, I’ve watched you. French you are, with a Frenchiness beyond
dispute. Tell Mr. Roberts I congratulate him on his good taste.”

She paused, her hand on the knob of her kitchen door.

“And come and see me some time. You will never be sorry. I can teach you
much. Come in the afternoon. My man is night watchman in the yards and
sleeps of mornings. He’s sleeping now.”

Saxon went into the house puzzling and pondering. Anything but ordinary
was this lean, dark-skinned woman, with the face withered as if scorched
in great heats, and the eyes, large and black, that flashed and flamed
with advertisement of an unquenched inner conflagration. Old she
was--Saxon caught herself debating anywhere between fifty and seventy;
and her hair, which had once been blackest black, was streaked
plentifully with gray. Especially noteworthy to Saxon was her speech.
Good English it was, better than that to which Saxon was accustomed. Yet
the woman was not American. On the other hand, she had no perceptible
accent. Rather were her words touched by a foreignness so elusive that
Saxon could not analyze nor place it.

“Uh, huh,” Billy said, when she had told him that evening of the day’s
event. “So SHE’S Mrs. Higgins? He’s a watchman. He’s got only one arm.
Old Higgins an’ her--a funny bunch, the two of them. The people’s scared
of her--some of ‘em. The Dagoes an’ some of the old Irish dames thinks
she’s a witch. Won’t have a thing to do with her. Bert was tellin’ me
about it. Why, Saxon, d’ye know, some of ‘em believe if she was to get
mad at ‘em, or didn’t like their mugs, or anything, that all she’s got
to do is look at ‘em an’ they’ll curl up their toes an’ croak. One of
the fellows that works at the stable--you’ve seen ‘m--Henderson--he
lives around the corner on Fifth--he says she’s bughouse.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Saxon defended her new acquaintance. “She may be
crazy, but she says the same thing you’re always saying. She says my
form is not American but French.”

“Then I take my hat off to her,” Billy responded. “No wheels in her head
if she says that. Take it from me, she’s a wise gazabo.”

“And she speaks good English, Billy, like a school teacher, like what I
guess my mother used to speak. She’s educated.”

“She ain’t no fool, or she wouldn’t a-sized you up the way she did.”

“She told me to congratulate you on your good taste in marrying me,”
 Saxon laughed.

“She did, eh? Then give her my love. Me for her, because she knows a
good thing when she sees it, an’ she ought to be congratulating you on
your good taste in me.”

It was on another day that Mercedes Higgins nodded, half to Saxon, and
half to the dainty women’s things Saxon was hanging on the line.

“I’ve been worrying over your washing, little new-wife,” was her
greeting.

“Oh, but I’ve worked in the laundry for years,” Saxon said quickly.

Mercedes sneered scornfully.

“Steam laundry. That’s business, and it’s stupid. Only common things
should go to a steam laundry. That is their punishment for being common.
But the pretties! the dainties! the flimsies!--la la, my dear, their
washing is an art. It requires wisdom, genius, and discretion fine as
the clothes are fine. I will give you a recipe for homemade soap. It
will not harden the texture. It will give whiteness, and softness, and
life. You can wear them long, and fine white clothes are to be loved a
long time. Oh, fine washing is a refinement, an art. It is to be done as
an artist paints a picture, or writes a poem, with love, holily, a true
sacrament of beauty.

“I shall teach you better ways, my dear, better ways than you Yankees
know. I shall teach you new pretties.” She nodded her head to Saxon’s
underlinen on the line. “I see you make little laces. I know all
laces--the Belgian, the Maltese, the Mechlin--oh, the many, many loves
of laces! I shall teach you some of the simpler ones so that you can
make them for yourself, for your brave man you are to make love you
always and always.”

On her first visit to Mercedes Higgins, Saxon received the recipe for
home-made soap and her head was filled with a minutiae of instruction in
the art of fine washing. Further, she was fascinated and excited by all
the newness and strangeness of the withered old woman who blew upon her
the breath of wider lands and seas beyond the horizon.

“You are Spanish?” Saxon ventured.

“No, and yes, and neither, and more. My father was Irish, my mother
Peruvian-Spanish. ‘Tis after her I took, in color and looks. In other
ways after my father, the blue-eyed Celt with the fairy song on
his tongue and the restless feet that stole the rest of him away to
far-wandering. And the feet of him that he lent me have led me away on
as wide far roads as ever his led him.”

Saxon remembered her school geography, and with her mind’s eye she saw
a certain outline map of a continent with jiggly wavering parallel lines
that denoted coast.

“Oh,” she cried, “then you are South American.”

Mercedes shrugged her shoulders.

“I had to be born somewhere. It was a great ranch, my mother’s. You
could put all Oakland in one of its smallest pastures.”

Mercedes Higgins sighed cheerfully and for the time was lost in
retrospection. Saxon was curious to hear more about this woman who must
have lived much as the Spanish-Californians had lived in the old days.

“You received a good education,” she said tentatively. “Your English is
perfect.”

“Ah, the English came afterward, and not in school. But, as it goes,
yes, a good education in all things but the most important--men. That,
too, came afterward. And little my mother dreamed--she was a grand lady,
what you call a cattle-queen--little she dreamed my fine education was
to fit me in the end for a night watchman’s wife.” She laughed genuinely
at the grotesqueness of the idea. “Night watchman, laborers, why, we had
hundreds, yes, thousands that toiled for us. The peons--they are like
what you call slaves, almost, and the cowboys, who could ride two
hundred miles between side and side of the ranch. And in the big house
servants beyond remembering or counting. La la, in my mother’s house
were many servants.”

Mercedes Higgins was voluble as a Greek, and wandered on in
reminiscence.

“But our servants were lazy and dirty. The Chinese are the servants par
excellence. So are the Japanese, when you find a good one, but not so
good as the Chinese. The Japanese maidservants are pretty and merry, but
you never know the moment they’ll leave you. The Hindoos are not strong,
but very obedient. They look upon sahibs and memsahibs as gods! I was a
memsahib--which means woman. I once had a Russian cook who always spat
in the soup for luck. It was very funny. But we put up with it. It was
the custom.”

“How you must have traveled to have such strange servants!” Saxon
encouraged.

The old woman laughed corroboration.

“And the strangest of all, down in the South Seas, black slaves, little
kinky-haired cannibals with bones through their noses. When they did not
mind, or when they stole, they were tied up to a cocoanut palm behind
the compound and lashed with whips of rhinoceros hide. They were from an
island of cannibals and head-hunters, and they never cried out. It was
their pride. There was little Vibi, only twelve years old--he waited on
me--and when his back was cut in shreds and I wept over him, he would
only laugh and say, ‘Short time little bit I take ‘m head belong big
fella white marster.’ That was Bruce Anstey, the Englishman who whipped
him. But little Vibi never got the head. He ran away and the bushmen cut
off his own head and ate every bit of him.”

Saxon chilled, and her face was grave; but Mercedes Higgins rattled on.

“Ah, those were wild, gay, savage days. Would you believe it, my dear,
in three years those Englishmen of the plantation drank up oceans of
champagne and Scotch whisky and dropped thirty thousand pounds on
the adventure. Not dollars--pounds, which means one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. They were princes while it lasted. It was splendid,
glorious. It was mad, mad. I sold half my beautiful jewels in New
Zealand before I got started again. Bruce Anstey blew out his brains at
the end. Roger went mate on a trader with a black crew, for eight pounds
a month. And Jack Gilbraith--he was the rarest of them all. His people
were wealthy and titled, and he went home to England and sold cat’s
meat, sat around their big house till they gave him more money to
start a rubber plantation in the East Indies somewhere, on Sumatra, I
think--or was it New Guinea?”

And Saxon, back in her own kitchen and preparing supper for Billy,
wondered what lusts and rapacities had led the old, burnt-faced woman
from the big Peruvian ranch, through all the world, to West Oakland and
Barry Higgins. Old Barry was not the sort who would fling away his share
of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, much less ever attain to such
opulence. Besides, she had mentioned the names of other men, but not
his.

Much more Mercedes had talked, in snatches and fragments. There seemed
no great country nor city of the old world or the new in which she
had not been. She had even been in Klondike, ten years before, in a
half-dozen flashing sentences picturing the fur-clad, be-moccasined
miners sowing the barroom floors with thousands of dollars’ worth of
gold dust. Always, so it seemed to Saxon, Mrs. Higgins had been with men
to whom money was as water.



CHAPTER III

Saxon, brooding over her problem of retaining Billy’s love, of never
staling the freshness of their feeling for each other and of never
descending from the heights which at present they were treading, felt
herself impelled toward Mrs. Higgins. SHE knew; surely she must know.
Had she not hinted knowledge beyond ordinary women’s knowledge?

Several weeks went by, during which Saxon was often with her. But Mrs.
Higgins talked of all other matters, taught Saxon the making of
certain simple laces, and instructed her in the arts of washing and
of marketing. And then, one afternoon, Saxon found Mrs. Higgins more
voluble than usual, with words, clean-uttered, that rippled and tripped
in their haste to escape. Her eyes were flaming. So flamed her face. Her
words were flames. There was a smell of liquor in the air and Saxon knew
that the old woman had been drinking. Nervous and frightened, at the
same time fascinated, Saxon hemstitched a linen handkerchief intended
for Billy and listened to Mercedes’ wild flow of speech.

“Listen, my dear. I shall tell you about the world of men. Do not be
stupid like all your people, who think me foolish and a witch with the
evil eye. Ha! ha! When I think of silly Maggie Donahue pulling the shawl
across her baby’s face when we pass each other on the sidewalk! A witch
I have been, ‘tis true, but my witchery was with men. Oh, I am wise,
very wise, my dear. I shall tell you of women’s ways with men, and of
men’s ways with women, the best of them and the worst of them. Of the
brute that is in all men, of the queerness of them that breaks the
hearts of stupid women who do not understand. And all women are stupid.
I am not stupid. La la, listen.

“I am an old woman. And like a woman, I’ll not tell you how old I am.
Yet can I hold men. Yet would I hold men, toothless and a hundred, my
nose touching my chin. Not the young men. They were mine in my young
days. But the old men, as befits my years. And well for me the power is
mine. In all this world I am without kin or cash. Only have I wisdom and
memories--memories that are ashes, but royal ashes, jeweled ashes. Old
women, such as I, starve and shiver, or accept the pauper’s dole and
the pauper’s shroud. Not I. I hold my man. True, ‘tis only Barry
Higgins--old Barry, heavy, an ox, but a male man, my dear, and queer
as all men are queer. ‘Tis true, he has one arm.” She shrugged her
shoulders. “A compensation. He cannot beat me, and old bones are tender
when the round flesh thins to strings.

“But when I think of my wild young lovers, princes, mad with the madness
of youth! I have lived. It is enough. I regret nothing. And with old
Barry I have my surety of a bite to eat and a place by the fire. And
why? Because I know men, and shall never lose my cunning to hold them.
‘Tis bitter sweet, the knowledge of them, more sweet than bitter--men
and men and men! Not stupid dolts, nor fat bourgeois swine of business
men, but men of temperament, of flame and fire; madmen, maybe, but a
lawless, royal race of madmen.

“Little wife-woman, you must learn. Variety! There lies the magic. ‘Tis
the golden key. ‘Tis the toy that amuses. Without it in the wife, the
man is a Turk; with it, he is her slave, and faithful. A wife must be
many wives. If you would have your husband’s love you must be all women
to him. You must be ever new, with the dew of newness ever sparkling, a
flower that never blooms to the fulness that fades. You must be a garden
of flowers, ever new, ever fresh, ever different. And in your garden the
man must never pluck the last of your posies.

“Listen, little wife-woman. In the garden of love is a snake. It is the
commonplace. Stamp on its head, or it will destroy the garden. Remember
the name. Commonplace. Never be too intimate. Men only seem gross. Women
are more gross than men.--No, do not argue, little new-wife. You are an
infant woman. Women are less delicate than men. Do I not know? Of their
own husbands they will relate the most intimate love-secrets to other
women. Men never do this of their wives. Explain it. There is only one
way. In all things of love women are less delicate. It is their mistake.
It is the father and the mother of the commonplace, and it is the
commonplace, like a loathsome slug, that beslimes and destroys love.

“Be delicate, little wife-woman. Never be without your veil, without
many veils. Veil yourself in a thousand veils, all shimmering and
glittering with costly textures and precious jewels. Never let the last
veil be drawn. Against the morrow array yourself with more veils, ever
more veils, veils without end. Yet the many veils must not seem many.
Each veil must seem the only one between you and your hungry lover who
will have nothing less than all of you. Each time he must seem to get
all, to tear aside the last veil that hides you. He must think so. It
must not be so. Then there will be no satiety, for on the morrow he will
find another last veil that has escaped him.

“Remember, each veil must seem the last and only one. Always you must
seem to abandon all to his arms; always you must reserve more that on
the morrow and on all the morrows you may abandon. Of such is variety,
surprise, so that your man’s pursuit will be everlasting, so that his
eyes will look to you for newness, and not to other women. It was the
freshness and the newness of your beauty and you, the mystery of you,
that won your man. When a man has plucked and smelled all the sweetness
of a flower, he looks for other flowers. It is his queerness. You must
ever remain a flower almost plucked yet never plucked, stored with vats
of sweet unbroached though ever broached.

“Stupid women, and all are stupid, think the first winning of the man
the final victory. Then they settle down and grow fat, and stale,
and dead, and heartbroken. Alas, they are so stupid. But you, little
infant-woman with your first victory, you must make your love-life an
unending chain of victories. Each day you must win your man again. And
when you have won the last victory, when you can find no more to win,
then ends love. Finis is written, and your man wanders in strange
gardens. Remember, love must be kept insatiable. It must have an
appetite knife-edged and never satisfied. You must feed your lover well,
ah, very well, most well; give, give, yet send him away hungry to come
back to you for more.”

Mrs. Higgins stood up suddenly and crossed out of the room. Saxon had
not failed to note the litheness and grace in that lean and withered
body. She watched for Mrs. Higgins’ return, and knew that the litheness
and grace had not been imagined.

“Scarcely have I told you the first letter in love’s alphabet,” said
Mercedes Higgins, as she reseated herself.

In her hands was a tiny instrument, beautifully grained and richly
brown, which resembled a guitar save that it bore four strings. She
swept them back and forth with rhythmic forefinger and lifted a voice,
thin and mellow, in a fashion of melody that was strange, and in a
foreign tongue, warm-voweled, all-voweled, and love-exciting. Softly
throbbing, voice and strings arose on sensuous crests of song, died away
to whisperings and caresses, drifted through love-dusks and twilights,
or swelled again to love-cries barbarically imperious in which were
woven plaintive calls and madnesses of invitation and promise. It went
through Saxon until she was as this instrument, swept with passional
strains. It seemed to her a dream, and almost was she dizzy, when
Mercedes Higgins ceased.

“If your man had clasped the last of you, and if all of you were known
to him as an old story, yet, did you sing that one song, as I have sung
it, yet would his arms again go out to you and his eyes grow warm with
the old mad lights. Do you see? Do you understand, little wife-woman?”

Saxon could only nod, her lips too dry for speech.

“The golden koa, the king of woods,” Mercedes was crooning over the
instrument. “The ukulele--that is what the Hawaiians call it, which
means, my dear, the jumping flea. They are golden-fleshed, the
Hawaiians, a race of lovers, all in the warm cool of the tropic night
where the trade winds blow.”

Again she struck the strings. She sang in another language, which
Saxon deemed must be French. It was a gayly-devilish lilt, tripping
and tickling. Her large eyes at times grew larger and wilder, and again
narrowed in enticement and wickedness. When she ended, she looked to
Saxon for a verdict.

“I don’t like that one so well,” Saxon said.

Mercedes shrugged her shoulders.

“They all have their worth, little infant-woman with so much to learn.
There are times when men may be won with wine. There are times when
men may be won with the wine of song, so queer they are. La la, so many
ways, so many ways. There are your pretties, my dear, your dainties.
They are magic nets. No fisherman upon the sea ever tangled fish more
successfully than we women with our flimsies. You are on the right path.
I have seen men enmeshed by a corset cover no prettier, no daintier,
than these of yours I have seen on the line.

“I have called the washing of fine linen an art. But it is not for
itself alone. The greatest of the arts is the conquering of men. Love
is the sum of all the arts, as it is the reason for their existence.
Listen. In all times and ages have been women, great wise women. They
did not need to be beautiful. Greater than all woman’s beauty was their
wisdom. Princes and potentates bowed down before them. Nations battled
over them. Empires crashed because of them. Religions were founded
on them. Aphrodite, Astarte, the worships of the night--listen,
infant-woman, of the great women who conquered worlds of men.”

And thereafter Saxon listened, in a maze, to what almost seemed a wild
farrago, save that the strange meaningless phrases were fraught with
dim, mysterious significance. She caught glimmerings of profounds
inexpressible and unthinkable that hinted connotations lawless and
terrible. The woman’s speech was a lava rush, scorching and searing;
and Saxon’s cheeks, and forehead, and neck burned with a blush that
continuously increased. She trembled with fear, suffered qualms of
nausea, thought sometimes that she would faint, so madly reeled her
brain; yet she could not tear herself away, and sat on and on, her
sewing forgotten on her lap, staring with inward sight upon a nightmare
vision beyond all imagining. At last, when it seemed she could endure
no more, and while she was wetting her dry lips to cry out in protest,
Mercedes ceased.

“And here endeth the first lesson,” she said quite calmly, then laughed
with a laughter that was tantalizing and tormenting. “What is the
matter? You are not shocked?”

“I am frightened,” Saxon quavered huskily, with a half-sob of
nervousness. “You frighten me. I am very foolish, and I know so little,
that I had never dreamed... THAT.”

Mercedes nodded her head comprehendingly.

“It is indeed to be frightened at,” she said. “It is solemn; it is
terrible; it is magnificent!”



CHAPTER IV

Saxon had been clear-eyed all her days, though her field of vision
had been restricted. Clear-eyed, from her childhood days with the
saloonkeeper Cady and Cady’s good-natured but unmoral spouse, she
had observed, and, later, generalized much upon sex. She knew the
post-nuptial problem of retaining a husband’s love, as few wives of any
class knew it, just as she knew the pre-nuptial problem of selecting a
husband, as few girls of the working class knew it.

She had of herself developed an eminently rational philosophy of love.
Instinctively, and consciously, too, she had made toward delicacy, and
shunned the perils of the habitual and commonplace. Thoroughly aware she
was that as she cheapened herself so did she cheapen love. Never, in
the weeks of their married life, had Billy found her dowdy, or harshly
irritable, or lethargic. And she had deliberately permeated her
house with her personal atmosphere of coolness, and freshness, and
equableness. Nor had she been ignorant of such assets as surprise and
charm. Her imagination had not been asleep, and she had been born with
wisdom. In Billy she had won a prize, and she knew it. She appreciated
his lover’s ardor and was proud. His open-handed liberality, his desire
for everything of the best, his own personal cleanliness and care of
himself she recognized as far beyond the average. He was never coarse.
He met delicacy with delicacy, though it was obvious to her that the
initiative in all such matters lay with her and must lie with her
always. He was largely unconscious of what he did and why. But she knew
in all full clarity of judgment. And he was such a prize among men.

Despite her clear sight of her problem of keeping Billy a lover, and
despite the considerable knowledge and experience arrayed before her
mental vision, Mercedes Higgins had spread before her a vastly wider
panorama. The old woman had verified her own conclusions, given her
new ideas, clinched old ones, and even savagely emphasized the tragic
importance of the whole problem. Much Saxon remembered of that mad
preachment, much she guessed and felt, and much had been beyond her
experience and understanding. But the metaphors of the veils and the
flowers, and the rules of giving to abandonment with always more to
abandon, she grasped thoroughly, and she was enabled to formulate a
bigger and stronger love-philosophy. In the light of the revelation she
re-examined the married lives of all she had ever known, and, with sharp
definiteness as never before, she saw where and why so many of them had
failed.

With renewed ardor Saxon devoted herself to her household, to her
pretties, and to her charms. She marketed with a keener desire for the
best, though never ignoring the need for economy. From the women’s pages
of the Sunday supplements, and from the women’s magazines in the
free reading room two blocks away, she gleaned many ideas for the
preservation of her looks. In a systematic way she exercised the various
parts of her body, and a certain period of time each day she employed in
facial exercises and massage for the purpose of retaining the roundness
and freshness, and firmness and color. Billy did not know. These
intimacies of the toilette were not for him. The results, only, were
his. She drew books from the Carnegie Library and studied physiology and
hygiene, and learned a myriad of things about herself and the ways of
woman’s health that she had never been taught by Sarah, the women of the
orphan asylum, nor by Mrs. Cady.

After long debate she subscribed to a woman’s magazine, the patterns
and lessons of which she decided were the best suited to her taste and
purse. The other woman’s magazines she had access to in the free reading
room, and more than one pattern of lace and embroidery she copied by
means of tracing paper. Before the lingerie windows of the uptown shops
she often stood and studied; nor was she above taking advantage,
when small purchases were made, of looking over the goods at the
hand-embroidered underwear counters. Once, she even considered taking
up with hand-painted china, but gave over the idea when she learned its
expensiveness.

She slowly replaced all her simple maiden underlinen with garments
which, while still simple, were wrought with beautiful French
embroidery, tucks, and drawnwork. She crocheted fine edgings on the
inexpensive knitted underwear she wore in winter. She made little corset
covers and chemises of fine but fairly inexpensive lawns, and, with
simple flowered designs and perfect laundering, her nightgowns were
always sweetly fresh and dainty. In some publication she ran across a
brief printed note to the effect that French women were just beginning
to wear fascinating beruffled caps at the breakfast table. It meant
nothing to her that in her case she must first prepare the breakfast.
Promptly appeared in the house a yard of dotted Swiss muslin, and Saxon
was deep in experimenting on patterns for herself, and in sorting her
bits of laces for suitable trimmings. The resultant dainty creation won
Mercedes Higgins’ enthusiastic approval.

Saxon made for herself simple house slips of pretty gingham, with neat
low collars turned back from her fresh round throat. She crocheted yards
of laces for her underwear, and made Battenberg in abundance for her
table and for the bureau. A great achievement, that aroused Billy’s
applause, was an Afghan for the bed. She even ventured a rag carpet,
which, the women’s magazines informed her, had newly returned into
fashion. As a matter of course she hemstitched the best table linen and
bed linen they could afford.

As the happy months went by she was never idle. Nor was Billy forgotten.
When the cold weather came on she knitted him wristlets, which he always
religiously wore from the house and pocketed immediately thereafter. The
two sweaters she made for him, however, received a better fate, as did
the slippers which she insisted on his slipping into, on the evenings
they remained at home.

The hard practical wisdom of Mercedes Higgins proved of immense help,
for Saxon strove with a fervor almost religious to have everything of
the best and at the same time to be saving. Here she faced the financial
and economic problem of keeping house in a society where the cost of
living rose faster than the wages of industry. And here the old woman
taught her the science of marketing so thoroughly that she made a dollar
of Billy’s go half as far again as the wives of the neighborhood made
the dollars of their men go.

Invariably, on Saturday night, Billy poured his total wages into her
lap. He never asked for an accounting of what she did with it, though
he continually reiterated that he had never fed so well in his life. And
always, the wages still untouched in her lap, she had him take out what
he estimated he would need for spending money for the week to come.
Not only did she bid him take plenty but she insisted on his taking any
amount extra that he might desire at any time through the week. And,
further, she insisted he should not tell her what it was for.

“You’ve always had money in your pocket,” she reminded him, “and there’s
no reason marriage should change that. If it did, I’d wish I’d never
married you. Oh, I know about men when they get together. First one
treats and then another, and it takes money. Now if you can’t treat just
as freely as the rest of them, why I know you so well that I know you’d
stay away from them. And that wouldn’t be right... to you, I mean. I
want you to be together with men. It’s good for a man.”

And Billy buried her in his arms and swore she was the greatest little
bit of woman that ever came down the pike.

“Why,” he jubilated; “not only do I feed better, and live more
comfortable, and hold up my end with the fellows; but I’m actually
saving money--or you are for me. Here I am, with furniture being paid
for regular every month, and a little woman I’m mad over, and on top of
it money in the bank. How much is it now?”

“Sixty-two dollars,” she told him. “Not so bad for a rainy day. You
might get sick, or hurt, or something happen.”

It was in mid-winter, when Billy, with quite a deal of obvious
reluctance, broached a money matter to Saxon. His old friend, Billy
Murphy, was laid up with la grippe, and one of his children, playing in
the street, had been seriously injured by a passing wagon. Billy Murphy,
still feeble after two weeks in bed, had asked Billy for the loan of
fifty dollars.

“It’s perfectly safe,” Billy concluded to Saxon. “I’ve known him since
we was kids at the Durant School together. He’s straight as a die.”

“That’s got nothing to do with it,” Saxon chided. “If you were single
you’d have lent it to him immediately, wouldn’t you?”

Billy nodded.

“Then it’s no different because you’re married. It’s your money, Billy.”

“Not by a damn sight,” he cried. “It ain’t mine. It’s ourn. And I
wouldn’t think of lettin’ anybody have it without seein’ you first.”

“I hope you didn’t tell him that,” she said with quick concern.

“Nope,” Billy laughed. “I knew, if I did, you’d be madder’n a hatter.
I just told him I’d try an’ figure it out. After all, I was sure you’d
stand for it if you had it.”

“Oh, Billy,” she murmured, her voice rich and low with love; “maybe you
don’t know it, but that’s one of the sweetest things you’ve said since
we got married.”

The more Saxon saw of Mercedes Higgins the less did she understand her.
That the old woman was a close-fisted miser, Saxon soon learned. And
this trait she found hard to reconcile with her tales of squandering.
On the other hand, Saxon was bewildered by Mercedes’ extravagance in
personal matters. Her underlinen, hand-made of course, was very costly.
The table she set for Barry was good, but the table for herself was
vastly better. Yet both tables were set on the same table. While Barry
contented himself with solid round steak, Mercedes ate tenderloin. A
huge, tough muttonchop on Barry’s plate would be balanced by tiny
French chops on Mercedes’ plate. Tea was brewed in separate pots. So was
coffee. While Barry gulped twenty-five cent tea from a large and heavy
mug, Mercedes sipped three-dollar tea from a tiny cup of Belleek,
rose-tinted, fragile as all egg-shell. In the same manner, his
twenty-five cent coffee was diluted with milk, her eighty cent Turkish
with cream.

“‘Tis good enough for the old man,” she told Saxon. “He knows no better,
and it would be a wicked sin to waste it on him.”

Little traffickings began between the two women. After Mercedes had
freely taught Saxon the loose-wristed facility of playing accompaniments
on the ukulele, she proposed an exchange. Her time was past, she said,
for such frivolities, and she offered the instrument for the breakfast
cap of which Saxon had made so good a success.

“It’s worth a few dollars,” Mercedes said. “It cost me twenty, though
that was years ago. Yet it is well worth the value of the cap.”

“But wouldn’t the cap be frivolous, too?” Saxon queried, though herself
well pleased with the bargain.

“‘Tis not for my graying hair,” Mercedes frankly disclaimed. “I shall
sell it for the money. Much that I do, when the rheumatism is not
maddening my fingers, I sell. La la, my dear, ‘tis not old Barry’s fifty
a month that’ll satisfy all my expensive tastes. ‘Tis I that make up the
difference. And old age needs money as never youth needs it. Some day
you will learn for yourself.”

“I am well satisfied with the trade,” Saxon said. “And I shall make me
another cap when I can lay aside enough for the material.”

“Make several,” Mercedes advised. “I’ll sell them for you, keeping, of
course, a small commission for my services. I can give you six dollars
apiece for them. We will consult about them. The profit will more than
provide material for your own.”



CHAPTER V

Four eventful things happened in the course of the winter. Bert and Mary
got married and rented a cottage in the neighborhood three blocks away.
Billy’s wages were cut, along with the wages of all the teamsters in
Oakland. Billy took up shaving with a safety razor. And, finally, Saxon
was proven a false prophet and Sarah a true one.

Saxon made up her mind, beyond any doubt, ere she confided the news
to Billy. At first, while still suspecting, she had felt a frightened
sinking of the heart and fear of the unknown and unexperienced. Then had
come economic fear, as she contemplated the increased expense entailed.
But by the time she had made surety doubly sure, all was swept away
before a wave of passionate gladness. HERS AND BILLY’S! The phrase was
continually in her mind, and each recurrent thought of it brought an
actual physical pleasure-pang to her heart.

The night she told the news to Billy, he withheld his own news of the
wage-cut, and joined with her in welcoming the little one.

“What’ll we do? Go to the theater to celebrate?” he asked, relaxing the
pressure of his embrace so that she might speak. “Or suppose we stay in,
just you and me, and... and the three of us?”

“Stay in,” was her verdict. “I just want you to hold me, and hold me,
and hold me.”

“That’s what I wanted, too, only I wasn’t sure, after bein’ in the house
all day, maybe you’d want to go out.”

There was frost in the air, and Billy brought the Morris chair in by the
kitchen stove. She lay cuddled in his arms, her head on his shoulder,
his cheek against her hair.

“We didn’t make no mistake in our lightning marriage with only a week’s
courtin’,” he reflected aloud. “Why, Saxon, we’ve been courtin’ ever
since just the same. And now... my God, Saxon, it’s too wonderful to be
true. Think of it! Ourn! The three of us! The little rascal! I bet he’s
goin’ to be a boy. An’ won’t I learn ‘m to put up his fists an’ take
care of himself! An’ swimmin’ too. If he don’t know how to swim by the
time he’s six...”

“And if HE’S a girl?”

“SHE’S goin’ to be a boy,” Billy retorted, joining in the playful misuse
of pronouns.

And both laughed and kissed, and sighed with content. “I’m goin’ to turn
pincher, now,” he announced, after quite an interval of meditation. “No
more drinks with the boys. It’s me for the water wagon. And I’m goin’ to
ease down on smokes. Huh! Don’t see why I can’t roll my own cigarettes.
They’re ten times cheaper’n tailor-mades. An’ I can grow a beard. The
amount of money the barbers get out of a fellow in a year would keep a
baby.”

“Just you let your beard grow, Mister Roberts, and I’ll get a divorce,”
 Saxon threatened. “You’re just too handsome and strong with a smooth
face. I love your face too much to have it covered up.--Oh, you dear!
you dear! Billy, I never knew what happiness was until I came to live
with you.”

“Nor me neither.”

“And it’s always going to be so?”

“You can just bet,” he assured her.

“I thought I was going to be happy married,” she went on; “but I never
dreamed it would be like this.” She turned her head on his shoulder and
kissed his cheek. “Billy, it isn’t happiness. It’s heaven.”

And Billy resolutely kept undivulged the cut in wages. Not until two
weeks later, when it went into effect, and he poured the diminished
sum into her lap, did he break it to her. The next day, Bert and Mary,
already a month married, had Sunday dinner with them, and the matter
came up for discussion. Bert was particularly pessimistic, and muttered
dark hints of an impending strike in the railroad shops.

“If you’d all shut your traps, it’d be all right,” Mary criticized.
“These union agitators get the railroad sore. They give me the cramp,
the way they butt in an’ stir up trouble. If I was boss I’d cut the
wages of any man that listened to them.”

“Yet you belonged to the laundry workers’ union,” Saxon rebuked gently.

“Because I had to or I wouldn’t a-got work. An’ much good it ever done
me.”

“But look at Billy,” Bert argued. “The teamsters ain’t ben sayin’ a word,
not a peep, an’ everything lovely, and then, bang, right in the neck,
a ten per cent cut. Oh, hell, what chance have we got? We lose. There’s
nothin’ left for us in this country we’ve made and our fathers an’
mothers before us. We’re all shot to pieces. We can see our finish--we,
the old stock, the children of the white people that broke away from
England an’ licked the tar outa her, that freed the slaves, an’ fought
the Indians, ‘an made the West! Any gink with half an eye can see it
comin’.”

“But what are we going to do about it?” Saxon questioned anxiously.

“Fight. That’s all. The country’s in the hands of a gang of robbers.
Look at the Southern Pacific. It runs California.”

“Aw, rats, Bert,” Billy interrupted. “You’re talkin’ through your lid. No
railroad can ran the government of California.”

“You’re a bonehead,” Bert sneered. “And some day, when it’s too late,
you an’ all the other boneheads’ll realize the fact. Rotten? I tell you
it stinks. Why, there ain’t a man who wants to go to state legislature
but has to make a trip to San Francisco, an’ go into the S. P. offices,
an’ take his hat off, an’ humbly ask permission. Why, the governors of
California has been railroad governors since before you and I was born.
Huh! You can’t tell me. We’re finished. We’re licked to a frazzle. But
it’d do my heart good to help string up some of the dirty thieves before
I passed out. D’ye know what we are?--we old white stock that fought in
the wars, an’ broke the land, an’ made all this? I’ll tell you. We’re
the last of the Mohegans.”

“He scares me to death, he’s so violent,” Mary said with unconcealed
hostility. “If he don’t quit shootin’ off his mouth he’ll get fired from
the shops. And then what’ll we do? He don’t consider me. But I can tell
you one thing all right, all right. I’ll not go back to the laundry.”
 She held her right hand up and spoke with the solemnity of an oath. “Not
so’s you can see it. Never again for yours truly.”

“Oh, I know what you’re drivin’ at,” Bert said with asperity. “An’ all I
can tell you is, livin’ or dead, in a job or out, no matter what happens
to me, if you will lead that way, you will, an’ there’s nothin’ else to
it.”

“I guess I kept straight before I met you,” she came back with a toss of
the head. “And I kept straight after I met you, which is going some if
anybody should ask you.”

Hot words were on Bert’s tongue, but Saxon intervened and brought about
peace. She was concerned over the outcome of their marriage. Both were
highstrung, both were quick and irritable, and their continual clashes
did not augur well for their future.

The safety razor was a great achievement for Saxon. Privily she
conferred with a clerk she knew in Pierce’s hardware store and made the
purchase. On Sunday morning, after breakfast, when Billy was starting
to go to the barber shop, she led him into the bedroom, whisked a towel
aside, and revealed the razor box, shaving mug, soap, brush, and lather
all ready. Billy recoiled, then came back to make curious investigation.
He gazed pityingly at the safety razor.

“Huh! Call that a man’s tool!”

“It’ll do the work,” she said. “It does it for thousands of men every
day.”

But Billy shook his head and backed away.

“You shave three times a week,” she urged. “That’s forty-five cents.
Call it half a dollar, and there are fifty-two weeks in the year.
Twenty-six dollars a year just for shaving. Come on, dear, and try it.
Lots of men swear by it.”

He shook his head mutinously, and the cloudy deeps of his eyes grew more
cloudy. She loved that sullen handsomeness that made him look so boyish,
and, laughing and kissing him, she forced him into a chair, got off his
coat, and unbuttoned shirt and undershirt and turned them in.

Threatening him with, “If you open your mouth to kick I’ll shove it in,”
 she coated his face with lather.

“Wait a minute,” she checked him, as he reached desperately for the
razor. “I’ve been watching the barbers from the sidewalk. This is what
they do after the lather is on.”

And thereupon she proceeded to rub the lather in with her fingers.

“There,” she said, when she had coated his face a second time. “You’re
ready to begin. Only remember, I’m not always going to do this for you.
I’m just breaking you in, you see.”

With great outward show of rebellion, half genuine, half facetious, he
made several tentative scrapes with the razor. He winced violently, and
violently exclaimed:

“Holy jumping Jehosaphat!”

He examined his face in the glass, and a streak of blood showed in the
midst of the lather.

“Cut!--by a safety razor, by God! Sure, men swear by it. Can’t blame
‘em. Cut! By a safety!”

“But wait a second,” Saxon pleaded. “They have to be regulated. The
clerk told me. See those little screws. There.... That’s it... turn them
around.”

Again Billy applied the blade to his face. After a couple of scrapes, he
looked at himself closely in the mirror, grinned, and went on shaving.
With swiftness and dexterity he scraped his face clean of lather. Saxon
clapped her hands.

“Fine,” Billy approved. “Great! Here. Give me your hand. See what a good
job it made.”

He started to rub her hand against his cheek. Saxon jerked away with a
little cry of disappointment, then examined him closely.

“It hasn’t shaved at all,” she said.

“It’s a fake, that’s what it is. It cuts the hide, but not the hair. Me
for the barber.”

But Saxon was persistent.

“You haven’t given it a fair trial yet. It was regulated too much. Let
me try my hand at it. There, that’s it, betwixt and between. Now, lather
again and try it.”

This time the unmistakable sand-papery sound of hair-severing could be
heard.

“How is it?” she fluttered anxiously.

“It gets the--ouch!--hair,” Billy grunted, frowning and making faces.
“But it--gee!--say!--ouch!--pulls like Sam Hill.”

“Stay with it,” she encouraged. “Don’t give up the ship, big Injun with
a scalplock. Remember what Bert says and be the last of the Mohegans.”

At the end of fifteen minutes he rinsed his face and dried it, sighing
with relief.

“It’s a shave, in a fashion, Saxon, but I can’t say I’m stuck on it. It
takes out the nerve. I’m as weak as a cat.”

He groaned with sudden discovery of fresh misfortune.

“What’s the matter now?” she asked.

“The back of my neck--how can I shave the back of my neck? I’ll have to
pay a barber to do it.”

Saxon’s consternation was tragic, but it only lasted a moment. She took
the brush in her hand.

“Sit down, Billy.”

“What?--you?” he demanded indignantly.

“Yes; me. If any barber is good enough to shave your neck, and then I
am, too.”

Billy moaned and groaned in the abjectness of humility and surrender,
and let her have her way.

“There, and a good job,” she informed him when she had finished. “As
easy as falling off a log. And besides, it means twenty-six dollars a
year. And you’ll buy the crib, the baby buggy, the pinning blankets, and
lots and lots of things with it. Now sit still a minute longer.”

She rinsed and dried the back of his neck and dusted it with talcum
powder.

“You’re as sweet as a clean little baby, Billy Boy.”

The unexpected and lingering impact of her lips on the back of his neck
made him writhe with mingled feelings not all unpleasant.

Two days later, though vowing in the intervening time to have nothing
further to do with the instrument of the devil, he permitted Saxon to
assist him to a second shave. This time it went easier.

“It ain’t so bad,” he admitted. “I’m gettin’ the hang of it. It’s all
in the regulating. You can shave as close as you want an’ no more close
than you want. Barbers can’t do that. Every once an’ awhile they get my
face sore.”

The third shave was an unqualified success, and the culminating bliss
was reached when Saxon presented him with a bottle of witch hazel. After
that he began active proselyting. He could not wait a visit from Bert,
but carried the paraphernalia to the latter’s house to demonstrate.

“We’ve ben boobs all these years, Bert, runnin’ the chances of barber’s
itch an’ everything. Look at this, eh? See her take hold. Smooth as
silk. Just as easy.... There! Six minutes by the clock. Can you beat it?
When I get my hand in, I can do it in three. It works in the dark. It
works under water. You couldn’t cut yourself if you tried. And it saves
twenty-six dollars a year. Saxon figured it out, and she’s a wonder, I
tell you.”



CHAPTER VI

The trafficking between Saxon and Mercedes increased. The latter
commanded a ready market for all the fine work Saxon could supply, while
Saxon was eager and happy in the work. The expected babe and the cut in
Billy’s wages had caused her to regard the economic phase of existence
more seriously than ever. Too little money was being laid away in the
bank, and her conscience pricked her as she considered how much she
was laying out on the pretty necessaries for the household and herself.
Also, for the first time in her life she was spending another’s
earnings. Since a young girl she had been used to spending her own, and
now, thanks to Mercedes she was doing it again, and, out of her profits,
assaying more expensive and delightful adventures in lingerie.

Mercedes suggested, and Saxon carried out and even bettered, the dainty
things of thread and texture. She made ruffled chemises of sheer linen,
with her own fine edgings and French embroidery on breast and shoulders;
linen hand-made combination undersuits; and nightgowns, fairy and
cobwebby, embroidered, trimmed with Irish lace. On Mercedes’ instigation
she executed an ambitious and wonderful breakfast cap for which the old
woman returned her twelve dollars after deducting commission.

She was happy and busy every waking moment, nor was preparation for the
little one neglected. The only ready made garments she bought were three
fine little knit shirts. As for the rest, every bit was made by her own
hands--featherstitched pinning blankets, a crocheted jacket and cap,
knitted mittens, embroidered bonnets; slim little princess slips
of sensible length; underskirts on absurd Lilliputian yokes;
silk-embroidered white flannel petticoats; stockings and crocheted
boots, seeming to burgeon before her eyes with wriggly pink toes and
plump little calves; and last, but not least, many deliciously soft
squares of bird’s-eye linen. A little later, as a crowning masterpiece,
she was guilty of a dress coat of white silk, embroidered. And into all
the tiny garments, with every stitch, she sewed love. Yet this love,
so unceasingly sewn, she knew when she came to consider and marvel, was
more of Billy than of the nebulous, ungraspable new bit of life that
eluded her fondest attempts at visioning.

“Huh,” was Billy’s comment, as he went over the mite’s wardrobe and came
back to center on the little knit shirts, “they look more like a real
kid than the whole kit an’ caboodle. Why, I can see him in them regular
manshirts.”

Saxon, with a sudden rush of happy, unshed tears, held one of the
little shirts up to his lips. He kissed it solemnly, his eyes resting on
Saxon’s.

“That’s some for the boy,” he said, “but a whole lot for you.”

But Saxon’s money-earning was doomed to cease ignominiously and
tragically. One day, to take advantage of a department store bargain
sale, she crossed the bay to San Francisco. Passing along Sutter Street,
her eye was attracted by a display in the small window of a small shop.
At first she could not believe it; yet there, in the honored place of
the window, was the wonderful breakfast cap for which she had received
twelve dollars from Mercedes. It was marked twenty-eight dollars. Saxon
went in and interviewed the shopkeeper, an emaciated, shrewd-eyed and
middle-aged woman of foreign extraction.

“Oh, I don’t want to buy anything,” Saxon said. “I make nice things
like you have here, and I wanted to know what you pay for them--for that
breakfast cap in the window, for instance.”

The woman darted a keen glance to Saxon’s left hand, noted the
innumerable tiny punctures in the ends of the first and second fingers,
then appraised her clothing and her face.

“Can you do work like that?”

Saxon nodded.

“I paid twenty dollars to the woman that made that.” Saxon repressed
an almost spasmodic gasp, and thought coolly for a space. Mercedes had
given her twelve. Then Mercedes had pocketed eight, while she, Saxon,
had furnished the material and labor.

“Would you please show me other hand-made things -- nightgowns, chemises,
and such things, and tell me the prices you pay?”

“Can you do such work?”

“Yes.”

“And will you sell to me?”

“Certainly,” Saxon answered. “That is why I am here.”

“We add only a small amount when we sell,” the woman went on; “you see,
light and rent and such things, as well as a profit or else we could not
be here.”

“It’s only fair,” Saxon agreed.

Amongst the beautiful stuff Saxon went over, she found a nightgown and
a combination undersuit of her own manufacture. For the former she had
received eight dollars from Mercedes, it was marked eighteen, and the
woman had paid fourteen; for the latter Saxon received six, it was
marked fifteen, and the woman had paid eleven.

“Thank you,” Saxon said, as she drew on her gloves. “I should like to
bring you some of my work at those prices.”

“And I shall be glad to buy it... if it is up to the mark.” The woman
looked at her severely. “Mind you, it must be as good as this. And if it
is, I often get special orders, and I’ll give you a chance at them.”

Mercedes was unblushingly candid when Saxon reproached her.

“You told me you took only a commission,” was Saxon’s accusation.

“So I did; and so I have.”

“But I did all the work and bought all the materials, yet you actually
cleared more out of it than I did. You got the lion’s share.”

“And why shouldn’t I, my dear? I was the middleman. It’s the way of the
world. ‘Tis the middlemen that get the lion’s share.”

“It seems to me most unfair,” Saxon reflected, more in sadness than
anger.

“That is your quarrel with the world, not with me,” Mercedes rejoined
sharply, then immediately softened with one of her quick changes. “We
mustn’t quarrel, my dear. I like you so much. La la, it is nothing to
you, who are young and strong with a man young and strong. Listen, I
am an old woman. And old Barry can do little for me. He is on his last
legs. His kidneys are ‘most gone. Remember, ‘tis I must bury him. And
I do him honor, for beside me he’ll have his last long sleep. A stupid,
dull old man, heavy, an ox, ‘tis true; but a good old fool with no trace
of evil in him. The plot is bought and paid for--the final installment
was made up, in part, out of my commissions from you. Then there are the
funeral expenses. It must be done nicely. I have still much to save. And
Barry may turn up his toes any day.”

Saxon sniffed the air carefully, and knew the old woman had been
drinking again.

“Come, my dear, let me show you.” Leading Saxon to a large sea chest
in the bedroom, Mercedes lifted the lid. A faint perfume, as of
rose-petals, floated up. “Behold, my burial trousseau. Thus I shall wed
the dust.”

Saxon’s amazement increased, as, article by article, the old woman
displayed the airiest, the daintiest, the most delicious and most
complete of bridal outfits. Mercedes held up an ivory fan.

“In Venice ‘twas given me, my dear.--See, this comb, turtle shell;
Bruce Anstey made it for me the week before he drank his last bottle and
scattered his brave mad brains with a Colt’s 44.--This scarf. La la, a
Liberty scarf--”

“And all that will be buried with you,” Saxon mused, “Oh, the
extravagance of it!”

Mercedes laughed.

“Why not? I shall die as I have lived. It is my pleasure. I go to the
dust as a bride. No cold and narrow bed for me. I would it were a coach,
covered with the soft things of the East, and pillows, pillows, without
end.”

“It would buy you twenty funerals and twenty plots,” Saxon protested,
shocked by this blasphemy of conventional death. “It is downright
wicked.”

“‘Twill be as I have lived,” Mercedes said complacently. “And it’s a
fine bride old Barry’ll have to come and lie beside him.” She closed the
lid and sighed. “Though I wish it were Bruce Anstey, or any of the pick
of my young men to lie with me in the great dark and to crumble with me
to the dust that is the real death.”

She gazed at Saxon with eyes heated by alcohol and at the same time cool
with the coolness of content.

“In the old days the great of earth were buried with their live slaves
with them. I but take my flimsies, my dear.”

“Then you aren’t afraid of death?... in the least?”

Mercedes shook her head emphatically.

“Death is brave, and good, and kind. I do not fear death. ‘Tis of men I
am afraid when I am dead. So I prepare. They shall not have me when I am
dead.”

Saxon was puzzled.

“They would not want you then,” she said.

“Many are wanted,” was the answer. “Do you know what becomes of the aged
poor who have no money for burial? They are not buried. Let me tell you.
We stood before great doors. He was a queer man, a professor who ought
to have been a pirate, a man who lectured in class rooms when he ought
to have been storming walled cities or robbing banks. He was slender,
like Don Juan. His hands were strong as steel. So was his spirit. And he
was mad, a bit mad, as all my young men have been. ‘Come, Mercedes,’ he
said; ‘we will inspect our brethren and become humble, and glad that we
are not as they--as yet not yet. And afterward, to-night, we will dine
with a more devilish taste, and we will drink to them in golden wine
that will be the more golden for having seen them. Come, Mercedes.’

“He thrust the great doors open, and by the hand led me in. It was a sad
company. Twenty-four, that lay on marble slabs, or sat, half erect and
propped, while many young men, bright of eye, bright little knives in
their hands, glanced curiously at me from their work.”

“They were dead?” Saxon interrupted to gasp.

“They were the pauper dead, my dear. ‘Come, Mercedes,’ said he. ‘There
is more to show you that will make us glad we are alive.’ And he took me
down, down to the vats. The salt vats, my dear. I was not afraid. But
it was in my mind, then, as I looked, how it would be with me when I was
dead. And there they were, so many lumps of pork. And the order came, ‘A
woman; an old woman.’ And the man who worked there fished in the vats.
The first was a man he drew to see. Again he fished and stirred. Again
a man. He was impatient, and grumbled at his luck. And then, up through
the brine, he drew a woman, and by the face of her she was old, and he
was satisfied.”

“It is not true!” Saxon cried out.

“I have seen, my dear, I know. And I tell you fear not the wrath of God
when you are dead. Fear only the salt vats. And as I stood and looked,
and as he who led me there looked at me and smiled and questioned and
bedeviled me with those mad, black, tired-scholar’s eyes of his, I knew
that that was no way for my dear clay. Dear it is, my clay to me; dear
it has been to others. La la, the salt vat is no place for my kissed
lips and love-lavished body.” Mercedes lifted the lid of the chest and
gazed fondly at her burial pretties. “So I have made my bed. So I shall
lie in it. Some old philosopher said we know we must die; we do not
believe it. But the old do believe. I believe.

“My dear, remember the salt vats, and do not be angry with me because my
commissions have been heavy. To escape the vats I would stop at nothing
 -- steal the widow’s mite, the orphan’s crust, and pennies from a dead
man’s eyes.”

“Do you believe in God?” Saxon asked abruptly, holding herself together
despite cold horror.

Mercedes dropped the lid and shrugged her shoulders.

“Who knows? I shall rest well.”

“And punishment?” Saxon probed, remembering the unthinkable tale of the
other’s life.

“Impossible, my dear. As some old poet said, ‘God’s a good fellow.’ Some
time I shall talk to you about God. Never be afraid of him. Be afraid
only of the salt vats and the things men may do with your pretty flesh
after you are dead.”



CHAPTER VII

Billy quarreled with good fortune. He suspected he was too prosperous on
the wages he received. What with the accumulating savings account, the
paying of the monthly furniture installment and the house rent, the
spending money in pocket, and the good fare he was eating, he was
puzzled as to how Saxon managed to pay for the goods used in her fancy
work. Several times he had suggested his inability to see how she did
it, and been baffled each time by Saxon’s mysterious laugh.

“I can’t see how you do it on the money,” he was contending one evening.

He opened his mouth to speak further, then closed it and for five
minutes thought with knitted brows.

“Say,” he said, “what’s become of that frilly breakfast cap you was
workin’ on so hard, I ain’t never seen you wear it, and it was sure too
big for the kid.”

Saxon hesitated, with pursed lips and teasing eyes. With her,
untruthfulness had always been a difficult matter. To Billy it was
impossible. She could see the cloud-drift in his eyes deepening and his
face hardening in the way she knew so well when he was vexed.

“Say, Saxon, you ain’t... you ain’t... sellin’ your work?”

And thereat she related everything, not omitting Mercedes Higgins’ part
in the transaction, nor Mercedes Higgins’ remarkable burial trousseau.
But Billy was not to be led aside by the latter. In terms anything but
uncertain he told Saxon that she was not to work for money.

“But I have so much spare time, Billy, dear,” she pleaded.

He shook his head.

“Nothing doing. I won’t listen to it. I married you, and I’ll take care
of you. Nobody can say Bill Roberts’ wife has to work. And I don’t want
to think it myself. Besides, it ain’t necessary.”

“But Billy--” she began again.

“Nope. That’s one thing I won’t stand for, Saxon. Not that I don’t like
fancy work. I do. I like it like hell, every bit you make, but I like it
on YOU. Go ahead and make all you want of it, for yourself, an’ I’ll
put up for the goods. Why, I’m just whistlin’ an’ happy all day long,
thinkin’ of the boy an’ seein’ you at home here workin’ away on all them
nice things. Because I know how happy you are a-doin’ it. But honest to
God, Saxon, it’d all be spoiled if I knew you was doin’ it to sell. You
see, Bill Roberts’ wife don’t have to work. That’s my brag--to myself,
mind you. An’ besides, it ain’t right.”

“You’re a dear,” she whispered, happy despite her disappointment.

“I want you to have all you want,” he continued. “An’ you’re goin’ to
get it as long as I got two hands stickin’ on the ends of my arms. I
guess I know how good the things are you wear--good to me, I mean, too.
I’m dry behind the ears, an’ maybe I’ve learned a few things I oughtn’t
to before I knew you. But I know what I’m talkin’ about, and I want
to say that outside the clothes down underneath, an’ the clothes down
underneath the outside ones, I never saw a woman like you. Oh--”

He threw up his hands as if despairing of ability to express what he
thought and felt, then essayed a further attempt.

“It’s not a matter of bein’ only clean, though that’s a whole lot. Lots
of women are clean. It ain’t that. It’s something more, an’ different.
It’s... well, it’s the look of it, so white, an’ pretty, an’ tasty. It
gets on the imagination. It’s something I can’t get out of my thoughts
of you. I want to tell you lots of men can’t strip to advantage, an’
lots of women, too. But you--well, you’re a wonder, that’s all, and you
can’t get too many of them nice things to suit me, and you can’t get
them too nice.

“For that matter, Saxon, you can just blow yourself. There’s lots of
easy money layin’ around. I’m in great condition. Billy Murphy pulled
down seventy-five round iron dollars only last week for puttin’ away the
Pride of North Beach. That’s what ha paid us the fifty back out of.”

But this time it was Saxon who rebelled.

“There’s Carl Hansen,” Billy argued. “The second Sharkey, the alfalfa
sportin’ writers are callin’ him. An’ he calls himself Champion of the
United States Navy. Well, I got his number. He’s just a big stiff. I’ve
seen ‘m fight, an’ I can pass him the sleep medicine just as easy. The
Secretary of the Sportin’ Life Club offered to match me. An’ a hundred
iron dollars in it for the winner. And it’ll all be yours to blow in any
way you want. What d’ye say?”

“If I can’t work for money, you can’t fight,” was Saxon’s ultimatum,
immediately withdrawn. “But you and I don’t drive bargains. Even if
you’d let me work for money, I wouldn’t let you fight. I’ve never
forgotten what you told me about how prizefighters lose their silk.
Well, you’re not going to lose yours. It’s half my silk, you know.
And if you won’t fight, I won’t work--there. And more, I’ll never do
anything you don’t want me to, Billy.”

“Same here,” Billy agreed. “Though just the same I’d like most to death
to have just one go at that squarehead Hansen.” He smiled with pleasure
at the thought. “Say, let’s forget it all now, an’ you sing me ‘Harvest
Days’ on that dinky what-you-may-call-it.”

When she had complied, accompanying herself on the ukulele, she
suggested his weird “Cowboy’s Lament.” In some inexplicable way of love,
she had come to like her husband’s one song. Because he sang it, she
liked its inanity and monotonousness; and most of all, it seemed to her,
she loved his hopeless and adorable flatting of every note. She could
even sing with him, flatting as accurately and deliciously as he. Nor
did she undeceive him in his sublime faith.

“I guess Bert an’ the rest have joshed me all the time,” he said.

“You and I get along together with it fine,” she equivocated; for in
such matters she did not deem the untruth a wrong.

Spring was on when the strike came in the railroad shops. The Sunday
before it was called, Saxon and Billy had dinner at Bert’s house.
Saxon’s brother came, though he had found it impossible to bring
Sarah, who refused to budge from her household rut. Bert was blackly
pessimistic, and they found him singing with sardonic glee:

“Nobody loves a mil-yun-aire. Nobody likes his looks. Nobody’ll share
his slightest care, He classes with thugs and crooks. Thriftiness has
become a crime, So spend everything you earn; We’re living now in a
funny time, When money is made to burn.”

Mary went about the dinner preparation, flaunting unmistakable signals
of rebellion; and Saxon, rolling up her sleeves and tying on an apron,
washed the breakfast dishes. Bert fetched a pitcher of steaming beer
from the corner saloon, and the three men smoked and talked about the
coming strike.

“It oughta come years ago,” was Bert’s dictum. “It can’t come any too
quick now to suit me, but it’s too late. We’re beaten thumbs down.
Here’s where the last of the Mohegans gets theirs, in the neck,
ker-whop!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Tom, who had been smoking his pipe gravely, began
to counsel. “Organized labor’s gettin’ stronger every day. Why, I
can remember when there wasn’t any unions in California. Look at us
now--wages, an’ hours, an’ everything.”

“You talk like an organizer,” Bert sneered, “shovin’ the bull con on the
boneheads. But we know different. Organized wages won’t buy as much
now as unorganized wages used to buy. They’ve got us whipsawed. Look at
Frisco, the labor leaders doin’ dirtier politics than the old parties,
pawin’ an’ squabblin’ over graft, an’ goin’ to San Quentin, while--what
are the Frisco carpenters doin’? Let me tell you one thing, Tom Brown,
if you listen to all you hear you’ll hear that every Frisco carpenter is
union an’ gettin’ full union wages. Do you believe it? It’s a damn lie.
There ain’t a carpenter that don’t rebate his wages Saturday night to
the contractor. An’ that’s your buildin’ trades in San Francisco,
while the leaders are makin’ trips to Europe on the earnings of the
tenderloin--when they ain’t coughing it up to the lawyers to get out of
wearin’ stripes.”

“That’s all right,” Tom concurred. “Nobody’s denyin’ it. The trouble is
labor ain’t quite got its eyes open. It ought to play politics, but the
politics ought to be the right kind.”

“Socialism, eh?” Bert caught him up with scorn. “Wouldn’t they sell us
out just as the Ruefs and Schmidts have?”

“Get men that are honest,” Billy said. “That’s the whole trouble. Not
that I stand for socialism. I don’t. All our folks was a long time in
America, an’ I for one won’t stand for a lot of fat Germans an’ greasy
Russian Jews tellin’ me how to run my country when they can’t speak
English yet.”

“Your country!” Bert cried. “Why, you bonehead, you ain’t got a country.
That’s a fairy story the grafters shove at you every time they want to
rob you some more.”

“But don’t vote for the grafters,” Billy contended. “If we selected
honest men we’d get honest treatment.”

“I wish you’d come to some of our meetings, Billy,” Tom said wistfully.
“If you would, you’d get your eyes open an’ vote the socialist ticket
next election.”

“Not on your life,” Billy declined. “When you catch me in a socialist
meeting’ll be when they can talk like white men.”

Bert was humming:

“We’re living now in a funny time, When money is made to burn.”

Mary was too angry with her husband, because of the impending strike
and his incendiary utterances, to hold conversation with Saxon, and the
latter, bepuzzled, listened to the conflicting opinions of the men.

“Where are we at?” she asked them, with a merriness that concealed her
anxiety at heart.

“We ain’t at,” Bert snarled. “We’re gone.”

“But meat and oil have gone up again,” she chafed. “And Billy’s wages
have been cut, and the shop men’s were cut last year. Something must be
done.”

“The only thing to do is fight like hell,” Bert answered. “Fight, an’ go
down fightin’. That’s all. We’re licked anyhow, but we can have a last
run for our money.”

“That’s no way to talk,” Tom rebuked.

“The time for talkin’ ‘s past, old cock. The time for fightin’ ‘s come.”

“A hell of a chance you’d have against regular troops and machine guns,”
 Billy retorted.

“Oh, not that way. There’s such things as greasy sticks that go up with
a loud noise and leave holes. There’s such things as emery powder--”

“Oh, ho!” Mary burst out upon him, arms akimbo. “So that’s what it
means. That’s what the emery in your vest pocket meant.”

Her husband ignored her. Tom smoked with a troubled air. Billy was hurt.
It showed plainly in his face.

“You ain’t ben doin’ that, Bert?” he asked, his manner showing his
expectancy of his friend’s denial.

“Sure thing, if you want to know. I’d see’m all in hell if I could,
before I go.”

“He’s a bloody-minded anarchist,” Mary complained. “Men like him killed
McKinley, and Garfield, an’--an’ an’ all the rest. He’ll be hung. You’ll
see. Mark my words. I’m glad there’s no children in sight, that’s all.”

“It’s hot air,” Billy comforted her.

“He’s just teasing you,” Saxon soothed. “He always was a josher.”

But Mary shook her head.

“I know. I hear him talkin’ in his sleep. He swears and curses something
awful, an’ grits his teeth. Listen to him now.”

Bert, his handsome face bitter and devil-may-care, had tilted his chair
back against the wall and was singing

“Nobody loves a mil-yun-aire, Nobody likes his looks, Nobody’ll share
his slightest care, He classes with thugs and crooks.”

Tom was saying something about reasonableness and justice, and Bert
ceased from singing to catch him up.

“Justice, eh? Another pipe-dream. I’ll show you where the working class
gets justice. You remember Forbes--J. Alliston Forbes--wrecked the Alta
California Trust Company an’ salted down two cold millions. I saw him
yesterday, in a big hell-bent automobile. What’d he get? Eight years’
sentence. How long did he serve? Less’n two years. Pardoned out on
account of ill health. Ill hell! We’ll be dead an’ rotten before he
kicks the bucket. Here. Look out this window. You see the back of that
house with the broken porch rail. Mrs. Danaker lives there. She takes
in washin’. Her old man was killed on the railroad. Nitsky on
damages--contributory negligence, or fellow-servant-something-or-other
flimflam. That’s what the courts handed her. Her boy, Archie, was
sixteen. He was on the road, a regular road-kid. He blew into Fresno
an’ rolled a drunk. Do you want to know how much he got? Two dollars
and eighty cents. Get that?--Two-eighty. And what did the alfalfa judge
hand’m? Fifty years. He’s served eight of it already in San Quentin. And
he’ll go on serving it till he croaks. Mrs. Danaker says he’s bad with
consumption--caught it inside, but she ain’t got the pull to get’m
pardoned. Archie the Kid steals two dollars an’ eighty cents from a
drunk and gets fifty years. J. Alliston Forbes sticks up the Alta
Trust for two millions en’ gets less’n two years. Who’s country is
this anyway? Yourn an’ Archie the Kid’s? Guess again. It’s J. Alliston
Forbes’--Oh:

“Nobody likes a mil-yun-aire, Nobody likes his looks, Nobody’ll share
his slightest care, He classes with thugs and crooks.”

Mary, at the sink, where Saxon was just finishing the last dish, untied
Saxon’s apron and kissed her with the sympathy that women alone feel for
each other under the shadow of maternity.

“Now you sit down, dear. You mustn’t tire yourself, and it’s a long way
to go yet. I’ll get your sewing for you, and you can listen to the men
talk. But don’t listen to Bert. He’s crazy.”

Saxon sewed and listened, and Bert’s face grew bleak and bitter as he
contemplated the baby clothes in her lap.

“There you go,” he blurted out, “bringin’ kids into the world when you
ain’t got any guarantee you can feed em.”

“You must a-had a souse last night,” Tom grinned.

Bert shook his head.

“Aw, what’s the use of gettin’ grouched?” Billy cheered. “It’s a pretty
good country.”

“It WAS a pretty good country,” Bert replied, “when we was all Mohegans.
But not now. We’re jiggerooed. We’re hornswoggled. We’re backed to a
standstill. We’re double-crossed to a fare-you-well. My folks fought for
this country. So did yourn, all of you. We freed the niggers, killed the
Indians, an starved, an’ froze, an’ sweat, an’ fought. This land looked
good to us. We cleared it, an’ broke it, an’ made the roads, an’ built
the cities. And there was plenty for everybody. And we went on fightin’
for it. I had two uncles killed at Gettysburg. All of us was mixed up in
that war. Listen to Saxon talk any time what her folks went through to
get out here an’ get ranches, an’ horses, an’ cattle, an’ everything.
And they got ‘em. All our folks’ got ‘em, Mary’s, too--”

“And if they’d ben smart they’d a-held on to them,” she interpolated.

“Sure thing,” Bert continued. “That’s the very point. We’re the losers.
We’ve ben robbed. We couldn’t mark cards, deal from the bottom, an’ ring
in cold decks like the others. We’re the white folks that failed. You
see, times changed, and there was two kinds of us, the lions and the
plugs. The plugs only worked, the lions only gobbled. They gobbled the
farms, the mines, the factories, an’ now they’ve gobbled the government.
We’re the white folks an’ the children of white folks, that was too busy
being good to be smart. We’re the white folks that lost out. We’re the
ones that’s ben skinned. D’ye get me?”

“You’d make a good soap-boxer,” Tom commended, “if only you’d get the
kinks straightened out in your reasoning.”

“It sounds all right, Bert,” Billy said, “only it ain’t. Any man can get
rich to-day--”

“Or be president of the United States,” Bert snapped. “Sure thing--if
he’s got it in him. Just the same I ain’t heard you makin’ a noise like
a millionaire or a president. Why? You ain’t got it in you. You’re a
bonehead. A plug. That’s why. Skiddoo for you. Skiddoo for all of us.”

At the table, while they ate, Tom talked of the joys of farm-life he had
known as a boy and as a young man, and confided that it was his dream to
go and take up government land somewhere as his people had done before
him. Unfortunately, as he explained, Sarah was set, so that the dream
must remain a dream.

“It’s all in the game,” Billy sighed. “It’s played to rules. Some one
has to get knocked out, I suppose.”

A little later, while Bert was off on a fresh diatribe, Billy became
aware that he was making comparisons. This house was not like his house.
Here was no satisfying atmosphere. Things seemed to run with a jar. He
recollected that when they arrived the breakfast dishes had not yet been
washed. With a man’s general obliviousness of household affairs, he had
not noted details; yet it had been borne in on him, all morning, in a
myriad ways, that Mary was not the housekeeper Saxon was. He glanced
proudly across at her, and felt the spur of an impulse to leave his
seat, go around, and embrace her. She was a wife. He remembered her
dainty undergarmenting, and on the instant, into his brain, leaped the
image of her so appareled, only to be shattered by Bert.

“Hey, Bill, you seem to think I’ve got a grouch. Sure thing. I have.
You ain’t had my experiences. You’ve always done teamin’ an’ pulled
down easy money prizefightin’. You ain’t known hard times. You ain’t ben
through strikes. You ain’t had to take care of an old mother an’ swallow
dirt on her account. It wasn’t until after she died that I could rip
loose an’ take or leave as I felt like it.

“Take that time I tackled the Niles Electric an’ see what a work-plug
gets handed out to him. The Head Cheese sizes me up, pumps me a lot of
questions, an’ gives me an application blank. I make it out, payin’ a
dollar to a doctor they sent me to for a health certificate. Then I got
to go to a picture garage an’ get my mug taken for the Niles Electric
rogues’ gallery. And I cough up another dollar for the mug. The Head
Squirt takes the blank, the health certificate, and the mug, an’ fires
more questions. DID I BELONG TO A LABOR UNION?--ME? Of course I told’m
the truth I guess nit. I needed the job. The grocery wouldn’t give me
any more tick, and there was my mother.

“Huh, thinks I, here’s where I’m a real carman. Back platform for me,
where I can pick up the fancy skirts. Nitsky. Two dollars, please.
Me--my two dollars. All for a pewter badge. Then there was the
uniform--nineteen fifty, and get it anywhere else for fifteen. Only that
was to be paid out of my first month. And then five dollars in change in
my pocket, my own money. That was the rule.--I borrowed that five from
Tom Donovan, the policeman. Then what? They worked me for two weeks
without pay, breakin’ me in.”

“Did you pick up any fancy skirts?” Saxon queried teasingly.

Bert shook his head glumly.

“I only worked a month. Then we organized, and they busted our union
higher’n a kite.”

“And you boobs in the shops will be busted the same way if you go out on
strike,” Mary informed him.

“That’s what I’ve ben tellin’ you all along,” Bert replied. “We ain’t
got a chance to win.”

“Then why go out?” was Saxon’s question.

He looked at her with lackluster eyes for a moment, then answered

“Why did my two uncles get killed at Gettysburg?”



CHAPTER VIII

Saxon went about her housework greatly troubled. She no longer devoted
herself to the making of pretties. The materials cost money, and she
did not dare. Bert’s thrust had sunk home. It remained in her quivering
consciousness like a shaft of steel that ever turned and rankled. She
and Billy were responsible for this coming young life. Could they be
sure, after all, that they could adequately feed and clothe it and
prepare it for its way in the world? Where was the guaranty? She
remembered, dimly, the blight of hard times in the past, and the
plaints of fathers and mothers in those days returned to her with a new
significance. Almost could she understand Sarah’s chronic complaining.

Hard times were already in the neighborhood, where lived the families
of the shopmen who had gone out on strike. Among the small storekeepers,
Saxon, in the course of the daily marketing, could sense the air of
despondency. Light and geniality seemed to have vanished. Gloom pervaded
everywhere. The mothers of the children that played in the streets
showed the gloom plainly in their faces. When they gossiped in the
evenings, over front gates and on door stoops, their voices were subdued
and less of laughter rang out.

Mary Donahue, who had taken three pints from the milkman, now took
one pint. There were no more family trips to the moving picture shows.
Scrap-meat was harder to get from the butcher. Nora Delaney, in the
third house, no longer bought fresh fish for Friday. Salted codfish, not
of the best quality, was now on her table. The sturdy children that ran
out upon the street between meals with huge slices of bread and butter
and sugar now came out with no sugar and with thinner slices spread more
thinly with butter. The very custom was dying out, and some children
already had desisted from piecing between meals.

Everywhere was manifest a pinching and scraping, a tightning and
shortening down of expenditure. And everywhere was more irritation.
Women became angered with one another, and with the children, more
quickly than of yore; and Saxon knew that Bert and Mary bickered
incessantly.

“If she’d only realize I’ve got troubles of my own,” Bert complained to
Saxon.

She looked at him closely, and felt fear for him in a vague, numb way.
His black eyes seemed to burn with a continuous madness. The brown face
was leaner, the skin drawn tightly across the cheekbones. A slight twist
had come to the mouth, which seemed frozen into bitterness. The
very carriage of his body and the way he wore his hat advertised a
recklessness more intense than had been his in the past.

Sometimes, in the long afternoons, sitting by the window with
idle hands, she caught herself reconstructing in her vision that
folk-migration of her people across the plains and mountains and deserts
to the sunset land by the Western sea. And often she found herself
dreaming of the arcadian days of her people, when they had not lived in
cities nor been vexed with labor unions and employers’ associations. She
would remember the old people’s tales of self-sufficingness, when they
shot or raised their own meat, grew their own vegetables, were their
own blacksmiths and carpenters, made their own shoes--yes, and spun
the cloth of the clothes they wore. And something of the wistfulness
in Tom’s face she could see as she recollected it when he talked of his
dream of taking up government land.

A farmer’s life must be fine, she thought. Why was it that people had to
live in cities? Why had times changed? If there had been enough in the
old days, why was there not enough now? Why was it necessary for men
to quarrel and jangle, and strike and fight, all about the matter of
getting work? Why wasn’t there work for all?--Only that morning, and she
shuddered with the recollection, she had seen two scabs, on their way to
work, beaten up by the strikers, by men she knew by sight, and some by
name, who lived in the neighhorhood. It had happened directly across the
street. It had been cruel, terrible--a dozen men on two. The children
had begun it by throwing rocks at the scabs and cursing them in ways
children should not know. Policemen had run upon the scene with drawn
revolvers, and the strikers had retreated into the houses and through
the narrow alleys between the houses. One of the scabs, unconscious,
had been carried away in an ambulance; the other, assisted by special
railroad police, had been taken away to the shops. At him, Mary Donahue,
standing on her front stoop, her child in her arms, had hurled such vile
abuse that it had brought the blush of shame to Saxon’s cheeks. On the
stoop of the house on the other side, Saxon had noted Mercedes, in the
height of the beating up, looking on with a queer smile. She had seemed
very eager to witness, her nostrils dilated and swelling like the beat
of pulses as she watched. It had struck Saxon at the time that the old
woman was quite unalarmed and only curious to see.

To Mercedes, who was so wise in love, Saxon went for explanation of what
was the matter with the world. But the old woman’s wisdom in affairs
industrial and economic was cryptic and unpalatable.

“La la, my dear, it is so simple. Most men are born stupid. They are the
slaves. A few are born clever. They are the masters. God made men so, I
suppose.”

“Then how about God and that terrible beating across the street this
morning?”

“I’m afraid he was not interested,” Mercedes smiled. “I doubt he even
knows that it happened.”

“I was frightened to death,” Saxon declared. “I was made sick by it. And
yet you--I saw you--you looked on as cool as you please, as if it was a
show.”

“It was a show, my dear.”

“Oh, how could you?”

“La la, I have seen men killed. It is nothing strange. All men die. The
stupid ones die like oxen, they know not why. It is quite funny to see.
They strike each other with fists and clubs, and break each other’s
heads. It is gross. They are like a lot of animals. They are like dogs
wrangling over bones. Jobs are bones, you know. Now, if they fought
for women, or ideas, or bars of gold, or fabulous diamonds, it would be
splendid. But no; they are only hungry, and fight over scraps for their
stomach.”

“Oh, if I could only understand!” Saxon murmured, her hands tightly
clasped in anguish of incomprehension and vital need to know.

“There is nothing to understand. It is clear as print. There have always
been the stupid and the clever, the slave and the master, the peasant
and the prince. There always will be.”

“But why?”

“Why is a peasant a peasant, my dear? Because he is a peasant. Why is a
flea a flea?”

Saxon tossed her head fretfully.

“Oh, but my dear, I have answered. The philosophies of the world can
give no better answer. Why do you like your man for a husband rather
than any other man? Because you like him that way, that is all. Why do
you like? Because you like. Why does fire burn and frost bite? Why
are there clever men and stupid men? masters and slaves? employers and
workingmen? Why is black black? Answer that and you answer everything.”

“But it is not right that men should go hungry and without work when
they want to work if only they can get a square deal,” Saxon protested.

“Oh, but it is right, just as it is right that stone won’t burn like
wood, that sea sand isn’t sugar, that thorns prick, that water is wet,
that smoke rises, that things fall down and not up.”

But such doctrine of reality made no impression on Saxon. Frankly, she
could not comprehend. It seemed like so much nonsense.

“Then we have no liberty and independence,” she cried passionately. “One
man is not as good as another. My child has not the right to live that a
rich mother’s child has.”

“Certainly not,” Mercedes answered.

“Yet all my people fought for these things,” Saxon urged, remembering
her school history and the sword of her father.

“Democracy--the dream of the stupid peoples. Oh, la la, my dear,
democracy is a lie, an enchantment to keep the work brutes content, just
as religion used to keep them content. When they groaned in their misery
and toil, they were persuaded to keep on in their misery and toil by
pretty tales of a land beyond the skies where they would live famously
and fat while the clever ones roasted in everlasting fire. Ah, how
the clever ones must have chuckled! And when that lie wore out, and
democracy was dreamed, the clever ones saw to it that it should be in
truth a dream, nothing but a dream. The world belongs to the great and
clever.”

“But you are of the working people,” Saxon charged.

The old woman drew herself up, and almost was angry.

“I? Of the working people? My dear, because I had misfortune with moneys
invested, because I am old and can no longer win the brave young men,
because I have outlived the men of my youth and there is no one to go
to, because I live here in the ghetto with Barry Higgins and prepare
to die--why, my dear, I was born with the masters, and have trod all
my days on the necks of the stupid. I have drunk rare wines and sat at
feasts that would have supported this neighborhood for a lifetime. Dick
Golden and I--it was Dickie’s money, but I could have had it -- Dick Golden
and I dropped four hundred thousand francs in a week’s play at Monte
Carlo. He was a Jew, but he was a spender. In India I have worn jewels
that could have saved the lives of ten thousand families dying before my
eyes.”

“You saw them die?... and did nothing?” Saxon asked aghast.

“I kept my jewels--la la, and was robbed of them by a brute of a Russian
officer within the year.”

“And you let them die,” Saxon reiterated.

“They were cheap spawn. They fester and multiply like maggots. They
meant nothing--nothing, my dear, nothing. No more than your work people
mean here, whose crowning stupidity is their continuing to beget more
stupid spawn for the slavery of the masters.”

So it was that while Saxon could get little glimmering of common sense
from others, from the terrible old woman she got none at all. Nor could
Saxon bring herself to believe much of what she considered Mercedes’
romancing. As the weeks passed, the strike in the railroad shops grew
bitter and deadly. Billy shook his head and confessed his inability
to make head or tail of the troubles that were looming on the labor
horizon.

“I don’t get the hang of it,” he told Saxon. “It’s a mix-up. It’s like
a roughhouse with the lights out. Look at us teamsters. Here we are,
the talk just starting of going out on sympathetic strike for the
mill-workers. They’ve ben out a week, most of their places is filled,
an’ if us teamsters keep on haulin’ the mill-work the strike’s lost.”

“Yet you didn’t consider striking for yourselves when your wages were
cut,” Saxon said with a frown.

“Oh, we wasn’t in position then. But now the Frisco teamsters and the
whole Frisco Water Front Confederation is liable to back us up. Anyway,
we’re just talkin’ about it, that’s all. But if we do go out, we’ll try
to get back that ten per cent cut.”

“It’s rotten politics,” he said another time. “Everybody’s rotten. If
we’d only wise up and agree to pick out honest men--”

“But if you, and Bert, and Tom can’t agree, how do you expect all the
rest to agree?” Saxon asked.

“It gets me,” he admitted. “It’s enough to give a guy the willies
thinkin’ about it. And yet it’s plain as the nose on your face. Get
honest men for politics, an’ the whole thing’s straightened out. Honest
men’d make honest laws, an’ then honest men’d get their dues. But Bert
wants to smash things, an’ Tom smokes his pipe and dreams pipe dreams
about by an’ by when everybody votes the way he thinks. But this by an’
by ain’t the point. We want things now. Tom says we can’t get them now,
an’ Bert says we ain’t never goin’ to get them. What can a fellow do
when everybody’s of different minds? Look at the socialists themselves.
They’re always disagreeing, splittin’ up, an’ firin’ each other out of
the party. The whole thing’s bughouse, that’s what, an’ I almost get
dippy myself thinkin’ about it. The point I can’t get out of my mind is
that we want things now.”

He broke off abruptly and stared at Saxon.

“What is it?” he asked, his voice husky with anxiety. “You ain’t sick...
or... or anything?”

One hand she had pressed to her heart; but the startle and fright in her
eyes was changing into a pleased intentness, while on her mouth was
a little mysterious smile. She seemed oblivious to her husband, as if
listening to some message from afar and not for his ears. Then wonder
and joy transfused her face, and she looked at Billy, and her hand went
out to his.

“It’s life,” she whispered. “I felt life. I am so glad, so glad.”

The next evening when Billy came home from work, Saxon caused him to
know and undertake more of the responsibilities of fatherhood.

“I’ve been thinking it over, Billy,” she began, “and I’m such a healthy,
strong woman that it won’t have to be very expensive. There’s Martha
Skelton--she’s a good midwife.”

But Billy shook his head.

“Nothin’ doin’ in that line, Saxon. You’re goin’ to have Doc Hentley.
He’s Bill Murphy’s doc, an’ Bill swears by him. He’s an old cuss, but
he’s a wooz.”

“She confined Maggie Donahue,” Saxon argued; “and look at her and her
baby.”

“Well, she won’t confine you--not so as you can notice it.”

“But the doctor will charge twenty dollars,” Saxon pursued, “and make
me get a nurse because I haven’t any womenfolk to come in. But Martha
Skelton would do everything, and it would be so much cheaper.”

But Billy gathered her tenderly in his arms and laid down the law.

“Listen to me, little wife. The Roberts family ain’t on the cheap. Never
forget that. You’ve gotta have the baby. That’s your business, an’ it’s
enough for you. My business is to get the money an’ take care of you.
An’ the best ain’t none too good for you. Why, I wouldn’t run the chance
of the teeniest accident happenin’ to you for a million dollars. It’s
you that counts. An’ dollars is dirt. Maybe you think I like that kid
some. I do. Why, I can’t get him outa my head. I’m thinkin’ about’m all
day long. If I get fired, it’ll be his fault. I’m clean dotty over him.
But just the same, Saxon, honest to God, before I’d have anything happen
to you, break your little finger, even, I’d see him dead an’ buried
first. That’ll give you something of an idea what you mean to me.

“Why, Saxon, I had the idea that when folks got married they just
settled down, and after a while their business was to get along with
each other. Maybe it’s the way it is with other people; but it ain’t
that way with you an’ me. I love you more ‘n more every day. Right now
I love you more’n when I began talkin’ to you five minutes ago. An’ you
won’t have to get a nurse. Doc Hentley’ll come every day, an’ Mary’ll
come in an’ do the housework, an’ take care of you an’ all that, just as
you’ll do for her if she ever needs it.”

As the days and weeks passed, Saxon was possessed by a conscious feeling
of proud motherhood in her swelling breasts. So essentially a normal
woman was she, that motherhood was a satisfying and passionate
happiness. It was true that she had her moments of apprehension, but
they were so momentary and faint that they tended, if anything, to give
zest to her happiness.

Only one thing troubled her, and that was the puzzling and perilous
situation of labor which no one seemed to understand, her self least of
all.

“They’re always talking about how much more is made by machinery than by
the old ways,” she told her brother Tom. “Then, with all the machinery
we’ve got now, why don’t we get more?”

“Now you’re talkin’,” he answered. “It wouldn’t take you long to
understand socialism.”

But Saxon had a mind to the immediate need of things.

“Tom, how long have you been a socialist?”

“Eight years.”

“And you haven’t got anything by it?”

“But we will... in time.”

“At that rate you’ll be dead first,” she challenged.

Tom sighed.

“I’m afraid so. Things move so slow.”

Again he sighed. She noted the weary, patient look in his face, the bent
shoulders, the labor-gnarled hands, and it all seemed to symbolize the
futility of his social creed.



CHAPTER IX

It began quietly, as the fateful unexpected so often begins. Children,
of all ages and sizes, were playing in the street, and Saxon, by the
open front window, was watching them and dreaming day dreams of her
child soon to be. The sunshine mellowed peacefully down, and a light
wind from the bay cooled the air and gave to it a tang of salt. One of
the children pointed up Pine Street toward Seventh. All the children
ceased playing, and stared and pointed. They formed into groups, the
larger boys, of from ten to twelve, by themselves, the older girls
anxiously clutching the small children by the hands or gathering them
into their arms.

Saxon could not see the cause of all this, but she could guess when she
saw the larger boys rush to the gutter, pick up stones, and sneak into
the alleys between the houses. Smaller boys tried to imitate them. The
girls, dragging the tots by the arms, banged gates and clattered up the
front steps of the small houses. The doors slammed behind them, and the
street was deserted, though here and there front shades were drawn aside
so that anxious-faced women might peer forth. Saxon heard the uptown
train puffing and snorting as it pulled out from Center Street. Then,
from the direction of Seventh, came a hoarse, throaty manroar. Still,
she could see nothing, and she remembered Mercedes Higgins’ words “THEY
ARE LIKE DOGS WRANGLING OVER BONES. JOBS ARE BONES, YOU KNOW.”

The roar came closer, and Saxon, leaning out, saw a dozen scabs,
conveyed by as many special police and Pinkertons, coming down the
sidewalk on her side of the street. They came compactly, as if with
discipline, while behind, disorderly, yelling confusedly, stooping to
pick up rocks, were seventy-five or a hundred of the striking shopmen.
Saxon discovered herself trembling with apprehension, knew that she must
not, and controlled herself. She was helped in this by the conduct of
Mercedes Higgins. The old woman came out of her front door, dragging a
chair, on which she coolly seated herself on the tiny stoop at the top
of the steps.

In the hands of the special police were clubs. The Pinkertons carried
no visible weapons. The strikers, urging on from behind, seemed content
with yelling their rage and threats, and it remained for the children to
precipitate the conflict. From across the street, between the Olsen and
the Isham houses, came a shower of stones. Most of these fell short,
though one struck a scab on the head. The man was no more than twenty
feet away from Saxon. He reeled toward her front picket fence, drawing a
revolver. With one hand he brushed the blood from his eyes and with
the other he discharged the revolver into the Isham house. A Pinkerton
seized his arm to prevent a second shot, and dragged him along. At the
same instant a wilder roar went up from the strikers, while a volley of
stones came from between Saxon’s house and Maggie Donahue’s. The scabs
and their protectors made a stand, drawing revolvers. From their hard,
determined faces--fighting men by profession--Saxon could augur nothing
but bloodshed and death. An elderly man, evidently the leader, lifted a
soft felt hat and mopped the perspiration from the bald top of his head.
He was a large man, very rotund of belly and helpless looking. His gray
beard was stained with streaks of tobacco juice, and he was smoking
a cigar. He was stoop-shouldered, and Saxon noted the dandruff on the
collar of his coat.

One of the men pointed into the street, and several of his companions
laughed. The cause of it was the little Olsen boy, barely four years
old, escaped somehow from his mother and toddling toward his economic
enemies. In his right he bore a rock so heavy that he could scarcely
lift it. With this he feebly threatened them. His rosy little face was
convulsed with rage, and he was screaming over and over “Dam scabs!
Dam scabs! Dam scabs!” The laughter with which they greeted him only
increased his fury. He toddled closer, and with a mighty exertion threw
the rock. It fell a scant six feet beyond his hand.

This much Saxon saw, and also Mrs. Olsen rushing into the street for
her child. A rattling of revolver-shots from the strikers drew Saxon’s
attention to the men beneath her. One of them cursed sharply and
examined the biceps of his left arm, which hung limply by his side. Down
the hand she saw the blood beginning to drip. She knew she ought not
remain and watch, but the memory of her fighting forefathers was with
her, while she possessed no more than normal human fear--if anything,
less. She forgot her child in the eruption of battle that had broken
upon her quiet street. And she forgot the strikers, and everything else,
in amazement at what had happened to the round-bellied, cigar-smoking
leader. In some strange way, she knew not how, his head had become
wedged at the neck between the tops of the pickets of her fence. His
body hung down outside, the knees not quite touching the ground. His hat
had fallen off, and the sun was making an astounding high light on his
bald spot. The cigar, too, was gone. She saw he was looking at her. One
hand, between the pickets, seemed waving at her, and almost he seemed to
wink at her jocosely, though she knew it to be the contortion of deadly
pain.

Possibly a second, or, at most, two seconds, she gazed at this, when she
was aroused by Bert’s voice. He was running along the sidewalk, in front
of her house, and behind him charged several more strikers, while he
shouted: “Come on, you Mohegans! We got ‘em nailed to the cross!”

In his left hand he carried a pick-handle, in his right a revolver,
already empty, for he clicked the cylinder vainly around as he ran. With
an abrupt stop, dropping the pick-handle, he whirled half about, facing
Saxon’s gate. He was sinking down, when he straightened himself to throw
the revolver into the face of a scab who was jumping toward him. Then he
began swaying, at the same time sagging at the knees and waist. Slowly,
with infinite effort, he caught a gate picket in his right hand, and,
still slowly, as if lowering himself, sank down, while past him leaped
the crowd of strikers he had led.

It was battle without quarter--a massacre. The scabs and their
protectors, surrounded, backed against Saxon’s fence, fought like
cornered rats, but could not withstand the rush of a hundred men.
Clubs and pick-handles were swinging, revolvers were exploding, and
cobblestones were flung with crushing effect at arm’s distance. Saxon
saw young Frank Davis, a friend of Bert’s and a father of several
months’ standing, press the muzzle of his revolver against a scab’s
stomach and fire. There were curses and snarls of rage, wild cries of
terror and pain. Mercedes was right. These things were not men. They
were beasts, fighting over bones, destroying one another for bones.

JOBS ARE BONES; JOBS ARE BONES. The phrase was an incessant iteration in
Saxon’s brain. Much as she might have wished it, she was powerless now
to withdraw from the window. It was as if she were paralyzed. Her brain
no longer worked. She sat numb, staring, incapable of anything save
seeing the rapid horror before her eyes that flashed along like a moving
picture film gone mad. She saw Pinkertons, special police, and strikers
go down. One scab, terribly wounded, on his knees and begging for
mercy, was kicked in the face. As he sprawled backward another striker,
standing over him, fired a revolver into his chest, quickly and
deliberately, again and again, until the weapon was empty. Another scab,
backed over the pickets by a hand clutching his throat, had his face
pulped by a revolver butt. Again and again, continually, the revolver
rose and fell, and Saxon knew the man who wielded it--Chester Johnson.
She had met him at dances and danced with him in the days before she was
married. He had always been kind and good natured. She remembered the
Friday night, after a City Hall band concert, when he had taken her and
two other girls to Tony’s Tamale Grotto on Thirteenth street. And after
that they had all gone to Pabst’s Cafe and drunk a glass of beer before
they went home. It was impossible that this could be the same Chester
Johnson. And as she looked, she saw the round-bellied leader, still
wedged by the neck between the pickets, draw a revolver with his
free hand, and, squinting horribly sidewise, press the muzzle against
Chester’s side. She tried to scream a warning. She did scream, and
Chester looked up and saw her. At that moment the revolver went off, and
he collapsed prone upon the body of the scab. And the bodies of three
men hung on her picket fence.

Anything could happen now. Quite without surprise, she saw the strikers
leaping the fence, trampling her few little geraniums and pansies into
the earth as they fled between Mercedes’ house and hers. Up Pine street,
from the railroad yards, was coming a rush of railroad police and
Pinkertons, firing as they ran. While down Pine street, gongs clanging,
horses at a gallop, came three patrol wagons packed with police. The
strikers were in a trap. The only way out was between the houses and
over the back yard fences. The jam in the narrow alley prevented them
all from escaping. A dozen were cornered in the angle between the front
of her house and the steps. And as they had done, so were they done by.
No effort was made to arrest. They were clubbed down and shot down to
the last man by the guardians of the peace who were infuriated by what
had been wreaked on their brethren.

It was all over, and Saxon, moving as in a dream, clutching the banister
tightly, came down the front steps. The round-bellied leader still
leered at her and fluttered one hand, though two big policemen were
just bending to extricate him. The gate was off its hinges, which seemed
strange, for she had been watching all the time and had not seen it
happen.

Bert’s eyes were closed. His lips were blood-flecked, and there was a
gurgling in his throat as if he were trying to say something. As she
stooped above him, with her handkerchief brushing the blood from his
cheek where some one had stepped on him, his eyes opened. The old
defiant light was in them. He did not know her. The lips moved, and
faintly, almost reminiscently, he murmured, “The last of the Mohegans,
the last of the Mohegans.” Then he groaned, and the eyelids drooped down
again. He was not dead. She knew that, the chest still rose and fell,
and the gurgling still continued in his throat.

She looked up. Mercedes stood beside her. The old woman’s eyes were very
bright, her withered cheeks flushed.

“Will you help me carry him into the house?” Saxon asked.

Mercedes nodded, turned to a sergeant of police, and made the request to
him. The sergeant gave a swift glance at Bert, and his eyes were bitter
and ferocious as he refused.

“To hell with’m. We’ll care for our own.”

“Maybe you and I can do it,” Saxon said.

“Don’t be a fool.” Mercedes was beckoning to Mrs. Olsen across the
street. “You go into the house, little mother that is to be. This is bad
for you. We’ll carry him in. Mrs. Olsen is coming, and we’ll get Maggie
Donahue.”

Saxon led the way into the back bedroom which Billy had insisted on
furnishing. As she opened the door, the carpet seemed to fly up into her
face as with the force of a blow, for she remembered Bert had laid that
carpet. And as the women placed him on the bed she recalled that it was
Bert and she, between them, who had set the bed up one Sunday morning.

And then she felt very queer, and was surprised to see Mercedes
regarding her with questioning, searching eyes. After that her queerness
came on very fast, and she descended into the hell of pain that is given
to women alone to know. She was supported, half-carried, to the front
bedroom. Many faces were about her--Mercedes, Mrs. Olsen, Maggie
Donahue. It seemed she must ask Mrs. Olsen if she had saved little Emil
from the street, but Mercedes cleared Mrs. Olsen out to look after Bert,
and Maggie Donahue went to answer a knock at the front door. From the
street came a loud hum of voices, punctuated by shouts and commands, and
from time to time there was a clanging of the gongs of ambulances
and patrol wagons. Then appeared the fat, comfortable face of Martha
Shelton, and, later, Dr. Hentley came. Once, in a clear interval,
through the thin wall Saxon heard the high opening notes of Mary’s
hysteria. And, another time, she heard Mary repeating over and over.
“I’ll never go back to the laundry. Never. Never.”



CHAPTER X

Billy could never get over the shock, during that period, of Saxon’s
appearance. Morning after morning, and evening after evening when he
came home from work, he would enter the room where she lay and fight a
royal battle to hide his feelings and make a show of cheerfulness and
geniality. She looked so small lying there so small and shrunken and
weary, and yet so child-like in her smallness. Tenderly, as he sat
beside her, he would take up her pale hand and stroke the slim,
transparent arm, marveling at the smallness and delicacy of the bones.

One of her first questions, puzzling alike to Billy and Mary, was:

“Did they save little Emil Olsen?”

And when she told them how he had attacked, singlehanded, the whole
twenty-four fighting men, Billy’s face glowed with appreciation.

“The little cuss!” he said. “That’s the kind of a kid to be proud of.”

He halted awkwardly, and his very evident fear that he had hurt her
touched Saxon. She put her hand out to his.

“Billy,” she began; then waited till Mary left the room.

“I never asked before--not that it matters... now. But I waited for you
to tell me. Was it...?”

He shook his head.

“No; it was a girl. A perfect little girl. Only... it was too soon.”

She pressed his hand, and almost it was she that sympathized with him in
his affliction.

“I never told you, Billy--you were so set on a boy; but I planned, just
the same, if it was a girl, to call her Daisy. You remember, that was my
mother’s name.”

He nodded his approbation.

“Say, Saxon, you know I did want a boy like the very dickens... well,
I don’t care now. I think I’m set just as hard on a girl, an’, well,
here’s hopin’ the next will be called... you wouldn’t mind, would you?”

“What?”

“If we called it the same name, Daisy?”

“Oh, Billy! I was thinking the very same thing.”

Then his face grew stern as he went on.

“Only there ain’t goin’ to be a next. I didn’t know what havin’ children
was like before. You can’t run any more risks like that.”

“Hear the big, strong, afraid-man talk!” she jeered, with a wan smile.
“You don’t know anything about it. How can a man? I am a healthy,
natural woman. Everything would have been all right this time if... if
all that fighting hadn’t happened. Where did they bury Bert?”

“You knew?”

“All the time. And where is Mercedes? She hasn’t been in for two days.”

“Old Barry’s sick. She’s with him.”

He did not tell her that the old night watchman was dying, two thin
walls and half a dozen feet away.

Saxon’s lips were trembling, and she began to cry weakly, clinging to
Billy’s hand with both of hers.

“I--I can’t help it,” she sobbed. “I’ll be all right in a minute.... Our
little girl, Billy. Think of it! And I never saw her!”


She was still lying on her bed, when, one evening, Mary saw fit to break
out in bitter thanksgiving that she had escaped, and was destined to
escape, what Saxon had gone through.

“Aw, what are you talkin’ about?” Billy demanded. “You’ll get married
some time again as sure as beans is beans.”

“Not to the best man living,” she proclaimed. “And there ain’t no call
for it. There’s too many people in the world now, else why are there
two or three men for every job? And, besides, havin’ children is too
terrible.”

Saxon, with a look of patient wisdom in her face that became glorified
as she spoke, made answer:

“I ought to know what it means. I’ve been through it, and I’m still in
the thick of it, and I want to say to you right now, out of all the pain
and the ache and the sorrow, that it is the most beautiful, wonderful
thing in the world.”


As Saxon’s strength came back to her (and when Doctor Hentley had
privily assured Billy that she was sound as a dollar), she herself took
up the matter of the industrial tragedy that had taken place before her
door. The militia had been called out immediately, Billy informed her,
and was encamped then at the foot of Pine street on the waste ground
next to the railroad yards. As for the strikers, fifteen of them were in
jail. A house to house search had been made in the neighborhood by the
police, and in this way nearly the whole fifteen, all wounded, had been
captured. It would go hard with them, Billy foreboded gloomily. The
newspapers were demanding blood for blood, and all the ministers in
Oakland had preached fierce sermons against the strikers. The railroad
had filled every place, and it was well known that the striking shopmen
not only would never get their old jobs back but were blacklisted in
every railroad in the United States. Already they were beginning to
scatter. A number had gone to Panama, and four were talking of going to
Ecuador to work in the shops of the railroad that ran over the Andes to
Quito.

With anxiety keenly concealed, she tried to feel out Billy’s opinion on
what had happened.

“That shows what Bert’s violent methods come to,” she said.

He shook his head slowly and gravely.

“They’ll hang Chester Johnson, anyway,” he answered indirectly.
“You know him. You told me you used to dance with him. He was caught
red-handed, lyin’ on the body of a scab he beat to death. Old Jelly
Belly’s got three bullet holes in him, but he ain’t goin’ to die, and
he’s got Chester’s number. They’ll hang’m on Jelly Belly’s evidence. It
was all in the papers. Jelly Belly shot him, too, a-hangin’ by the neck
on our pickets.”

Saxon shuddered. Jelly Belly must be the man with the bald spot and the
tobacco-stained whiskers.

“Yes,” she said. “I saw it all. It seemed he must have hung there for
hours.”

“It was all over, from first to last, in five minutes.”

“It seemed ages and ages.”

“I guess that’s the way it seemed to Jelly Belly, stuck on the pickets,”
 Billy smiled grimly. “But he’s a hard one to kill. He’s been shot an’
cut up a dozen different times. But they say now he’ll be crippled for
life--have to go around on crutches, or in a wheel-chair. That’ll stop
him from doin’ any more dirty work for the railroad. He was one of their
top gun-fighters--always up to his ears in the thick of any fightin’
that was goin’ on. He never was leery of anything on two feet, I’ll say
that much for’m.”

“Where does he live?” Saxon inquired.

“Up on Adeline, near Tenth--fine neighborhood an’ fine two-storied
house. He must pay thirty dollars a month rent. I guess the railroad
paid him pretty well.”

“Then he must be married?”

“Yep. I never seen his wife, but he’s got one son, Jack, a passenger
engineer. I used to know him. He was a nifty boxer, though he never
went into the ring. An’ he’s got another son that’s teacher in the
high school. His name’s Paul. We’re about the same age. He was great
at baseball. I knew him when we was kids. He pitched me out three times
hand-runnin’ once, when the Durant played the Cole School.”

Saxon sat back in the Morris chair, resting and thinking. The problem
was growing more complicated than ever. This elderly, round-bellied, and
bald-headed gunfighter, too, had a wife and family. And there was Frank
Davis, married barely a year and with a baby boy. Perhaps the scab
he shot in the stomach had a wife and children. All seemed to be
acquainted, members of a very large family, and yet, because of their
particular families, they battered and killed each other. She had seen
Chester Johnson kill a scab, and now they were going to hang Chester
Johnson, who had married Kittie Brady out of the cannery, and she and
Kittie Brady had worked together years before in the paper box factory.

Vainly Saxon waited for Billy to say something that would show he did not
countenance the killing of the scabs.

“It was wrong,” she ventured finally.

“They killed Bert,” he countered. “An’ a lot of others. An’ Frank Davis.
Did you know he was dead? Had his whole lower jaw shot away--died in the
ambulance before they could get him to the receiving hospital. There was
never so much killin’ at one time in Oakland before.”

“But it was their fault,” she contended. “They began it. It was murder.”

Billy did not reply, but she heard him mutter hoarsely. She knew he said
“God damn them”; but when she asked, “What?” he made no answer. His eyes
were deep with troubled clouds, while the mouth had hardened, and all
his face was bleak.

To her it was a heart-stab. Was he, too, like the rest? Would he kill
other men who had families, like Bert, and Frank Davis, and Chester
Johnson had killed? Was he, too, a wild beast, a dog that would snarl
over a bone?

She sighed. Life was a strange puzzle. Perhaps Mercedes Higgins was
right in her cruel statement of the terms of existence.

“What of it,” Billy laughed harshly, as if in answer to her unuttered
questions. “It’s dog eat dog, I guess, and it’s always ben that way.
Take that scrap outside there. They killed each other just like the
North an’ South did in the Civil War.”

“But workingmen can’t win that way, Billy. You say yourself that it
spoiled their chance of winning.”

“I suppose not,” he admitted reluctantly. “But what other chance they’ve
got to win I don’t see. Look at ‘us. We’ll be up against it next.”

“Not the teamsters?” she cried.

He nodded gloomily.

“The bosses are cuttin’ loose all along the line for a high old time.
Say they’re goin’ to beat us to our knees till we come crawlin’ back
a-beggin’ for our jobs. They’ve bucked up real high an’ mighty what of
all that killin’ the other day. Havin’ the troops out is half the fight,
along with havin’ the preachers an’ the papers an’ the public behind
‘em. They’re shootin’ off their mouths already about what they’re goin’
to do. They’re sure gunning for trouble. First, they’re goin’ to hang
Chester Johnson an’ as many more of the fifteen as they can. They say
that flat. The Tribune, an’ the Enquirer an’ the Times keep sayin’ it
over an over every day. They’re all union-bustin’ to beat the band. No
more closed shop. To hell with organized labor. Why, the dirty little
Intelligencer come out this morning an’ said that every union official
in Oakland ought to be run outa town or stretched up. Fine, eh? You bet
it’s fine.

“Look at us. It ain’t a case any more of sympathetic strike for the
mill-workers. We got our own troubles. They’ve fired our four best
men--the ones that was always on the conference committees. Did it
without cause. They’re lookin’ for trouble, as I told you, an’ they’ll
get it, too, if they don’t watch out. We got our tip from the Frisco
Water Front Confederation. With them backin’ us we’ll go some.”

“You mean you’ll... strike?” Saxon asked.

He bent his head.

“But isn’t that what they want you to do?--from the way they’re acting?”

“What’s the difference?” Billy shrugged his shoulders, then continued.
“It’s better to strike than to get fired. We beat ‘em to it, that’s all,
an’ we catch ‘em before they’re ready. Don’t we know what they’re doin’?
They’re collectin’ gradin’-camp drivers an’ mule-skinners all up
an’ down the state. They got forty of ‘em, feedin’ ‘em in a hotel in
Stockton right now, an’ ready to rush ‘em in on us an’ hundreds more
like ‘em. So this Saturday’s the last wages I’ll likely bring home for
some time.”

Saxon closed her eyes and thought quietly for five minutes. It was not
her way to take things excitedly. The coolness of poise that Billy so
admired never deserted her in time of emergency. She realized that
she herself was no more than a mote caught up in this tangled,
nonunderstandable conflict of many motes.

“We’ll have to draw from our savings to pay for this month’s rent,” she
said brightly.

Billy’s face fell.

“We ain’t got as much in the bank as you think,” he confessed. “Bert had
to be buried, you know, an I coughed up what the others couldn’t raise.”

“How much was it?”

“Forty dollars. I was goin’ to stand off the butcher an’ the rest for a
while. They knew I was good pay. But they put it to me straight. They’d
been carryin’ the shopmen right along an was up against it themselves.
An’ now with that strike smashed they’re pretty much smashed themselves.
So I took it all out of the bank. I knew you wouldn’t mind. You don’t,
do you?”

She smiled bravely, and bravely overcame the sinking feeling at her
heart.

“It was the only right thing to do, Billy. I would have done it if you
were lying sick, and Bert would have done it for you an’ me if it had
been the other way around.”

His face was glowing.

“Gee, Saxon, a fellow can always count on you. You’re like my right
hand. That’s why I say no more babies. If I lose you I’m crippled for
life.”

“We’ve got to economize,” she mused, nodding her appreciation. “How much
is in bank?”

“Just about thirty dollars. You see, I had to pay Martha Skelton an’ for
the... a few other little things. An’ the union took time by the neck
and levied a four dollar emergency assessment on every member just to be
ready if the strike was pulled off. But Doc Hentley can wait. He said as
much. He’s the goods, if anybody should ask you. How’d you like’m?”

“I liked him. But I don’t know about doctors. He’s the first I ever
had--except when I was vaccinated once, and then the city did that.”

“Looks like the street car men are goin’ out, too. Dan Fallon’s come to
town. Came all the way from New York. Tried to sneak in on the quiet,
but the fellows knew when he left New York, an’ kept track of him all
the way acrost. They have to. He’s Johnny-on-the-Spot whenever street
car men are licked into shape. He’s won lots of street car strikes for
the bosses. Keeps an army of strike breakers an’ ships them all over the
country on special trains wherever they’re needed. Oakland’s never seen
labor troubles like she’s got and is goin’ to get. All hell’s goin’ to
break loose from the looks of it.”

“Watch out for yourself, then, Billy. I don’t want to lose you either.”

“Aw, that’s all right. I can take care of myself. An’ besides, it ain’t
as though we was licked. We got a good chance.”

“But you’ll lose if there is any killing.”

“Yep; we gotta keep an eye out against that.”

“No violence.”

“No gun-fighting or dynamite,” he assented. “But a heap of scabs’ll get
their heads broke. That has to be.”

“But you won’t do any of that, Billy.”

“Not so as any slob can testify before a court to havin’ seen me.” Then,
with a quick shift, he changed the subject. “Old Barry Higgins is dead.
I didn’t want to tell you till you was outa bed. Buried’m a week ago.
An’ the old woman’s movin’ to Frisco. She told me she’d be in to say
good-bye. She stuck by you pretty well them first couple of days,
an’ she showed Martha Shelton a few that made her hair curl. She got
Martha’s goat from the jump.”



CHAPTER XI

With Billy on strike and away doing picket duty, and with the departure
of Mercedes and the death of Bert, Saxon was left much to herself in a
loneliness that even in one as healthy-minded as she could not fail to
produce morbidness. Mary, too, had left, having spoken vaguely of taking
a job at housework in Piedmont.

Billy could help Saxon little in her trouble. He dimly sensed her
suffering, without comprehending the scope and intensity of it. He was
too man-practical, and, by his very sex, too remote from the intimate
tragedy that was hers. He was an outsider at the best, a friendly
onlooker who saw little. To her the baby had been quick and real. It was
still quick and real. That was her trouble. By no deliberate effort of
will could she fill the aching void of its absence. Its reality became,
at times, an hallucination. Somewhere it still was, and she must find
it. She would catch herself, on occasion, listening with strained ears
for the cry she had never heard, yet which, in fancy, she had heard a
thousand times in the happy months before the end. Twice she left her
bed in her sleep and went searching--each time coming to herself beside
her mother’s chest of drawers in which were the tiny garments. To
herself, at such moments, she would say, “I had a baby once.” And she
would say it, aloud, as she watched the children playing in the street.

One day, on the Eighth street cars, a young mother sat beside her, a
crowing infant in her arms. And Saxon said to her:

“I had a baby once. It died.”

The mother looked at her, startled, half-drew the baby tighter in her
arms, jealously, or as if in fear; then she softened as she said:

“You poor thing.”

“Yes,” Saxon nodded. “It died.”

Tears welled into her eyes, and the telling of her grief seemed to have
brought relief. But all the day she suffered from an almost overwhelming
desire to recite her sorrow to the world--to the paying teller at the
bank, to the elderly floor-walker in Salinger’s, to the blind woman,
guided by a little boy, who played on the concertina--to every one save
the policeman. The police were new and terrible creatures to her now.
She had seen them kill the strikers as mercilessly as the strikers had
killed the scabs. And, unlike the strikers, the police were professional
killers. They were not fighting for jobs. They did it as a business.
They could have taken prisoners that day, in the angle of her front
steps and the house. But they had not. Unconsciously, whenever
approaching one, she edged across the sidewalk so as to get as far
as possible away from him. She did not reason it out, but deeper than
consciousness was the feeling that they were typical of something
inimical to her and hers.

At Eighth and Broadway, waiting for her car to return home, the
policeman on the corner recognized her and greeted her. She turned
white to the lips, and her heart fluttered painfully. It was only Ned
Hermanmann, fatter, broader-faced, jollier looking than ever. He had sat
across the aisle from her for three terms at school. He and she had been
monitors together of the composition books for one term. The day the
powder works blew up at Pinole, breaking every window in the school,
he and she had not joined in the panic rush for out-of-doors. Both had
remained in the room, and the irate principal had exhibited them, from
room to room, to the cowardly classes, and then rewarded them with a
month’s holiday from school. And after that Ned Hermanmann had become a
policeman, and married Lena Highland, and Saxon had heard they had five
children.

But, in spite of all that, he was now a policeman, and Billy was now a
striker. Might not Ned Hermanmann some day club and shoot Billy just as
those other policemen clubbed and shot the strikers by her front steps?

“What’s the matter, Saxon?” he asked. “Sick?”

She nodded and choked, unable to speak, and started to move toward her
car which was coming to a stop.

“I’ll help you,” he offered.

She shrank away from his hand.

“No; I’m all right,” she gasped hurriedly. “I’m not going to take it.
I’ve forgotten something.”

She turned away dizzily, up Broadway to Ninth. Two blocks along Ninth,
she turned down Clay and back to Eighth street, where she waited for
another car.


As the summer months dragged along, the industrial situation in Oakland
grew steadily worse. Capital everywhere seemed to have selected this
city for the battle with organized labor. So many men in Oakland were
out on strike, or were locked out, or were unable to work because of the
dependence of their trades on the other tied-up trades, that odd jobs
at common labor were hard to obtain. Billy occasionally got a day’s work
to do, but did not earn enough to make both ends meet, despite the small
strike wages received at first, and despite the rigid economy he and
Saxon practiced.

The table she set had scarcely anything in common with that of their
first married year. Not alone was every item of cheaper quality, but
many items had disappeared. Meat, and the poorest, was very seldom on
the table. Cow’s milk had given place to condensed milk, and even the
sparing use of the latter had ceased. A roll of butter, when they had
it, lasted half a dozen times as long as formerly. Where Billy had been
used to drinking three cups of coffee for breakfast, he now drank one.
Saxon boiled this coffee an atrocious length of time, and she paid
twenty cents a pound for it.

The blight of hard times was on all the neighborhood. The families
not involved in one strike were touched by some other strike or by the
cessation of work in some dependent trade. Many single young men who
were lodgers had drifted away, thus increasing the house rent of the
families which had sheltered them.

“Gott!” said the butcher to Saxon. “We working class all suffer
together. My wife she cannot get her teeth fixed now. Pretty soon I go
smash broke maybe.”

Once, when Billy was preparing to pawn his watch, Saxon suggested his
borrowing the money from Billy Murphy.

“I was plannin’ that,” Billy answered, “only I can’t now. I didn’t tell
you what happened Tuesday night at the Sporting Life Club. You remember
that squarehead Champion of the United States Navy? Bill was matched
with him, an’ it was sure easy money. Bill had ‘m goin’ south by the
end of the sixth round, an’ at the seventh went in to finish ‘m. And
then--just his luck, for his trade’s idle now--he snaps his right
forearm. Of course the squarehead comes back at ‘m on the jump, an’ it’s
good night for Bill. Gee! Us Mohegans are gettin’ our bad luck handed to
us in chunks these days.”

“Don’t!” Saxon cried, shuddering involuntarily.

“What?” Billy asked with open mouth of surprise.

“Don’t say that word again. Bert was always saying it.”

“Oh, Mohegans. All right, I won’t. You ain’t superstitious, are you?”

“No; but just the same there’s too much truth in the word for me to
like it. Sometimes it seems as though he was right. Times have changed.
They’ve changed even since I was a little girl. We crossed the plains
and opened up this country, and now we’re losing even the chance to work
for a living in it. And it’s not my fault, it’s not your fault. We’ve
got to live well or bad just by luck, it seems. There’s no other way to
explain it.”

“It beats me,” Billy concurred. “Look at the way I worked last year.
Never missed a day. I’d want to never miss a day this year, an’ here
I haven’t done a tap for weeks an’ weeks an’ weeks. Say! Who runs this
country anyway?”

Saxon had stopped the morning paper, but frequently Maggie Donahue’s
boy, who served a Tribune route, tossed an “extra” on her steps. From
its editorials Saxon gleaned that organized labor was trying to run the
country and that it was making a mess of it. It was all the fault of
domineering labor--so ran the editorials, column by column, day by day;
and Saxon was convinced, yet remained unconvinced. The social puzzle of
living was too intricate.

The teamsters’ strike, backed financially by the teamsters of San
Francisco and by the allied unions of the San Francisco Water Front
Confederation, promised to be long-drawn, whether or not it was
successful. The Oakland harness-washers and stablemen, with few
exceptions, had gone out with the teamsters. The teaming firms were not
half-filling their contracts, but the employers’ association was helping
them. In fact, half the employers’ associations of the Pacific Coast
were helping the Oakland Employers’ Association.

Saxon was behind a month’s rent, which, when it is considered that rent
was paid in advance, was equivalent to two months. Likewise, she was
two months behind in the installments on the furniture. Yet she was not
pressed very hard by Salinger’s, the furniture dealers.

“We’re givin’ you all the rope we can,” said their collector. “My orders
is to make you dig up every cent I can and at the same time not to be
too hard. Salinger’s are trying to do the right thing, but they’re up
against it, too. You’ve no idea how many accounts like yours they’re
carrying along. Sooner or later they’ll have to call a halt or get it in
the neck themselves. And in the meantime just see if you can’t scrape up
five dollars by next week--just to cheer them along, you know.”

One of the stablemen who had not gone out, Henderson by name, worked at
Billy’s stables. Despite the urging of the bosses to eat and sleep in
the stable like the other men, Henderson had persisted in coming home
each morning to his little house around the corner from Saxon’s on Fifth
street. Several times she had seen him swinging along defiantly, his
dinner pail in his hand, while the neighborhood boys dogged his heels
at a safe distance and informed him in yapping chorus that he was a scab
and no good. But one evening, on his way to work, in a spirit of bravado
he went into the Pile-Drivers’ Home, the saloon at Seventh and Pine.
There it was his mortal mischance to encounter Otto Frank, a striker
who drove from the same stable. Not many minutes later an ambulance was
hurrying Henderson to the receiving hospital with a fractured skull,
while a patrol wagon was no less swiftly carrying Otto Frank to the city
prison.

Maggie Donahue it was, eyes shining with gladness, who told Saxon of the
happening.

“Served him right, too, the dirty scab,” Maggie concluded.

“But his poor wife!” was Saxon’s cry. “She’s not strong. And then the
children. She’ll never be able to take care of them if her husband
dies.”

“An’ serve her right, the damned slut!”

Saxon was both shocked and hurt by the Irishwoman’s brutality. But
Maggie was implacable.

“‘Tis all she or any woman deserves that’ll put up an’ live with a scab.
What about her children? Let’m starve, an’ her man a-takin’ the food out
of other children’s mouths.”

Mrs. Olsen’s attitude was different. Beyond passive sentimental pity
for Henderson’s wife and children, she gave them no thought, her chief
concern being for Otto Frank and Otto Frank’s wife and children--herself
and Mrs. Frank being full sisters.

“If he dies, they will hang Otto,” she said. “And then what will poor
Hilda do? She has varicose veins in both legs, and she never can stand
on her feet all day an’ work for wages. And me, I cannot help. Ain’t
Carl out of work, too?”

Billy had still another point of view.

“It will give the strike a black eye, especially if Henderson croaks,”
 he worried, when he came home. “They’ll hang Frank on record time.
Besides, we’ll have to put up a defense, an’ lawyers charge like Sam
Hill. They’ll eat a hole in our treasury you could drive every team in
Oakland through. An’ if Frank hadn’t ben screwed up with whisky he’d
never a-done it. He’s the mildest, good-naturedest man sober you ever
seen.”

Twice that evening Billy left the house to find out if Henderson was
dead yet. In the morning the papers gave little hope, and the evening
papers published his death. Otto Frank lay in jail without bail. The
Tribune demanded a quick trial and summary execution, calling on the
prospective jury manfully to do its duty and dwelling at length on the
moral effect that would be so produced upon the lawless working class.
It went further, emphasizing the salutary effect machine guns would have
on the mob that had taken the fair city of Oakland by the throat.

And all such occurrences struck at Saxon personally. Practically alone
in the world, save for Billy, it was her life, and his, and their mutual
love-life, that was menaced. From the moment he left the house to the
moment of his return she knew no peace of mind. Rough work was afoot, of
which he told her nothing, and she knew he was playing his part in it.
On more than one occasion she noticed fresh-broken skin on his knuckles.
At such times he was remarkably taciturn, and would sit in brooding
silence or go almost immediately to bed. She was afraid to have this
habit of reticence grow on him, and bravely she bid for his confidence.
She climbed into his lap and inside his arms, one of her arms around
his neck, and with the free hand she caressed his hair back from the
forehead and smoothed out the moody brows.

“Now listen to me, Billy Boy,” she began lightly. “You haven’t been
playing fair, and I won’t have it. No!” She pressed his lips shut with
her fingers. “I’m doing the talking now, and because you haven’t been
doing your share of the talking for some time. You remember we agreed
at the start to always talk things over. I was the first to break this,
when I sold my fancy work to Mrs. Higgins without speaking to you about
it. And I was very sorry. I am still sorry. And I’ve never done it
since. Now it’s your turn. You’re not talking things over with me. You
are doing things you don’t tell me about.

“Billy, you’re dearer to me than anything else in the world. You
know that. We’re sharing each other’s lives, only, just now, there’s
something you’re not sharing. Every time your knuckles are sore, there’s
something you don’t share. If you can’t trust me, you can’t trust
anybody. And, besides, I love you so that no matter what you do I’ll go
on loving you just the same.”

Billy gazed at her with fond incredulity.

“Don’t be a pincher,” she teased. “Remember, I stand for whatever you
do.”

“And you won’t buck against me?” he queried.

“How can I? I’m not your boss, Billy. I wouldn’t boss you for anything
in the world. And if you’d let me boss you, I wouldn’t love you half as
much.”

He digested this slowly, and finally nodded.

“An’ you won’t be mad?”

“With you? You’ve never seen me mad yet. Now come on and be generous and
tell me how you hurt your knuckles. It’s fresh to-day. Anybody can see
that.”

“All right. I’ll tell you how it happened.” He stopped and giggled with
genuine boyish glee at some recollection. “It’s like this. You won’t be
mad, now? We gotta do these sort of things to hold our own. Well, here’s
the show, a regular movin’ picture except for file talkin’. Here’s a big
rube comin’ along, hayseed stickin’ out all over, hands like hams an’
feet like Mississippi gunboats. He’d make half as much again as me in
size an’ he’s young, too. Only he ain’t lookin’ for trouble, an’ he’s as
innocent as... well, he’s the innocentest scab that ever come down the
pike an’ bumped into a couple of pickets. Not a regular strike-breaker,
you see, just a big rube that’s read the bosses’ ads an’ come a-humpin’
to town for the big wages.

“An’ here’s Bud Strothers an’ me comin’ along. We always go in pairs
that way, an’ sometimes bigger bunches. I flag the rube. ‘Hello,’ says
I, ‘lookin’ for a job?’ ‘You bet,’ says he. ‘Can you drive?’ ‘Yep.’
‘Four horses!’ ‘Show me to ‘em,’ says he. ‘No josh, now,’ says I;
‘you’re sure wantin’ to drive?’ ‘That’s what I come to town for,’ he
says. ‘You’re the man we’re lookin’ for,’ says I. ‘Come along, an’ we’ll
have you busy in no time.’

“You see, Saxon, we can’t pull it off there, because there’s Tom
Scanlon--you know, the red-headed cop only a couple of blocks away an’
pipin’ us off though not recognizin’ us. So away we go, the three of us,
Bud an’ me leadin’ that boob to take our jobs away from us I guess nit.
We turn into the alley back of Campwell’s grocery. Nobody in sight. Bud
stops short, and the rube an’ me stop.

“‘I don’t think he wants to drive,’ Bud says, considerin’. An’ the rube
says quick, ‘You betcher life I do.’ ‘You’re dead sure you want that
job?’ I says. Yes, he’s dead sure. Nothin’s goin’ to keep him away from
that job. Why, that job’s what he come to town for, an’ we can’t lead
him to it too quick.

“‘Well, my friend,’ says I, ‘it’s my sad duty to inform you that
you’ve made a mistake.’ ‘How’s that?’ he says. ‘Go on,’ I says; ‘you’re
standin’ on your foot.’ And, honest to God, Saxon, that gink looks down
at his feet to see. ‘I don’t understand,’ says he. ‘We’re goin’ to show
you,’ says I.

“An’ then--Biff! Bang! Bingo! Swat! Zooie! Ker-slambango-blam!
Fireworks, Fourth of July, Kingdom Come, blue lights, sky-rockets, an’
hell fire--just like that. It don’t take long when you’re scientific an’
trained to tandem work. Of course it’s hard on the knuckles. But say,
Saxon, if you’d seen that rube before an’ after you’d thought he was a
lightnin’ change artist. Laugh? You’d a-busted.”

Billy halted to give vent to his own mirth. Saxon forced herself to
join with him, but down in her heart was horror. Mercedes was right. The
stupid workers wrangled and snarled over jobs. The clever masters rode
in automobiles and did not wrangle and snarl. They hired other stupid
ones to do the wrangling and snarling for them. It was men like Bert and
Frank Davis, like Chester Johnson and Otto Frank, like Jelly Belly and
the Pinkertons, like Henderson and all the rest of the scabs, who were
beaten up, shot, clubbed, or hanged. Ah, the clever ones were very
clever. Nothing happened to them. They only rode in their automobiles.

“‘You big stiffs,’ the rube snivels as he crawls to his feet at the
end,” Billy was continuing. “‘You think you still want that job?’ I ask.
He shakes his head. Then I read’m the riot act ‘They’s only one thing
for you to do, old hoss, an’ that’s beat it. D’ye get me? Beat it. Back
to the farm for YOU. An’ if you come monkeyin’ around town again, we’ll
be real mad at you. We was only foolin’ this time. But next time we
catch you your own mother won’t know you when we get done with you.’

“An’--say!--you oughta seen’m beat it. I bet he’s goin’ yet. Ah’ when he
gets back to Milpitas, or Sleepy Hollow, or wherever he hangs out, an’
tells how the boys does things in Oakland, it’s dollars to doughnuts
they won’t be a rube in his district that’d come to town to drive if
they offered ten dollars an hour.”

“It was awful,” Saxon said, then laughed well-simulated appreciation.

“But that was nothin’,” Billy went on. “A bunch of the boys caught
another one this morning. They didn’t do a thing to him. My goodness
gracious, no. In less’n two minutes he was the worst wreck they ever
hauled to the receivin’ hospital. The evenin’ papers gave the score:
nose broken, three bad scalp wounds, front teeth out, a broken
collarbone, an’ two broken ribs. Gee! He certainly got all that was
comin’ to him. But that’s nothin’. D’ye want to know what the Frisco
teamsters did in the big strike before the Earthquake? They took every
scab they caught an’ broke both his arms with a crowbar. That was so he
couldn’t drive, you see. Say, the hospitals was filled with ‘em. An’ the
teamsters won that strike, too.”

“But is it necessary, Billy, to be so terrible? I know they’re scabs,
and that they’re taking the bread out of the strikers’ children’s mouths
to put in their own children’s mouths, and that it isn’t fair and all
that; but just the same is it necessary to be so... terrible?”

“Sure thing,” Billy answered confidently. “We just gotta throw the fear
of God into them--when we can do it without bein’ caught.”

“And if you’re caught?”

“Then the union hires the lawyers to defend us, though that ain’t
much good now, for the judges are pretty hostyle, an’ the papers keep
hammerin’ away at them to give stiffer an’ stiffer sentences. Just
the same, before this strike’s over there’ll be a whole lot of guys
a-wishin’ they’d never gone scabbin’.”

Very cautiously, in the next half hour, Saxon tried to feel out her
husband’s attitude, to find if he doubted the rightness of the violence
he and his brother teamsters committed. But Billy’s ethical sanction
was rock-bedded and profound. It never entered his head that he was
not absolutely right. It was the game. Caught in its tangled meshes, he
could see no other way to play it than the way all men played it. He did
not stand for dynamite and murder, however. But then the unions did not
stand for such. Quite naive was his explanation that dynamite and murder
did not pay; that such actions always brought down the condemnation of
the public and broke the strikes. But the healthy beating up of a scab,
he contended--the “throwing of the fear of God into a scab,” as he
expressed it--was the only right and proper thing to do.

“Our folks never had to do such things,” Saxon said finally. “They never
had strikes nor scabs in those times.”

“You bet they didn’t,” Billy agreed. “Them was the good old days. I’d
liked to a-lived then.” He drew a long breath and sighed. “But them
times will never come again.”

“Would you have liked living in the country?” Saxon asked.

“Sure thing.”

“There’s lots of men living in the country now,” she suggested.

“Just the same I notice them a-hikin’ to town to get our jobs,” was his
reply.



CHAPTER XII

A gleam of light came, when Billy got a job driving a grading team for
the contractors of the big bridge then building at Niles. Before he went
he made certain that it was a union job. And a union job it was for two
days, when the concrete workers threw down their tools. The contractors,
evidently prepared for such happening, immediately filled the places
of the concrete men with nonunion Italians. Whereupon the carpenters,
structural ironworkers and teamsters walked out; and Billy, lacking
train fare, spent the rest of the day in walking home.

“I couldn’t work as a scab,” he concluded his tale.

“No,” Saxon said; “you couldn’t work as a scab.”

But she wondered why it was that when men wanted to work, and there was
work to do, yet they were unable to work because their unions said
no. Why were there unions? And, if unions had to be, why were not all
workingmen in them? Then there would be no scabs, and Billy could work
every day. Also, she wondered where she was to get a sack of flour, for
she had long since ceased the extravagance of baker’s bread. And so many
other of the neighborhood women had done this, that the little Welsh
baker had closed up shop and gone away, taking his wife and two little
daughters with him. Look where she would, everybody was being hurt by
the industrial strife.

One afternoon came a caller at her door, and that evening came Billy
with dubious news. He had been approached that day. All he had to do,
he told Saxon, was to say the word, and he could go into the stable as
foreman at one hundred dollars a month.

The nearness of such a sum, the possibility of it, was almost stunning
to Saxon, sitting at a supper which consisted of boiled potatoes,
warmed-over beans, and a small dry onion which they were eating raw.
There was neither bread, coffee, nor butter. The onion Billy had pulled
from his pocket, having picked it up in the street. One hundred dollars
a month! She moistened her lips and fought for control.

“What made them offer it to you?” she questioned.

“That’s easy,” was his answer. “They got a dozen reasons. The guy the
boss has had exercisin’ Prince and King is a dub. King has gone lame in
the shoulders. Then they’re guessin’ pretty strong that I’m the party
that’s put a lot of their scabs outa commission. Macklin’s ben their
foreman for years an’ years--why I was in knee pants when he was
foreman. Well, he’s sick an’ all in. They gotta have somebody to take
his place. Then, too, I’ve been with ‘em a long time. An’ on top of
that, I’m the man for the job. They know I know horses from the ground
up. Hell, it’s all I’m good for, except sluggin’.”

“Think of it, Billy!” she breathed. “A hundred dollars a month! A
hundred dollars a month!”

“An’ throw the fellows down,” he said.

It was not a question. Nor was it a statement. It was anything Saxon
chose to make of it. They looked at each other. She waited for him to
speak; but he continued merely to look. It came to her that she was
facing one of the decisive moments of her life, and she gripped herself
to face it in all coolness. Nor would Billy proffer her the slightest
help. Whatever his own judgment might be, he masked it with an
expressionless face. His eyes betrayed nothing. He looked and waited.

“You... you can’t do that, Billy,” she said finally. “You can’t throw
the fellows down.”

His hand shot out to hers, and his face was a sudden, radiant dawn.

“Put her there!” he cried, their hands meeting and clasping. “You’re the
truest true blue wife a man ever had. If all the other fellows’ wives
was like you, we could win any strike we tackled.”

“What would you have done if you weren’t married, Billy?”

“Seen ‘em in hell first.”

“Than it doesn’t make any difference being married. I’ve got to stand by
you in everything you stand for. I’d be a nice wife if I didn’t.”

She remembered her caller of the afternoon, and knew the moment was too
propitious to let pass.

“There was a man here this afternoon, Billy. He wanted a room. I told
him I’d speak to you. He said he would pay six dollars a month for the
back bedroom. That would pay half a month’s installment on the furniture
and buy a sack of flour, and we’re all out of flour.”

Billy’s old hostility to the idea was instantly uppermost, and Saxon
watched him anxiously.

“Some scab in the shops, I suppose?”

“No; he’s firing on the freight run to San Jose. Harmon, he said his
name was, James Harmon. They’ve just transferred him from the Truckee
division. He’ll sleep days mostly, he said; and that’s why he wanted a
quiet house without children in it.”

In the end, with much misgiving, and only after Saxon had insistently
pointed out how little work it entailed on her, Billy consented, though
he continued to protest, as an afterthought:

“But I don’t want you makin’ beds for any man. It ain’t right, Saxon. I
oughta take care of you.”

“And you would,” she flashed back at him, “if you’d take the
foremanship. Only you can’t. It wouldn’t be right. And if I’m to stand
by you it’s only fair to let me do what I can.”

James Harmon proved even less a bother than Saxon had anticipated. For
a fireman he was scrupulously clean, always washing up in the roundhouse
before he came home. He used the key to the kitchen door, coming and
going by the back steps. To Saxon he barely said how-do-you-do or good
day; and, sleeping in the day time and working at night, he was in the
house a week before Billy laid eyes on him.

Billy had taken to coming home later and later, and to going out after
supper by himself. He did not offer to tell Saxon where he went. Nor did
she ask. For that matter it required little shrewdness on her part to
guess. The fumes of whisky were on his lips at such times. His slow,
deliberate ways were even slower, even more deliberate. Liquor did
not affect his legs. He walked as soberly as any man. There was no
hesitancy, no faltering, in his muscular movements. The whisky went to
his brain, making his eyes heavy-lidded and the cloudiness of them
more cloudy. Not that he was flighty, nor quick, nor irritable. On the
contrary, the liquor imparted to his mental processes a deep gravity and
brooding solemnity. He talked little, but that little was ominous
and oracular. At such times there was no appeal from his judgment, no
discussion. He knew, as God knew. And when he chose to speak a harsh
thought, it was ten-fold harsher than ordinarily, because it seemed
to proceed out of such profundity of cogitation, because it was as
prodigiously deliberate in its incubation as it was in its enunciation.

It was not a nice side he was showing to Saxon. It was, almost, as if a
stranger had come to live with her. Despite herself, she found herself
beginning to shrink from him. And little could she comfort herself
with the thought that it was not his real self, for she remembered his
gentleness and considerateness, all his finenesses of the past. Then
he had made a continual effort to avoid trouble and fighting. Now he
enjoyed it, exulted in it, went looking for it. All this showed in
his face. No longer was he the smiling, pleasant-faced boy. He smiled
infrequently now. His face was a man’s face. The lips, the eyes, the
lines were harsh as his thoughts were harsh.

He was rarely unkind to Saxon; but, on the other hand he was
rarely kind. His attitude toward her was growing negative. He was
disinterested. Despite the fight for the union she was enduring with
him, putting up with him shoulder to shoulder, she occupied but little
space in his mind. When he acted toward her gently, she could see that
it was merely mechanical, just as she was well aware that the endearing
terms he used, the endearing caresses he gave, were only habitual. The
spontaneity and warmth had gone out. Often, when he was not in liquor,
flashes of the old Billy came back, but even such flashes dwindled in
frequency. He was growing preoccupied, moody. Hard times and the bitter
stresses of industrial conflict strained him. Especially was this
apparent in his sleep, when he suffered paroxysms of lawless dreams,
groaning and muttering, clenching his fists, grinding his teeth,
twisting with muscular tensions, his face writhing with passions and
violences, his throat guttering with terrible curses that rasped and
aborted on his lips. And Saxon, lying beside him, afraid of this visitor
to her bed whom she did not know, remembered what Mary had told her of
Bert. He, too, had cursed and clenched his fists, in his nights fought
out the battles of his days.

One thing, however, Saxon saw clearly. By no deliberate act of Billy’s
was he becoming this other and unlovely Billy. Were there no strike, no
snarling and wrangling over jobs, there would be only the old Billy she
had loved in all absoluteness. This sleeping terror in him would have
lain asleep. It was something that was being awakened in him, an image
incarnate of outward conditions, as cruel, as ugly, as maleficent as
were those outward conditions. But if the strike continued, then,
she feared, with reason, would this other and grisly self of Billy
strengthen to fuller and more forbidding stature. And this, she knew,
would mean the wreck of their love-life. Such a Billy she could not
love; in its nature such a Billy was not lovable nor capable of love.
And then, at the thought of offspring, she shuddered. It was too
terrible. And at such moments of contemplation, from her soul the
inevitable plaint of the human went up: WHY? WHY? WHY?

Billy, too, had his unanswerable queries.

“Why won’t the building trades come out?” he demanded wrathfuly of the
obscurity that veiled the ways of living and the world. “But no; O’Brien
won’t stand for a strike, and he has the Building Trades Council under
his thumb. But why don’t they chuck him and come out anyway? We’d win
hands down all along the line. But no, O’Brien’s got their goat, an’ him
up to his dirty neck in politics an’ graft! An’ damn the Federation of
Labor! If all the railroad boys had come out, wouldn’t the shop men have
won instead of bein’ licked to a frazzle? Lord, I ain’t had a smoke of
decent tobacco or a cup of decent coffee in a coon’s age. I’ve forgotten
what a square meal tastes like. I weighed myself yesterday. Fifteen
pounds lighter than when the strike begun. If it keeps on much more I
can fight middleweight. An’ this is what I get after payin’ dues into
the union for years and years. I can’t get a square meal, an’ my wife
has to make other men’s beds. It makes my tired ache. Some day I’ll get
real huffy an’ chuck that lodger out.”

“But it’s not his fault, Billy,” Saxon protested.

“Who said it was?” Billy snapped roughly. “Can’t I kick in general if
I want to? Just the same it makes me sick. What’s the good of organized
labor if it don’t stand together? For two cents I’d chuck the whole
thing up an’ go over to the employers. Only I wouldn’t, God damn them!
If they think they can beat us down to our knees, let ‘em go ahead an’
try it, that’s all. But it gets me just the same. The whole world’s
clean dippy. They ain’t no sense in anything. What’s the good of
supportin’ a union that can’t win a strike? What’s the good of knockin’
the blocks off of scabs when they keep a-comin’ thick as ever? The whole
thing’s bughouse, an’ I guess I am, too.”

Such an outburst on Billy’s part was so unusual that it was the only
time Saxon knew it to occur. Always he was sullen, and dogged, and
unwhipped; while whisky only served to set the maggots of certitude
crawling in his brain.

One night Billy did not get home till after twelve. Saxon’s anxiety was
increased by the fact that police fighting and head breaking had been
reported to have occurred. When Billy came, his appearance verified
the report. His coatsleeves were half torn off. The Windsor tie had
disappeared from under his soft turned-down collar, and every button had
been ripped off the front of the shirt. When he took his hat off, Saxon
was frightened by a lump on his head the size of an apple.

“D’ye know who did that? That Dutch slob Hermanmann, with a riot club.
An’ I’ll get’m for it some day, good an’ plenty. An’ there’s another
fellow I got staked out that’ll be my meat when this strike’s over an’
things is settled down. Blanchard’s his name, Roy Blanchard.”

“Not of Blanchard, Perkins and Company?” Saxon asked, busy washing
Billy’s hurt and making her usual fight to keep him calm.

“Yep; except he’s the son of the old man. What’s he do, that ain’t done
a tap of work in all his life except to blow the old man’s money? He
goes strike-breakin’. Grandstand play, that’s what I call it. Gets his
name in the papers an makes all the skirts he runs with fluster up an’
say: ‘My! Some bear, that Roy Blanchard, some bear.’ Some bear--the
gazabo! He’ll be bear-meat for me some day. I never itched so hard to
lick a man in my life.

“And--oh, I guess I’ll pass that Dutch cop up. He got his already.
Somebody broke his head with a lump of coal the size of a water bucket.
That was when the wagons was turnin’ into Franklin, just off Eighth, by
the old Galindo Hotel. They was hard fightin’ there, an’ some guy in the
hotel lams that coal down from the second story window.

“They was fightin’ every block of the way--bricks, cobblestones, an’
police-clubs to beat the band. They don’t dast call out the troops. An’
they was afraid to shoot. Why, we tore holes through the police force,
an’ the ambulances and patrol wagons worked over-time. But say, we got
the procession blocked at Fourteenth and Broadway, right under the
nose of the City Hall, rushed the rear end, cut out the horses of five
wagons, an’ handed them college guys a few love-pats in passin’. All
that saved ‘em from hospital was the police reserves. Just the same we
had ‘em jammed an hour there. You oughta seen the street cars blocked,
too--Broadway, Fourteenth, San Pablo, as far as you could see.”

“But what did Blanchard do?” Saxon called him back.

“He led the procession, an’ he drove my team. All the teams was from my
stable. He rounded up a lot of them college fellows--fraternity guys,
they’re called--yaps that live off their fathers’ money. They come to
the stable in big tourin’ cars an’ drove out the wagons with half the
police of Oakland to help them. Say, it was sure some day. The
sky rained cobblestones. An’ you oughta heard the clubs on our
heads--rat-tat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat-tat! An’ say, the chief of police,
in a police auto, sittin’ up like God Almighty--just before we got to
Peralta street they was a block an’ the police chargin’, an’ an old
woman, right from her front gate, lammed the chief of police full in the
face with a dead cat. Phew! You could hear it. ‘Arrest that woman!’ he
yells, with his handkerchief out. But the boys beat the cops to her an’
got her away. Some day? I guess yes. The receivin’ hospital went outa
commission on the jump, an’ the overflow was spilled into St. Mary’s
Hospital, an’ Fabiola, an’ I don’t know where else. Eight of our men was
pulled, an’ a dozen of the Frisco teamsters that’s come over to
help. They’re holy terrors, them Frisco teamsters. It seemed half the
workingmen of Oakland was helpin’ us, an’ they must be an army of them
in jail. Our lawyers’ll have to take their cases, too.

“But take it from me, it’s the last we’ll see of Roy Blanchard an’
yaps of his kidney buttin’ into our affairs. I guess we showed ‘em some
football. You know that brick buildin’ they’re puttin’ up on Bay
street? That’s where we loaded up first, an’, say, you couldn’t see the
wagon-seats for bricks when they started from the stables. Blanchard
drove the first wagon, an’ he was knocked clean off the seat once, but
he stayed with it.”

“He must have been brave,” Saxon commented.

“Brave?” Billy flared. “With the police, an’ the army an’ navy behind
him? I suppose you’ll be takin’ their part next. Brave? A-takin’ the
food outa the mouths of our women an children. Didn’t Curley Jones’s
little kid die last night? Mother’s milk not nourishin’, that’s what it
was, because she didn’t have the right stuff to eat. An’ I know, an’
you know, a dozen old aunts, an’ sister-in-laws, an’ such, that’s had to
hike to the poorhouse because their folks couldn’t take care of ‘em in
these times.”

In the morning paper Saxon read the exciting account of the futile
attempt to break the teamsters’ strike. Roy Blanchard was hailed a hero
and held up as a model of wealthy citizenship. And to save herself
she could not help glowing with appreciation of his courage. There was
something fine in his going out to face the snarling pack. A brigadier
general of the regular army was quoted as lamenting the fact that the
troops had not been called out to take the mob by the throat and
shake law and order into it. “This is the time for a little healthful
bloodletting,” was the conclusion of his remarks, after deploring
the pacific methods of the police. “For not until the mob has been
thoroughly beaten and cowed will tranquil industrial conditions obtain.”

That evening Saxon and Billy went up town. Returning home and finding
nothing to eat, he had taken her on one arm, his overcoat on the other.
The overcoat he had pawned at Uncle Sam’s, and he and Saxon had eaten
drearily at a Japanese restaurant which in some miraculous way managed
to set a semi-satisfying meal for ten cents. After eating, they started
on their way to spend an additional five cents each on a moving picture
show.

At the Central Bank Building, two striking teamsters accosted Billy
and took him away with them. Saxon waited on the corner, and when
he returned, three quarters of an hour later, she knew he had been
drinking.

Half a block on, passing the Forum Cafe, he stopped suddenly. A
limousine stood at the curb, and into it a young man was helping several
wonderfully gowned women. A chauffeur sat in the driver’s sent. Billy
touched the young man on the arm. He was as broad-shouldered as Billy
and slightly taller. Blue-eyed, strong-featured, in Saxon’s opinion he
was undeniably handsome.

“Just a word, sport,” Billy said, in a low, slow voice.

The young man glanced quickly at Billy and Saxon, and asked impatiently:

“Well, what is it?”

“You’re Blanchard,” Billy began. “I seen you yesterday lead out that
bunch of teams.”

“Didn’t I do it all right?” Blanchard asked gaily, with a flash of
glance to Saxon and back again.

“Sure. But that ain’t what I want to talk about.”

“Who are you?” the other demanded with sudden suspicion.

“A striker. It just happens you drove my team, that’s all. No; don’t
move for a gun.” (As Blanchard half reached toward his hip pocket.) “I
ain’t startin’ anythin’ here. But I just want to tell you something.”

“Be quick, then.”

Blanchard lifted one foot to step into the machine.

“Sure,” Billy went on without any diminution of his exasperating
slowness. “What I want to tell you is that I’m after you. Not now, when
the strike’s on, but some time later I’m goin’ to get you an’ give you
the beatin’ of your life.”

Blanchard looked Billy over with new interest and measuring eyes that
sparkled with appreciation.

“You are a husky yourself,” he said. “But do you think you can do it?”

“Sure. You’re my meat.”

“All right, then, my friend. Look me up after the strike is settled, and
I’ll give you a chance at me.”

“Remember,” Billy added, “I got you staked out.”

Blanchard nodded, smiled genially to both of them, raised his hat to
Saxon, and stepped into the machine.



CHAPTER XIII

From now on, to Saxon, life seemed bereft of its last reason and rhyme.
It had become senseless, nightmarish. Anything irrational was possible.
There was nothing stable in the anarchic flux of affairs that swept her
on she knew not to what catastrophic end. Had Billy been dependable, all
would still have been well. With him to cling to she would have faced
everything fearlessly. But he had been whirled away from her in the
prevailing madness. So radical was the change in him that he seemed
almost an intruder in the house. Spiritually he was such an intruder.
Another man looked out of his eyes--a man whose thoughts were of
violence and hatred; a man to whom there was no good in anything, and
who had become an ardent protagonist of the evil that was rampant and
universal. This man no longer condemned Bert, himself muttering vaguely
of dynamite, and sabotage, and revolution.

Saxon strove to maintain that sweetness and coolness of flesh and spirit
that Billy had praised in the old days. Once, only, she lost control.
He had been in a particularly ugly mood, and a final harshness and
unfairness cut her to the quick.

“Who are you speaking to?” she flamed out at him.

He was speechless and abashed, and could only stare at her face, which
was white with anger.

“Don’t you ever speak to me like that again, Billy,” she commanded.

“Aw, can’t you put up with a piece of bad temper?” he muttered, half
apologetically, yet half defiantly. “God knows I got enough to make me
cranky.”

After he left the house she flung herself on the bed and cried
heart-brokenly. For she, who knew so thoroughly the humility of love,
was a proud woman. Only the proud can be truly humble, as only the
strong may know the fullness of gentleness. But what was the use, she
demanded, of being proud and game, when the only person in the world who
mattered to her lost his own pride and gameness and fairness and gave
her the worse share of their mutual trouble?

And now, as she had faced alone the deeper, organic hurt of the loss
of her baby, she faced alone another, and, in a way, an even greater
personal trouble. Perhaps she loved Billy none the less, but her love
was changing into something less proud, less confident, less trusting;
it was becoming shot through with pity--with the pity that is parent to
contempt. Her own loyalty was threatening to weaken, and she shuddered
and shrank from the contempt she could see creeping in.

She struggled to steel herself to face the situation. Forgiveness stole
into her heart, and she knew relief until the thought came that in the
truest, highest love forgiveness should have no place. And again she
cried, and continued her battle. After all, one thing was incontestable:
THIS BILLY WAS NOT THE BILLY SHE HAD LOVED. This Billy was another man,
a sick man, and no more to be held responsible than a fever-patient
in the ravings of delirium. She must be Billy’s nurse, without pride,
without contempt, with nothing to forgive. Besides, he was really
bearing the brunt of the fight, was in the thick of it, dizzy with the
striking of blows and the blows he received. If fault there was, it lay
elsewhere, somewhere in the tangled scheme of things that made men snarl
over jobs like dogs over bones.

So Saxon arose and buckled on her armor again for the hardest fight
of all in the world’s arena--the woman’s fight. She ejected from her
thought all doubting and distrust. She forgave nothing, for there was
nothing requiring forgiveness. She pledged herself to an absoluteness of
belief that her love and Billy’s was unsullied, unperturbed--severe as
it had always been, as it would be when it came back again after the
world settled down once more to rational ways.

That night, when he came home, she proposed, as an emergency measure,
that she should resume her needlework and help keep the pot boiling
until the strike was over. But Billy would hear nothing of it.

“It’s all right,” he assured her repeatedly. “They ain’t no call for you
to work. I’m goin’ to get some money before the week is out. An’ I’ll
turn it over to you. An’ Saturday night we’ll go to the show--a real
show, no movin’ pictures. Harvey’s nigger minstrels is comin’ to town.
We’ll go Saturday night. I’ll have the money before that, as sure as
beans is beans.”

Friday evening he did not come home to supper, which Saxon regretted,
for Maggie Donahue had returned a pan of potatoes and two quarts of
flour (borrowed the week before), and it was a hearty meal that awaited
him. Saxon kept the stove going till nine o’clock, when, despite her
reluctance, she went to bed. Her preference would have been to wait up,
but she did not dare, knowing full well what the effect would be on him
did he come home in liquor.

The clock had just struck one, when she heard the click of the gate.
Slowly, heavily, ominously, she heard him come up the steps and fumble
with his key at the door. He entered the bedroom, and she heard him
sigh as he sat down. She remained quiet, for she had learned the
hypersensitiveness induced by drink and was fastidiously careful not to
hurt him even with the knowledge that she had lain awake for him. It was
not easy. Her hands were clenched till the nails dented the palms, and
her body was rigid in her passionate effort for control. Never had he
come home as bad as this.

“Saxon,” he called thickly. “Saxon.”

She stired and yawned.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Won’t you strike a light? My fingers is all thumbs.”

Without looking at him, she complied; but so violent was the nervous
trembling of her hands that the glass chimney tinkled against the globe
and the match went out.

“I ain’t drunk, Saxon,” he said in the darkness, a hint of amusement in
his thick voice. “I’ve only had two or three jolts ... of that sort.”

On her second attempt with the lamp she succeeded. When she turned to
look at him she screamed with fright. Though she had heard his voice
and knew him to be Billy, for the instant she did not recognize him. His
face was a face she had never known. Swollen, bruised, discolored, every
feature had been beaten out of all semblance of familiarity. One eye
was entirely closed, the other showed through a narrow slit of
blood-congested flesh. One ear seemed to have lost most of its skin. The
whole face was a swollen pulp. His right jaw, in particular, was twice
the size of the left. No wonder his speech had been thick, was her
thought, as she regarded the fearfully cut and swollen lips that still
bled. She was sickened by the sight, and her heart went out to him in
a great wave of tenderness. She wanted to put her arms around him, and
cuddle and soothe him; but her practical judgment bade otherwise.

“You poor, poor boy,” she cried. “Tell me what you want me to do first.
I don’t know about such things.”

“If you could help me get my clothes off,” he suggested meekly and
thickly. “I got ‘em on before I stiffened up.”

“And then hot water--that will be good,” she said, as she began gently
drawing his coat sleeve over a puffed and helpless hand.

“I told you they was all thumbs,” he grimaced, holding up his hand and
squinting at it with the fraction of sight remaining to him.

“You sit and wait,” she said, “till I start the fire and get the hot
water going. I won’t be a minute. Then I’ll finish getting your clothes
off.”

From the kitchen she could hear him mumbling to himself, and when she
returned he was repeating over and over:

“We needed the money, Saxon. We needed the money.”

Drunken he was not, she could see that, and from his babbling she knew
he was partly delirious.

“He was a surprise box,” he wandered on, while she proceeded to undress
him; and bit by bit she was able to piece together what had happened.
“He was an unknown from Chicago. They sprang him on me. The secretary
of the Acme Club warned me I’d have my hands full. An’ I’d a-won if
I’d been in condition. But fifteen pounds off without trainin’ ain’t
condition. Then I’d been drinkin’ pretty regular, an’ I didn’t have my
wind.”

But Saxon, stripping his undershirt, no longer heard him. As with his
face, she could not recognize his splendidly muscled back. The white
sheath of silken skin was torn and bloody. The lacerations occurred
oftenest in horizontal lines, though there were perpendicular lines as
well.

“How did you get all that?” she asked.

“The ropes. I was up against ‘em more times than I like to remember.
Gee! He certainly gave me mine. But I fooled ‘m. He couldn’t put me out.
I lasted the twenty rounds, an’ I wanta tell you he’s got some marks to
remember me by. If he ain’t got a couple of knuckles broke in the left
hand I’m a geezer.--Here, feel my head here. Swollen, eh? Sure thing. He
hit that more times than he’s wishin’ he had right now. But, oh, what a
lacin’! What a lacin’! I never had anything like it before. The Chicago
Terror, they call ‘m. I take my hat off to ‘m. He’s some bear. But
I could a-made ‘m take the count if I’d ben in condition an’ had my
wind.--Oh! Ouch! Watch out! It’s like a boil!”

Fumbling at his waistband, Saxon’s hand had come in contact with a
brightly inflamed surface larger than a soup plate.

“That’s from the kidney blows,” Billy explained. “He was a regular devil
at it. ‘Most every clench, like clock work, down he’d chop one on me. It
got so sore I was wincin’... until I got groggy an’ didn’t know much of
anything. It ain’t a knockout blow, you know, but it’s awful wearin’ in
a long fight. It takes the starch out of you.”

When his knees were bared, Saxon could see the skin across the knee-caps
was broken and gone.

“The skin ain’t made to stand a heavy fellow like me on the knees,” he
volunteered. “An’ the rosin in the canvas cuts like Sam Hill.”

The tears were in Saxon’s eyes, and she could have cried over the
manhandled body of her beautiful sick boy.

As she carried his pants across the room to hang them up, a jingle of
money came from them. He called her back, and from the pocket drew forth
a handful of silver.

“We needed the money, we needed the money,” he kept muttering, as
he vainly tried to count the coins; and Saxon knew that his mind was
wandering again.

It cut her to the heart, for she could not but remember the harsh
thoughts that had threatened her loyalty during the week past. After
all, Billy, the splendid physical man, was only a boy, her boy. And
he had faced and endured all this terrible punishment for her, for the
house and the furniture that were their house and furniture. He said so,
now, when he scarcely knew what he said. He said “WE needed the money.”
 She was not so absent from his thoughts as she had fancied. Here, down
to the naked tie-ribs of his soul, when he was half unconscious, the
thought of her persisted, was uppermost. We needed the money. WE!

The tears were trickling down her checks as she bent over him, and it
seemed she had never loved him so much as now.

“Here; you count,” he said, abandoning the effort and handing the money
to her. “... How much do you make it?”

“Nineteen dollars and thirty-five cents.”

“That’s right... the loser’s end... twenty dollars. I had some drinks,
an’ treated a couple of the boys, an’ then there was carfare. If I’d
a-won, I’d a-got a hundred. That’s what I fought for. It’d a-put us
on Easy street for a while. You take it an’ keep it. It’s better ‘n
nothin’.”

In bed, he could not sleep because of his pain, and hour by hour she
worked over him, renewing the hot compresses over his bruises, soothing
the lacerations with witch hazel and cold cream and the tenderest of
finger tips. And all the while, with broken intervals of groaning, he
babbled on, living over the fight, seeking relief in telling her his
trouble, voicing regret at loss of the money, and crying out the hurt
to his pride. Far worse than the sum of his physical hurts was his hurt
pride.

“He couldn’t put me out, anyway. He had full swing at me in the times
when I was too much in to get my hands up. The crowd was crazy. I
showed ‘em some stamina. They was times when he only rocked me, for I’d
evaporated plenty of his steam for him in the openin’ rounds. I don’t
know how many times he dropped me. Things was gettin’ too dreamy....

“Sometimes, toward the end, I could see three of him in the ring at
once, an’ I wouldn’t know which to hit an’ which to duck....

“But I fooled ‘m. When I couldn’t see, or feel, an’ when my knees
was shakin an my head goin’ like a merry-go-round, I’d fall safe into
clenches just the same. I bet the referee’s arms is tired from draggin’
us apart....

“But what a lacin’! What a lacin’! Say, Saxon... where are you? Oh,
there, eh? I guess I was dreamin’. But, say, let this be a lesson to
you. I broke my word an’ went fightin’, an’ see what I got. Look at me,
an’ take warnin’ so you won’t make the same mistake an’ go to makin’ an’
sellin’ fancy work again....

“But I fooled ‘em--everybody. At the beginnin’ the bettin’ was even. By
the sixth round the wise gazabos was offerin’ two to one against me. I
was licked from the first drop outa the box--anybody could see that;
but he couldn’t put me down for the count. By the tenth round they was
offerin’ even that I wouldn’t last the round. At the eleventh they was
offerin’ I wouldn’t last the fifteenth. An’ I lasted the whole twenty.
But some punishment, I want to tell you, some punishment.

“Why, they was four rounds I was in dreamland all the time... only I
kept on my feet an’ fought, or took the count to eight an’ got up, an’
stalled an’ covered an’ whanged away. I don’t know what I done, except I
must a-done like that, because I wasn’t there. I don’t know a thing
from the thirteenth, when he sent me to the mat on my head, till the
eighteenth.

“Where was I? Oh, yes. I opened my eyes, or one eye, because I had only
one that would open. An’ there I was, in my corner, with the towels
goin’ an’ ammonia in my nose an’ Bill Murphy with a chunk of ice at the
back of my neck. An’ there, across the ring, I could see the Chicago
Terror, an’ I had to do some thinkin’ to remember I was fightin’ him. It
was like I’d been away somewhere an’ just got back. ‘What round’s this
comin’?’ I ask Bill. ‘The eighteenth,’ says he. ‘The hell,’ I says.
‘What’s come of all the other rounds? The last I was fightin’ in was the
thirteenth.’ ‘You’re a wonder,’ says Bill. ‘You’ve ben out four rounds,
only nobody knows it except me. I’ve ben tryin’ to get you to quit all
the time.’ Just then the gong sounds, an’ I can see the Terror startin’
for me. ‘Quit,’ says Bill, makin’ a move to throw in the towel. ‘Not on
your life,’ I says. ‘Drop it, Bill.’ But he went on wantin’ me to quit.
By that time the Terror had come across to my corner an’ was standin’
with his hands down, lookin’ at me. The referee was lookin’, too, an’
the house was that quiet, lookin’, you could hear a pin drop. An’ my
head was gettin’ some clearer, but not much.

“‘You can’t win,’ Bill says.

“‘Watch me,’ says I. An’ with that I make a rush for the Terror,
catchin’ him unexpected. I’m that groggy I can’t stand, but I just keep
a-goin’, wallopin’ the Terror clear across the ring to his corner, where
he slips an’ falls, an’ I fall on top of ‘m. Say, that crowd goes crazy.

“Where was I?--My head’s still goin’ round I guess. It’s buzzin’ like a
swarm of bees.”

“You’d just fallen on top of him in his corner,” Saxon prompted.

“Oh, yes. Well, no sooner are we on our feet--an’ I can’t stand--I rush
‘m the same way back across to my corner an’ fall on ‘m. That was luck.
We got up, an’ I’d a-fallen, only I clenched an’ held myself up by him.
‘I got your goat,’ I says to him. ‘An’ now I’m goin’ to eat you up.’

“I hadn’t his goat, but I was playin’ to get a piece of it, an’ I got
it, rushin’ ‘m as soon as the referee drags us apart an’ fetchin’ ‘m
a lucky wallop in the stomach that steadied ‘m an’ made him almighty
careful. Too almighty careful. He was afraid to chance a mix with me.
He thought I had more fight left in me than I had. So you see I got that
much of his goat anyway.

“An’ he couldn’t get me. He didn’t get me. An’ in the twentieth we stood
in the middle of the ring an’ exchanged wallops even. Of course, I’d
made a fine showin’ for a licked man, but he got the decision, which
was right. But I fooled ‘m. He couldn’t get me. An’ I fooled the gazabos
that was bettin’ he would on short order.”

At last, as dawn came on, Billy slept. He groaned and moaned, his face
twisting with pain, his body vainly moving and tossing in quest of
easement.

So this was prizefighting, Saxon thought. It was much worse than she
had dreamed. She had had no idea that such damage could be wrought with
padded gloves. He must never fight again. Street rioting was preferable.
She was wondering how much of his silk had been lost, when he mumbled
and opened his eyes.

“What is it?” she asked, ere it came to her that his eyes were unseeing
and that he was in delirium.

“Saxon!... Saxon!” he called.

“Yes, Billy. What is it?”

His hand fumbled over the bed where ordinarily it would have encountered
her.

Again he called her, and she cried her presence loudly in his ear. He
sighed with relief and muttered brokenly:

“I had to do it.... We needed the money.”

His eyes closed, and he slept more soundly, though his muttering
continued. She had heard of congestion of the brain, and was frightened.
Then she remembered his telling her of the ice Billy Murphy had held
against his head.

Throwing a shawl over her head, she ran to the Pile Drivers’ Home on
Seventh street. The barkeeper had just opened, and was sweeping out.
From the refrigerator he gave her all the ice she wished to carry,
breaking it into convenient pieces for her. Back in the house, she
applied the ice to the base of Billy’s brain, placed hot irons to his
feet, and bathed his head with witch hazel made cold by resting on the
ice.

He slept in the darkened room until late afternoon, when, to Saxon’s
dismay, he insisted on getting up.

“Gotta make a showin’,” he explained. “They ain’t goin’ to have the
laugh on me.”

In torment he was helped by her to dress, and in torment he went forth
from the house so that his world should have ocular evidence that the
beating he had received did not keep him in bed.

It was another kind of pride, different from a woman’s, and Saxon
wondered if it were the less admirable for that.



CHAPTER XIV

In the days that followed Billy’s swellings went down and the bruises
passed away with surprising rapidity. The quick healing of the
lacerations attested the healthiness of his blood. Only remained
the black eyes, unduly conspicuous on a face as blond as his. The
discoloration was stubborn, persisting half a month, in which time
happened divers events of importance.

Otto Frank’s trial had been expeditious. Found guilty by a jury notable
for the business and professional men on it, the death sentence was
passed upon him and he was removed to San Quentin for execution.

The case of Chester Johnson and the fourteen others had taken longer,
but within the same week, it, too, was finished. Chester Johnson was
sentenced to be hanged. Two got life; three, twenty years. Only two were
acquitted. The remaining seven received terms of from two to ten years.

The effect on Saxon was to throw her into deep depression. Billy was
made gloomy, but his fighting spirit was not subdued.

“Always some men killed in battle,” he said. “That’s to be expected. But
the way of sentencin’ ‘em gets me. All found guilty was responsible for
the killin’; or none was responsible. If all was, then they should get
the same sentence. They oughta hang like Chester Johnson, or else he
oughtn’t to hang. I’d just like to know how the judge makes up his mind.
It must be like markin’ China lottery tickets. He plays hunches. He
looks at a guy an’ waits for a spot or a number to come into his head.
How else could he give Johnny Black four years an’ Cal Hutchins twenty
years? He played the hunches as they came into his head, an’ it might
just as easy ben the other way around an’ Cal Hutchins got four years
an’ Johnny Black twenty.

“I know both them boys. They hung out with the Tenth an’ Kirkham gang
mostly, though sometimes they ran with my gang. We used to go swimmin’
after school down to Sandy Beach on the marsh, an’ in the Transit slip
where they said the water was sixty feet deep, only it wasn’t. An’ once,
on a Thursday, we dug a lot of clams together, an’ played hookey Friday
to peddle them. An’ we used to go out on the Rock Wall an’ catch pogies
an’ rock cod. One day--the day of the eclipse--Cal caught a perch half
as big as a door. I never seen such a fish. An’ now he’s got to wear the
stripes for twenty years. Lucky he wasn’t married. If he don’t get the
consumption he’ll be an old man when he comes out. Cal’s mother wouldn’t
let ‘m go swimmin’, an’ whenever she suspected she always licked his
hair with her tongue. If it tasted salty, he got a beltin’. But he was
onto himself. Comin’ home, he’d jump somebody’s front fence an’ hold his
head under a faucet.”

“I used to dance with Chester Johnson,” Saxon said. “And I knew his
wife, Kittie Brady, long and long ago. She had next place at the table
to me in the paper-box factory. She’s gone to San Francisco to her
married sister’s. She’s going to have a baby, too. She was awfully
pretty, and there was always a string of fellows after her.”

The effect of the conviction and severe sentences was a bad one on
the union men. Instead of being disheartening, it intensified the
bitterness. Billy’s repentance for having fought and the sweetness and
affection which had flashed up in the days of Saxon’s nursing of him
were blotted out. At home, he scowled and brooded, while his talk took
on the tone of Bert’s in the last days ere that Mohegan died. Also,
Billy stayed away from home longer hours, and was again steadily
drinking.

Saxon well-nigh abandoned hope. Almost was she steeled to the inevitable
tragedy which her morbid fancy painted in a thousand guises. Oftenest,
it was of Billy being brought home on a stretcher. Sometimes it was a
call to the telephone in the corner grocery and the curt information by
a strange voice that her husband was lying in the receiving hospital or
the morgue. And when the mysterious horse-poisoning cases occurred, and
when the residence of one of the teaming magnates was half destroyed by
dynamite, she saw Billy in prison, or wearing stripes, or mounting to
the scaffold at San Quentin while at the same time she could see the
little cottage on Pine street besieged by newspaper reporters and
photographers.

Yet her lively imagination failed altogether to anticipate the real
catastrophe. Harmon, the fireman lodger, passing through the kitchen on
his way out to work, had paused to tell Saxon about the previous day’s
train-wreck in the Alviso marshes, and of how the engineer, imprisoned
under the overturned engine and unhurt, being drowned by the rising
tide, had begged to be shot. Billy came in at the end of the narrative,
and from the somber light in his heavy-lidded eyes Saxon knew he had
been drinking. He glowered at Harmon, and, without greeting to him or
Saxon, leaned his shoulder against the wall.

Harmon felt the awkwardness of the situation, and did his best to appear
oblivious.

“I was just telling your wife--” he began, but was savagely interrupted.

“I don’t care what you was tellin’ her. But I got something to tell you,
Mister Man. My wife’s made up your bed too many times to suit me.”

“Billy!” Saxon cried, her face scarlet with resentment, and hurt, and
shame.

Billy ignored her. Harmon was saying:

“I don’t understand--”

“Well, I don’t like your mug,” Billy informed him. “You’re standin’ on
your foot. Get off of it. Get out. Beat it. D’ye understand that?”

“I don’t know what’s got into him,” Saxon gasped hurriedly to the
fireman. “He’s not himself. Oh, I am so ashamed, so ashamed.”

Billy turned on her.

“You shut your mouth an’ keep outa this.”

“But, Billy,” she remonstrated.

“An’ get outa here. You go into the other room.”

“Here, now,” Harmon broke in. “This is a fine way to treat a fellow.”

“I’ve given you too much rope as it is,” was Billy’s answer.

“I’ve paid my rent regularly, haven’t I?”

“An’ I oughta knock your block off for you. Don’t see any reason I
shouldn’t, for that matter.”

“If you do anything like that, Billy--” Saxon began.

“You here still? Well, if you won’t go into the other room, I’ll see
that you do.”

His hand clutched her arm. For one instant she resisted his strength;
and in that instant, the flesh crushed under his fingers, she realized
the fullness of his strength.

In the front room she could only lie back in the Morris chair sobbing,
and listen to what occurred in the kitchen. “I’ll stay to the end of the
week,” the fireman was saying. “I’ve paid in advance.”

“Don’t make no mistake,” came Billy’s voice, so slow that it was almost
a drawl, yet quivering with rage. “You can’t get out too quick if you
wanta stay healthy--you an’ your traps with you. I’m likely to start
something any moment.”

“Oh, I know you’re a slugger--” the fireman’s voice began.

Then came the unmistakable impact of a blow; the crash of glass; a
scuffle on the back porch; and, finally, the heavy bumps of a body down
the steps. She heard Billy reenter the kitchen, move about, and knew
he was sweeping up the broken glass of the kitchen door. Then he washed
himself at the sink, whistling while he dried his face and hands, and
walked into the front room. She did not look at him. She was too sick
and sad. He paused irresolutely, seeming to make up his mind.

“I’m goin’ up town,” he stated. “They’s a meeting of the union. If I
don’t come back it’ll be because that geezer’s sworn out a warrant.”

He opened the front door and paused. She knew he was looking at her.
Then the door closed and she heard him go down the steps.

Saxon was stunned. She did not think. She did not know what to think.
The whole thing was incomprehensible, incredible. She lay back in the
chair, her eyes closed, her mind almost a blank, crushed by a leaden
feeling that the end had come to everything.

The voices of children playing in the street aroused her. Night had
fallen. She groped her way to a lamp and lighted it. In the kitchen she
stared, lips trembling, at the pitiful, half prepared meal. The fire had
gone out. The water had boiled away from the potatoes. When she lifted
the lid, a burnt smell arose. Methodically she scraped and cleaned the
pot, put things in order, and peeled and sliced the potatoes for next
day’s frying. And just as methodically she went to bed. Her lack of
nervousness, her placidity, was abnormal, so abnormal that she closed
her eyes and was almost immediately asleep. Nor did she awaken till the
sunshine was streaming into the room.

It was the first night she and Billy had slept apart. She was amazed
that she had not lain awake worrying about him. She lay with eyes wide
open, scarcely thinking, until pain in her arm attracted her attention.
It was where Billy had gripped her. On examination she found the bruised
flesh fearfully black and blue. She was astonished, not by the spiritual
fact that such bruise had been administered by the one she loved most in
the world, but by the sheer physical fact that an instant’s pressure had
inflicted so much damage. The strength of a man was a terrible thing.
Quite impersonally, she found herself wondering if Charley Long were as
strong as Billy.

It was not until she dressed and built the fire that she began to
think about more immediate things. Billy had not returned. Then he was
arrested. What was she to do?--leave him in jail, go away, and start
life afresh? Of course it was impossible to go on living with a man
who had behaved as he had. But then, came another thought, WAS it
impossible? After all, he was her husband. FOR BETTER OR WORSE--the
phrase reiterated itself, a monotonous accompaniment to her thoughts,
at the back of her consciousness. To leave him was to surrender. She
carried the matter before the tribunal of her mother’s memory. No; Daisy
would never have surrendered. Daisy was a fighter. Then she, Saxon, must
fight. Besides--and she acknowledged it--readily, though in a cold, dead
way--besides, Billy was better than most husbands. Better than any other
husband she had heard of, she concluded, as she remembered many of his
earlier nicenesses and finenesses, and especially his eternal chant:
NOTHING IS TOO GOOD FOR US. THE ROBERTSES AIN’T ON THE CHEAP.

At eleven o’clock she had a caller. It was Bud Strothers, Billy’s mate
on strike duty. Billy, he told her, had refused bail, refused a lawyer,
had asked to be tried by the Court, had pleaded guilty, and had received
a sentence of sixty dollars or thirty days. Also, he had refused to let
the boys pay his fine.

“He’s clean looney,” Strothers summed up. “Won’t listen to reason. Says
he’ll serve the time out. He’s been tankin’ up too regular, I guess.
His wheels are buzzin’. Here, he give me this note for you. Any time
you want anything send for me. The boys’ll all stand by Bill’s wife. You
belong to us, you know. How are you off for money?”

Proudly she disclaimed any need for money, and not until her visitor
departed did she read Billy’s note:

Dear Saxon--Bud Strothers is going to give you this. Don’t worry about
me. I am going to take my medicine. I deserve it--you know that. I guess
I am gone bughouse. Just the same, I am sorry for what I done. Don’t
come to see me. I don’t want you to. If you need money, the union will
give you some. The business agent is all right. I will be out in a
month. Now, Saxon, you know I love you, and just say to yourself that
you forgive me this time, and you won’t never have to do it again.

                                  Billy.

Bud Strothers was followed by Maggie Donahue, and Mrs. Olsen, who paid
neighborly calls of cheer and were tactful in their offers of help and
in studiously avoiding more reference than was necessary to Billy’s
predicament.

In the afternoon James Harmon arrived. He limped slightly, and Saxon
divined that he was doing his best to minimize that evidence of hurt.
She tried to apologize to him, but he would not listen.

“I don’t blame you, Mrs. Roberts,” he said. “I know it wasn’t your
doing. But your husband wasn’t just himself, I guess. He was fightin’
mad on general principles, and it was just my luck to get in the way,
that was all.”

“But just the same--”

The fireman shook his head.

“I know all about it. I used to punish the drink myself, and I done some
funny things in them days. And I’m sorry I swore that warrant out and
testified. But I was hot in the collar. I’m cooled down now, an’ I’m
sorry I done it.”

“You’re awfully good and kind,” she said, and then began hesitantly on
what was bothering her. “You... you can’t stay now, with him... away,
you know.”

“Yes; that wouldn’t do, would it? I’ll tell you: I’ll pack up right now,
and skin out, and then, before six o’clock, I’ll send a wagon for my
things. Here’s the key to the kitchen door.”

Much as he demurred, she compelled him to receive back the unexpired
portion of his rent. He shook her hand heartily at leaving, and tried to
get her to promise to call upon him for a loan any time she might be in
need.

“It’s all right,” he assured her. “I’m married, and got two boys. One of
them’s got his lungs touched, and she’s with ‘em down in Arizona campin’
out. The railroad helped with passes.”

And as he went down the steps she wondered that so kind a man should be
in so madly cruel a world.

The Donahue boy threw in a spare evening paper, and Saxon found half a
column devoted to Billy. It was not nice. The fact that he had stood
up in the police court with his eyes blacked from some other fray
was noted. He was described as a bully, a hoodlum, a rough-neck, a
professional slugger whose presence in the ranks was a disgrace to
organized labor. The assault he had pleaded guilty of was atrocious and
unprovoked, and if he were a fair sample of a striking teamster, the
only wise thing for Oakland to do was to break up the union and drive
every member from the city. And, finally, the paper complained at the
mildness of the sentence. It should have been six months at least. The
judge was quoted as expressing regret that he had been unable to impose
a six months’ sentence, this inability being due to the condition of
the jails, already crowded beyond capacity by the many cases of assault
committed in the course of the various strikes.

That night, in bed, Saxon experienced her first loneliness. Her brain
seemed in a whirl, and her sleep was broken by vain gropings for the
form of Billy she imagined at her side. At last, she lighted the lamp
and lay staring at the ceiling, wide-eyed, conning over and over the
details of the disaster that had overwhelmed her. She could forgive, and
she could not forgive. The blow to her love-life had been too savage,
too brutal. Her pride was too lacerated to permit her wholly to return
in memory to the other Billy whom she loved. Wine in, wit out, she
repeated to herself; but the phrase could not absolve the man who had
slept by her side, and to whom she had consecrated herself. She wept
in the loneliness of the all-too-spacious bed, strove to forget Billy’s
incomprehensible cruelty, even pillowed her cheek with numb fondness
against the bruise of her arm; but still resentment burned within her,
a steady flame of protest against Billy and all that Billy had done. Her
throat was parched, a dull ache never ceased in her breast, and she was
oppressed by a feeling of goneness. WHY, WHY?--And from the puzzle of
the world came no solution.

In the morning she received a visit from Sarah--the second in all the
period of her marriage; and she could easily guess her sister-in-law’s
ghoulish errand. No exertion was required for the assertion of all of
Saxon’s pride. She refused to be in the slightest on the defensive.
There was nothing to defend, nothing to explain. Everything was all
right, and it was nobody’s business anyway. This attitude but served to
vex Sarah.

“I warned you, and you can’t say I didn’t,” her diatribe ran. “I always
knew he was no good, a jailbird, a hoodlum, a slugger. My heart sunk
into my boots when I heard you was runnin’ with a prizefighter. I
told you so at the time. But no; you wouldn’t listen, you with your
highfalutin’ notions an’ more pairs of shoes than any decent woman
should have. You knew better’n me. An’ I said then, to Tom, I said,
‘It’s all up with Saxon now.’ Them was my very words. Them that touches
pitch is defiled. If you’d only a-married Charley Long! Then the family
wouldn’t a-ben disgraced. An’ this is only the beginnin’, mark me, only
the beginnin’. Where it’ll end, God knows. He’ll kill somebody yet, that
plug-ugly of yourn, an’ be hanged for it. You wait an’ see, that’s all,
an’ then you’ll remember my words. As you make your bed, so you will lay
in it”

“Best bed I ever had,” Saxon commented.

“So you can say, so you can say,” Sarah snorted.

“I wouldn’t trade it for a queen’s bed,” Saxon added.

“A jailbird’s bed,” Sarah rejoined witheringly.

“Oh, it’s the style,” Saxon retorted airily. “Everybody’s getting
a taste of jail. Wasn’t Tom arrested at some street meeting of the
socialists? Everybody goes to jail these days.”

The barb had struck home.

“But Tom was acquitted,” Sarah hastened to proclaim.

“Just the same he lay in jail all night without bail.”

This was unanswerable, and Sarah executed her favorite tactic of attack
in flank.

“A nice come-down for you, I must say, that was raised straight an’
right, a-cuttin’ up didoes with a lodger.”

“Who says so?” Saxon blazed with an indignation quickly mastered.

“Oh, a blind man can read between the lines. A lodger, a young married
woman with no self respect, an’ a prizefighter for a husband--what else
would they fight about?”

“Just like any family quarrel, wasn’t it?” Saxon smiled placidly.

Sarah was shocked into momentary speechlessness.

“And I want you to understand it,” Saxon continued. “It makes a woman
proud to have men fight over her. I am proud. Do you hear? I am proud.
I want you to tell them so. I want you to tell all your neighbors. Tell
everybody. I am no cow. Men like me. Men fight for me. Men go to jail
for me. What is a woman in the world for, if it isn’t to have men like
her? Now, go, Sarah; go at once, and tell everybody what you’ve read
between the lines. Tell them Billy is a jailbird and that I am a bad
woman whom all men desire. Shout it out, and good luck to you. And get
out of my house. And never put your feet in it again. You are too decent
a woman to come here. You might lose your reputation. And think of your
children. Now get out. Go.”

Not until Sarah had taken an amazed and horrified departure did Saxon
fling herself on the bed in a convulsion of tears. She had been ashamed,
before, merely of Billy’s inhospitality, and surliness, and unfairness.
But she could see, now, the light in which others looked on the affair.
It had not entered Saxon’s head. She was confident that it had not
entered Billy’s. She knew his attitude from the first. Always he had
opposed taking a lodger because of his proud faith that his wife should
not work. Only hard times had compelled his consent, and, now that she
looked back, almost had she inveigled him into consenting.

But all this did not alter the viewpoint the neighborhood must hold,
that every one who had ever known her must hold. And for this, too,
Billy was responsible. It was more terrible than all the other things
he had been guilty of put together. She could never look any one in the
face again. Maggie Donahue and Mrs. Olsen had been very kind, but of
what must they have been thinking all the time they talked with her? And
what must they have said to each other? What was everybody saying?--over
front gates and back fences,--the men standing on the corners or talking
in saloons?

Later, exhausted by her grief, when the tears no longer fell, she grew
more impersonal, and dwelt on the disasters that had befallen so many
women since the strike troubles began--Otto Frank’s wife, Henderson’s
widow, pretty Kittie Brady, Mary, all the womenfolk of the other workmen
who were now wearing the stripes in San Quentin. Her world was crashing
about her ears. No one was exempt. Not only had she not escaped, but
hers was the worst disgrace of all. Desperately she tried to hug the
delusion that she was asleep, that it was all a nightmare, and that soon
the alarm would go off and she would get up and cook Billy’s breakfast
so that he could go to work.

She did not leave the bed that day. Nor did she sleep. Her brain whirled
on and on, now dwelling at insistent length upon her misfortunes, now
pursuing the most fantastic ramifications of what she considered her
disgrace, and, again, going back to her childhood and wandering through
endless trivial detail. She worked at all the tasks she had ever done,
performing, in fancy, the myriads of mechanical movements peculiar to
each occupation--shaping and pasting in the paper box factory, ironing
in the laundry, weaving in the jute mill, peeling fruit in the cannery
and countless boxes of scalded tomatoes. She attended all her dances and
all her picnics over again; went through her school days, recalling the
face and name and seat of every schoolmate; endured the gray bleakness
of the years in the orphan asylum; revisioned every memory of her
mother, every tale; and relived all her life with Billy. But ever--and
here the torment lay--she was drawn back from these far-wanderings
to her present trouble, with its parch in the throat, its ache in the
breast, and its gnawing, vacant goneness.



CHAPTER XV

All that night Saxon lay, unsleeping, without taking off her clothes,
and when she arose in the morning and washed her face and dressed her
hair she was aware of a strange numbness, of a feeling of constriction
about her head as if it were bound by a heavy band of iron. It seemed
like a dull pressure upon her brain. It was the beginning of an illness
that she did not know as illness. All she knew was that she felt queer.
It was not fever. It was not cold. Her bodily health was as it should
be, and, when she thought about it, she put her condition down to
nerves--nerves, according to her ideas and the ideas of her class, being
unconnected with disease.

She had a strange feeling of loss of self, of being a stranger to
herself, and the world in which she moved seemed a vague and shrouded
world. It lacked sharpness of definition. Its customary vividness was
gone. She had lapses of memory, and was continually finding herself
doing unplanned things. Thus, to her astonishment, she came to in the
back yard hanging up the week’s wash. She had no recollection of having
done it, yet it had been done precisely as it should have been done.
She had boiled the sheets and pillow-slips and the table linen. Billy’s
woolens had been washed in warm water only, with the home-made soap, the
recipe of which Mercedes had given her. On investigation, she found she
had eaten a mutton chop for breakfast. This meant that she had been to
the butcher shop, yet she had no memory of having gone. Curiously, she
went into the bedroom. The bed was made up and everything in order.

At twilight she came upon herself in the front room, seated by the
window, crying in an ecstasy of joy. At first she did not know what this
joy was; then it came to her that it was because she had lost her baby.
“A blessing, a blessing,” she was chanting aloud, wringing her hands,
but with joy, she knew it was with joy that she wrung her hands.

The days came and went. She had little notion of time. Sometimes,
centuries agone, it seemed to her it was since Billy had gone to jail.
At other times it was no more than the night before. But through it
all two ideas persisted: she must not go to see Billy in jail; it was a
blessing she had lost her baby.

Once, Bud Strothers came to see her. She sat in the front room and
talked with him, noting with fascination that there were fringes to
the heels of his trousers. Another day, the business agent of the union
called. She told him, as she had told Bud Strothers, that everything was
all right, that she needed nothing, that she could get along comfortably
until Billy came out.

A fear began to haunt her. WHEN HE CAME OUT. No; it must not be. There
must not be another baby. It might LIVE. No, no, a thousand times no. It
must not be. She would run away first. She would never see Billy again.
Anything but that. Anything but that.

This fear persisted. In her nightmare-ridden sleep it became an
accomplished fact, so that she would awake, trembling, in a cold sweat,
crying out. Her sleep had become wretched. Sometimes she was convinced
that she did not sleep at all, and she knew that she had insomnia, and
remembered that it was of insomnia her mother had died.

She came to herself one day, sitting in Doctor Hentley’s office. He was
looking at her in a puzzled way.

“Got plenty to eat?” he was asking.

She nodded.

“Any serious trouble?”

She shook her head.

“Everything’s all right, doctor... except...”

“Yes, yes,” he encouraged.

And then she knew why she had come. Simply, explicitly, she told him. He
shook his head slowly.

“It can’t be done, little woman,” he said

“Oh, but it can!” she cried. “I know it can.”

“I don’t mean that,” he answered. “I mean I can’t tell you. I dare not.
It is against the law. There is a doctor in Leavenworth prison right now
for that.”

In vain she pleaded with him. He instanced his own wife and children
whose existence forbade his imperiling.

“Besides, there is no likelihood now,” he told her.

“But there will be, there is sure to be,” she urged.

But he could only shake his head sadly.

“Why do you want to know?” he questioned finally.

Saxon poured her heart out to him. She told of her first year of
happiness with Billy, of the hard times caused by the labor troubles, of
the change in Billy so that there was no love-life left, of her own deep
horror. Not if it died, she concluded. She could go through that again.
But if it should live. Billy would soon be out of jail, and then the
danger would begin. It was only a few words. She would never tell any
one. Wild horses could not drag it out of her.

But Doctor Hentley continued to shake his head. “I can’t tell you,
little woman. It’s a shame, but I can’t take the risk. My hands are
tied. Our laws are all wrong. I have to consider those who are dear to
me.”

It was when she got up to go that he faltered. “Come here,” he said.
“Sit closer.”

He prepared to whisper in her ear, then, with a sudden excess of
caution, crossed the room swiftly, opened the door, and looked out.
When he sat down again he drew his chair so close to hers that the arms
touched, and when he whispered his beard tickled her ear.

“No, no,” he shut her off when she tried to voice her gratitude. “I have
told you nothing. You were here to consult me about your general health.
You are run down, out of condition--”

As he talked he moved her toward the door. When he opened it, a patient
for the dentist in the adjoining office was standing in the hall. Doctor
Hentley lifted his voice.

“What you need is that tonic I prescribed. Remember that. And don’t
pamper your appetite when it comes back. Eat strong, nourishing food,
and beefsteak, plenty of beefsteak. And don’t cook it to a cinder. Good
day.”

At times the silent cottage became unendurable, and Saxon would throw
a shawl about her head and walk out the Oakland Mole, or cross the
railroad yards and the marshes to Sandy Beach where Billy had said he
used to swim. Also, by going out the Transit slip, by climbing down the
piles on a precarious ladder of iron spikes, and by crossing a boom of
logs, she won access to the Rock Wall that extended far out into the bay
and that served as a barrier between the mudflats and the tide-scoured
channel of Oakland Estuary. Here the fresh sea breezes blew and Oakland
sank down to a smudge of smoke behind her, while across the bay she
could see the smudge that represented San Francisco. Ocean steamships
passed up and down the estuary, and lofty-masted ships, towed by
red-stacked tugs.

She gazed at the sailors on the ships, wondered on what far voyages and
to what far lands they went, wondered what freedoms were theirs. Or
were they girt in by as remorseless and cruel a world as the dwellers
in Oakland were? Were they as unfair, as unjust, as brutal, in their
dealings with their fellows as were the city dwellers? It did not
seem so, and sometimes she wished herself on board, out-bound, going
anywhere, she cared not where, so long as it was away from the world to
which she had given her best and which had trampled her in return.

She did not know always when she left the house, nor where her feet took
her. Once, she came to herself in a strange part of Oakland. The street
was wide and lined with rows of shade trees. Velvet lawns, broken only
by cement sidewalks, ran down to the gutters. The houses stood apart and
were large. In her vocabulary they were mansions. What had shocked her
to consciousness of herself was a young man in the driver’s seat of a
touring car standing at the curb. He was looking at her curiously and
she recognized him as Roy Blanchard, whom, in front of the Forum, Billy
had threatened to whip. Beside the car, bareheaded, stood another young
man. He, too, she remembered. He it was, at the Sunday picnic where she
first met Billy, who had thrust his cane between the legs of the flying
foot-racer and precipitated the free-for-all fight. Like Blanchard, he
was looking at her curiously, and she became aware that she had been
talking to herself. The babble of her lips still beat in her ears. She
blushed, a rising tide of shame heating her face, and quickened her
pace. Blanchard sprang out of the car and came to her with lifted hat.
“Is anything the matter?” he asked.

She shook her head, and, though she had stopped, she evinced her desire
to go on.

“I know you,” he said, studying her face. “You were with the striker who
promised me a licking.”

“He is my husband,” she said.

“Oh! Good for him.” He regarded her pleasantly and frankly. “But about
yourself? Isn’t there anything I can do for you? Something IS the
matter.”

“No, I’m all right,” she answered. “I have been sick,” she lied; for she
never dreamed of connecting her queerness with sickness.

“You look tired,” he pressed her. “I can take you in the machine and run
you anywhere you want. It won’t be any trouble. I’ve plenty of time.”

Saxon shook her head.

“If... if you would tell me where I can catch the Eighth street cars. I
don’t often come to this part of town.”

He told her where to find an electric car and what transfers to make,
and she was surprised at the distance she had wandered.

“Thank you,” she said. “And good bye.”

“Sure I can’t do anything now?”

“Sure.”

“Well, good bye,” he smiled good humoredly. “And tell that husband of
yours to keep in good condition. I’m likely to make him need it all when
he tangles up with me.”

“Oh, but you can’t fight with him,” she warned. “You mustn’t. You
haven’t got a show.”

“Good for you,” he admired. “That’s the way for a woman to stand up for
her man. Now the average woman would be so afraid he was going to get
licked--”

“But I’m not afraid... for him. It’s for you. He’s a terrible fighter.
You wouldn’t have any chance. It would be like... like...”

“Like taking candy from a baby?” Blanchard finished for her.

“Yes,” she nodded. “That’s just what he would call it. And whenever he
tells you you are standing on your foot watch out for him. Now I must
go. Good bye, and thank you again.”

She went on down the sidewalk, his cheery good bye ringing in her ears.
He was kind--she admitted it honestly; yet he was one of the clever
ones, one of the masters, who, according to Billy, were responsible
for all the cruelty to labor, for the hardships of the women, for the
punishment of the labor men who were wearing stripes in San Quentin or
were in the death cells awaiting the scaffold. Yet he was kind, sweet
natured, clean, good. She could read his character in his face. But how
could this be, if he were responsible for so much evil? She shook her
head wearily. There was no explanation, no understanding of this world
which destroyed little babes and bruised women’s breasts.

As for her having strayed into that neighborhood of fine residences,
she was unsurprised. It was in line with her queerness. She did so many
things without knowing that she did them. But she must be careful. It
was better to wander on the marshes and the Rock Wall.

Especially she liked the Rock Wall. There was a freedom about it, a wide
spaciousness that she found herself instinctively trying to breathe,
holding her arms out to embrace and make part of herself. It was a
more natural world, a more rational world. She could understand
it--understand the green crabs with white-bleached claws that scuttled
before her and which she could see pasturing on green-weeded rocks
when the tide was low. Here, hopelessly man-made as the great wall was,
nothing seemed artificial. There were no men here, no laws nor conflicts
of men. The tide flowed and ebbed; the sun rose and set; regularly each
afternoon the brave west wind came romping in through the Golden Gate,
darkening the water, cresting tiny wavelets, making the sailboats fly.
Everything ran with frictionless order. Everything was free. Firewood
lay about for the taking. No man sold it by the sack. Small boys fished
with poles from the rocks, with no one to drive them away for trespass,
catching fish as Billy had caught fish, as Cal Hutchins had caught fish.
Billy had told her of the great perch Cal Hutchins caught on the day of
the eclipse, when he had little dreamed the heart of his manhood would
be spent in convict’s garb.

And here was food, food that was free. She watched the small boys on
a day when she had eaten nothing, and emulated them, gathering mussels
from the rocks at low water, cooking them by placing them among the
coals of a fire she built on top of the wall. They tasted particularly
good. She learned to knock the small oysters from the rocks, and once
she found a string of fresh-caught fish some small boy had forgotten to
take home with him.

Here drifted evidences of man’s sinister handiwork--from a distance,
from the cities. One flood tide she found the water covered with
muskmelons. They bobbed and bumped along up the estuary in countless
thousands. Where they stranded against the rocks she was able to get
them. But each and every melon--and she patiently tried scores of
them--had been spoiled by a sharp gash that let in the salt water.
She could not understand. She asked an old Portuguese woman gathering
driftwood.

“They do it, the people who have too much,” the old woman explained,
straightening her labor-stiffened back with such an effort that almost
Saxon could hear it creak. The old woman’s black eyes flashed angrily,
and her wrinkled lips, drawn tightly across toothless gums, wry with
bitterness. “The people that have too much. It is to keep up the price.
They throw them overboard in San Francisco.”

“But why don’t they give them away to the poor people?” Saxon asked.

“They must keep up the price.”

“But the poor people cannot buy them anyway,” Saxon objected. “It would
not hurt the price.”

The old woman shrugged her shoulders.

“I do not know. It is their way. They chop each melon so that the poor
people cannot fish them out and eat anyway. They do the same with the
oranges, with the apples. Ah, the fishermen! There is a trust. When
the boats catch too much fish, the trust throws them overboard from
Fisherman Wharf, boat-loads, and boat-loads, and boatloads of the
beautiful fish. And the beautiful good fish sink and are gone. And no
one gets them. Yet they are dead and only good to eat. Fish are very
good to eat.”

And Saxon could not understand a world that did such things--a world in
which some men possessed so much food that they threw it away, paying
men for their labor of spoiling it before they threw it away; and in
the same world so many people who did not have enough food, whose babies
died because their mothers’ milk was not nourishing, whose young men
fought and killed one another for the chance to work, whose old men and
women went to the poorhouse because there was no food for them in the
little shacks they wept at leaving. She wondered if all the world were
that way, and remembered Mercedes’ tales. Yes; all the world was that
way. Had not Mercedes seen ten thousand families starve to death in
that far away India, when, as she had said, her own jewels that she wore
would have fed and saved them all? It was the poorhouse and the salt
vats for the stupid, jewels and automobiles for the clever ones.

She was one of the stupid. She must be. The evidence all pointed that
way. Yet Saxon refused to accept it. She was not stupid. Her mother had
not been stupid, nor had the pioneer stock before her. Still it must be
so. Here she sat, nothing to eat at home, her love-husband changed to a
brute beast and lying in jail, her arms and heart empty of the babe that
would have been there if only the stupid ones had not made a shambles of
her front yard in their wrangling over jobs.

She sat there, racking her brain, the smudge of Oakland at her back,
staring across the bay at the smudge of San Francisco. Yet the sun was
good; the wind was good, as was the keen salt air in her nostrils;
the blue sky, flecked with clouds, was good. All the natural world
was right, and sensible, and beneficent. It was the man-world that was
wrong, and mad, and horrible. Why were the stupid stupid? Was it a law
of God? No; it could not be. God had made the wind, and air, and sun.
The man-world was made by man, and a rotten job it was. Yet, and she
remembered it well, the teaching in the orphan asylum, God had made
everything. Her mother, too, had believed this, had believed in this
God. Things could not be different. It was ordained.

For a time Saxon sat crushed, helpless. Then smoldered protest, revolt.
Vainly she asked why God had it in for her. What had she done to
deserve such fate? She briefly reviewed her life in quest of deadly sins
committed, and found them not. She had obeyed her mother; obeyed Cady,
the saloon-keeper, and Cady’s wife; obeyed the matron and the other
women in the orphan asylum; obeyed Tom when she came to live in his
house, and never run in the streets because he didn’t wish her to.
At school she had always been honorably promoted, and never had her
deportment report varied from one hundred per cent. She had worked from
the day she left school to the day of her marriage. She had been a good
worker, too. The little Jew who ran the paper box factory had almost
wept when she quit. It was the same at the cannery. She was among the
high-line weavers when the jute mills closed down. And she had kept
straight. It was not as if she had been ugly or unattractive. She had
known her temptations and encountered her dangers. The fellows had been
crazy about her. They had run after her, fought over her, in a way to
turn most girls’ heads. But she had kept straight. And then had come
Billy, her reward. She had devoted herself to him, to his house, to all
that would nourish his love; and now she and Billy were sinking down
into this senseless vortex of misery and heartbreak of the man-made
world.

No, God was not responsible. She could have made a better world
herself--a finer, squarer world. This being so, then there was no God.
God could not make a botch. The matron had been wrong, her mother had
been wrong. Then there was no immortality, and Bert, wild and crazy
Bert, falling at her front gate with his foolish death-cry, was right.
One was a long time dead.

Looking thus at life, shorn of its superrational sanctions, Saxon
floundered into the morass of pessimism. There was no justification for
right conduct in the universe, no square deal for her who had earned
reward, for the millions who worked like animals, died like animals,
and were a long time and forever dead. Like the hosts of more learned
thinkers before her, she concluded that the universe was unmoral and
without concern for men.

And now she sat crushed in greater helplessness than when she had
included God in the scheme of injustice. As long as God was, there was
always chance for a miracle, for some supernatural intervention, some
rewarding with ineffable bliss. With God missing, the world was a
trap. Life was a trap. She was like a linnet, caught by small boys and
imprisoned in a cage. That was because the linnet was stupid. But she
rebelled. She fluttered and beat her soul against the hard face of
things as did the linnet against the bars of wire. She was not stupid.
She did not belong in the trap. She would fight her way out of the trap.
There must be such a way out. When canal boys and rail-splitters, the
lowliest of the stupid lowly, as she had read in her school history,
could find their way out and become presidents of the nation and rule
over even the clever ones in their automobiles, then could she find her
way out and win to the tiny reward she craved--Billy, a little love, a
little happiness. She would not mind that the universe was unmoral, that
there was no God, no immortality. She was willing to go into the black
grave and remain in its blackness forever, to go into the salt vats and
let the young men cut her dead flesh to sausage-meat, if--if only she
could get her small meed of happiness first.

How she would work for that happiness! How she would appreciate it, make
the most of each least particle of it! But how was she to do it. Where
was the path? She could not vision it. Her eyes showed her only the
smudge of San Francisco, the smudge of Oakland, where men were breaking
heads and killing one another, where babies were dying, born and unborn,
and where women were weeping with bruised breasts.



CHAPTER XVI

Her vague, unreal existence continued. It seemed in some previous
life-time that Billy had gone away, that another life-time would have to
come before he returned. She still suffered from insomnia. Long nights
passed in succession, during which she never closed her eyes. At
other times she slept through long stupors, waking stunned and numbed,
scarcely able to open her heavy eyes, to move her weary limbs. The
pressure of the iron band on her head never relaxed. She was poorly
nourished. Nor had she a cent of money. She often went a whole day
without eating. Once, seventy-two hours elapsed without food passing
her lips. She dug clams in the marsh, knocked the tiny oysters from the
rocks, and gathered mussels.

And yet, when Bud Strothers came to see how she was getting along, she
convinced him that all was well. One evening after work, Tom came, and
forced two dollars upon her. He was terribly worried. He would like to
help more, but Sarah was expecting another baby. There had been slack
times in his trade because of the strikes in the other trades. He did
not know what the country was coming to. And it was all so simple. All
they had to do was see things in his way and vote the way he voted. Then
everybody would get a square deal. Christ was a Socialist, he told her.

“Christ died two thousand years ago,” Saxon said.

“Well?” Tom queried, not catching her implication.

“Think,” she said, “think of all the men and women who died in those
two thousand years, and socialism has not come yet. And in two thousand
years more it may be as far away as ever. Tom, your socialism never did
you any good. It is a dream.”

“It wouldn’t be if--” he began with a flash of resentment.

“If they believed as you do. Only they don’t. You don’t succeed in
making them.”

“But we are increasing every year,” he argued.

“Two thousand years is an awfully long time,” she said quietly.

Her brother’s tired face saddened as he noted. Then he sighed:

“Well, Saxon, if it’s a dream, it is a good dream.”

“I don’t want to dream,” was her reply. “I want things real. I want them
now.”

And before her fancy passed the countless generations of the stupid
lowly, the Billys and Saxons, the Berts and Marys, the Toms and Sarahs.
And to what end? The salt vats and the grave. Mercedes was a hard and
wicked woman, but Mercedes was right. The stupid must always be under
the heels of the clever ones. Only she, Saxon, daughter of Daisy who
had written wonderful poems and of a soldier-father on a roan war-horse,
daughter of the strong generations who had won half a world from wild
nature and the savage Indian--no, she was not stupid. It was as if she
suffered false imprisonment. There was some mistake. She would find the
way out.

With the two dollars she bought a sack of flour and half a sack of
potatoes. This relieved the monotony of her clams and mussels. Like
the Italian and Portuguese women, she gathered driftwood and carried it
home, though always she did it with shamed pride, timing her arrival so
that it would be after dark. One day, on the mud-flat side of the Rock
Wall, an Italian fishing boat hauled up on the sand dredged from the
channel. From the top of the wall Saxon watched the men grouped about
the charcoal brazier, eating crusty Italian bread and a stew of meat and
vegetables, washed down with long draughts of thin red wine. She envied
them their freedom that advertised itself in the heartiness of their
meal, in the tones of their chatter and laughter, in the very boat
itself that was not tied always to one place and that carried them
wherever they willed. Afterward, they dragged a seine across the
mud-flats and up on the sand, selecting for themselves only the larger
kinds of fish. Many thousands of small fish, like sardines, they left
dying on the sand when they sailed away. Saxon got a sackful of the
fish, and was compelled to make two trips in order to carry them home,
where she salted them down in a wooden washtub.

Her lapses of consciousness continued. The strangest thing she did while
in such condition was on Sandy Beach. There she discovered herself, one
windy afternoon, lying in a hole she had dug, with sacks for blankets.
She had even roofed the hole in rough fashion by means of drift wood and
marsh grass. On top of the grass she had piled sand.

Another time she came to herself walking across the marshes, a bundle
of driftwood, tied with bale-rope, on her shoulder. Charley Long
was walking beside her. She could see his face in the starlight. She
wondered dully how long he had been talking, what he had said. Then she
was curious to hear what he was saying. She was not afraid, despite
his strength, his wicked nature, and the loneliness and darkness of the
marsh.

“It’s a shame for a girl like you to have to do this,” he was saying,
apparently in repetition of what he had already urged. “Come on an’ say
the word, Saxon. Come on an’ say the word.”

Saxon stopped and quietly faced him.

“Listen, Charley Long. Billy’s only doing thirty days, and his time is
almost up. When he gets out your life won’t be worth a pinch of salt
if I tell him you’ve been bothering me. Now listen. If you go right now
away from here, and stay away, I won’t tell him. That’s all I’ve got to
say.”

The big blacksmith stood in scowling indecision, his face pathetic
in its fierce yearning, his hands making unconscious, clutching
contractions.

“Why, you little, small thing,” he said desperately, “I could break you
in one hand. I could--why, I could do anything I wanted. I don’t want to
hurt you, Saxon. You know that. Just say the word--”

“I’ve said the only word I’m going to say.”

“God!” he muttered in involuntary admiration. “You ain’t afraid. You
ain’t afraid.”

They faced each other for long silent minutes.

“Why ain’t you afraid?” he demanded at last, after peering into the
surrounding darkness as if searching for her hidden allies.

“Because I married a man,” Saxon said briefly. “And now you’d better
go.”

When he had gone she shifted the load of wood to her other shoulder
and started on, in her breast a quiet thrill of pride in Billy. Though
behind prison bars, still she leaned against his strength. The mere
naming of him was sufficient to drive away a brute like Charley Long.

On the day that Otto Frank was hanged she remained indoors. The evening
papers published the account. There had been no reprieve. In Sacramento
was a railroad Governor who might reprieve or even pardon bank-wreckers
and grafters, but who dared not lift his finger for a workingman. All
this was the talk of the neighborhood. It had been Billy’s talk. It had
been Bert’s talk.

The next day Saxon started out the Rock Wall, and the specter of Otto
Frank walked by her side. And with him was a dimmer, mistier specter
that she recognized as Billy. Was he, too, destined to tread his way to
Otto Frank’s dark end? Surely so, if the blood and strike continued. He
was a fighter. He felt he was right in fighting. It was easy to kill
a man. Even if he did not intend it, some time, when he was slugging a
scab, the scab would fracture his skull on a stone curbing or a cement
sidewalk. And then Billy would hang. That was why Otto Frank hanged.
He had not intended to kill Henderson. It was only by accident that
Henderson’s skull was fractured. Yet Otto Frank had been hanged for it
just the same.

She wrung her hands and wept loudly as she stumbled among the windy
rocks. The hours passed, and she was lost to herself and her grief. When
she came to she found herself on the far end of the wall where it jutted
into the bay between the Oakland and Alameda Moles. But she could see
no wall. It was the time of the full moon, and the unusual high tide
covered the rocks. She was knee deep in the water, and about her knees
swam scores of big rock rats, squeaking and fighting, scrambling to
climb upon her out of the flood. She screamed with fright and horror,
and kicked at them. Some dived and swam away under water; others circled
about her warily at a distance; and one big fellow laid his teeth into
her shoe. Him she stepped on and crushed with her free foot. By this
time, though still trembling, she was able coolly to consider the
situation. She waded to a stout stick of driftwood a few feet away, and
with this quickly cleared a space about herself.

A grinning small boy, in a small, bright-painted and half-decked skiff,
sailed close in to the wall and let go his sheet to spill the wind.
“Want to get aboard?” he called.

“Yes,” she answered. “There are thousands of big rats here. I’m afraid
of them.”

He nodded, ran close in, spilled the wind from his sail, the boat’s way
carrying it gently to her.

“Shove out its bow,” he commanded. “That’s right. I don’t want to break
my centerboard.... An’ then jump aboard in the stern--quick!--alongside
of me.”

She obeyed, stepping in lightly beside him. He held the tiller up with
his elbow, pulled in on the sheet, and as the sail filled the boat
sprang away over the rippling water.

“You know boats,” the boy said approvingly.

He was a slender, almost frail lad, of twelve or thirteen years, though
healthy enough, with sunburned freckled face and large gray eyes that
were clear and wistful.

Despite his possession of the pretty boat, Saxon was quick to sense that
he was one of them, a child of the people.

“First boat I was ever in, except ferryboats,” Saxon laughed.

He looked at her keenly. “Well, you take to it like a duck to water is
all I can say about it. Where d’ye want me to land you?”

“Anywhere.”

He opened his mouth to speak, gave her another long look, considered for
a space, then asked suddenly: “Got plenty of time?”

She nodded.

“All day?”

Again she nodded.

“Say--I’ll tell you, I’m goin’ out on this ebb to Goat Island for
rockcod, an’ I’ll come in on the flood this evening. I got plenty of
lines an’ bait. Want to come along? We can both fish. And what you catch
you can have.”

Saxon hesitated. The freedom and motion of the small boat appealed to
her. Like the ships she had envied, it was outbound.

“Maybe you’ll drown me,” she parleyed.

The boy threw back his head with pride.

“I guess I’ve been sailin’ many a long day by myself, an’ I ain’t
drowned yet.”

“All right,” she consented. “Though remember, I don’t know anything
about boats.”

“Aw, that’s all right.--Now I’m goin’ to go about. When I say ‘Hard
a-lee!’ like that, you duck your head so the boom don’t hit you, an’
shift over to the other side.”

He executed the maneuver, Saxon obeyed, and found herself sitting beside
him on the opposite side of the boat, while the boat itself, on the
other tack, was heading toward Long Wharf where the coal bunkers were.
She was aglow with admiration, the more so because the mechanics of
boat-sailing was to her a complex and mysterious thing.

“Where did you learn it all?” she inquired.

“Taught myself, just naturally taught myself. I liked it, you see, an’
what a fellow likes he’s likeliest to do. This is my second boat. My
first didn’t have a centerboard. I bought it for two dollars an’ learned
a lot, though it never stopped leaking. What d ‘ye think I paid for this
one? It’s worth twenty-five dollars right now. What d ‘ye think I paid
for it?”

“I give up,” Saxon said. “How much?”

“Six dollars. Think of it! A boat like this! Of course I done a lot of
work, an’ the sail cost two dollars, the oars one forty, an’ the paint
one seventy-five. But just the same eleven dollars and fifteen cents is
a real bargain. It took me a long time saving for it, though. I carry
papers morning and evening--there’s a boy taking my route for me this
afternoon--I give ‘m ten cents, an’ all the extras he sells is his; and
I’d a-got the boat sooner only I had to pay for my shorthand lessons. My
mother wants me to become a court reporter. They get sometimes as much
as twenty dollars a day. Gee! But I don’t want it. It’s a shame to waste
the money on the lessons.”

“What do you want?” she asked, partly from idleness, and yet with
genuine curiosity; for she felt drawn to this boy in knee pants who was
so confident and at the same time so wistful.

“What do I want?” he repeated after her.

Turning his head slowly, he followed the sky-line, pausing especially
when his eyes rested landward on the brown Contra Costa hills, and
seaward, past Alcatraz, on the Golden Gate. The wistfulness in his eyes
was overwhelming and went to her heart.

“That,” he said, sweeping the circle of the world with a wave of his
arm.

“That?” she queried.

He looked at her, perplexed in that he had not made his meaning clear.

“Don’t you ever feel that way?” he asked, bidding for sympathy with his
dream. “Don’t you sometimes feel you’d die if you didn’t know what’s
beyond them hills an’ what’s beyond the other hills behind them hills?
An’ the Golden Gate! There’s the Pacific Ocean beyond, and China, an’
Japan, an’ India, an’... an’ all the coral islands. You can go anywhere
out through the Golden Gate--to Australia, to Africa, to the seal
islands, to the North Pole, to Cape Horn. Why, all them places are just
waitin’ for me to come an’ see ‘em. I’ve lived in Oakland all my life,
but I’m not going to live in Oakland the rest of my life, not by a long
shot. I’m goin’ to get away... away....”

Again, as words failed to express the vastness of his desire, the wave
of his arm swept the circle of the world.

Saxon thrilled with him. She too, save for her earlier childhood, had
lived in Oakland all her life. And it had been a good place in which to
live... until now. And now, in all its nightmare horror, it was a place
to get away from, as with her people the East had been a place to get
away from. And why not? The world tugged at her, and she felt in touch
with the lad’s desire. Now that she thought of it, her race had never
been given to staying long in one place. Always it had been on the move.
She remembered back to her mother’s tales, and to the wood engraving in
her scrapbook where her half-clad forebears, sword in hand, leaped from
their lean beaked boats to do battle on the blood-drenched sands of
England.

“Did you ever hear about the Anglo-Saxons?” she asked the boy.

“You bet!” His eyes glistened, and he looked at her with new interest.
“I’m an Anglo-Saxon, every inch of me. Look at the color of my eyes, my
skin. I’m awful white where I ain’t sunburned. An’ my hair was yellow
when I was a baby. My mother says it’ll be dark brown by the time I’m
grown up, worse luck. Just the same, I’m Anglo-Saxon. I am of a fighting
race. We ain’t afraid of nothin’. This bay--think I’m afraid of it!” He
looked out over the water with flashing eye of scorn. “Why, I’ve crossed
it when it was howlin’ an’ when the scow schooner sailors said I lied
an’ that I didn’t. Huh! They were only squareheads. Why, we licked their
kind thousands of years ago. We lick everything we go up against. We’ve
wandered all over the world, licking the world. On the sea, on the land,
it’s all the same. Look at Ivory Nelson, look at Davy Crockett, look at
Paul Jones, look at Clive, an’ Kitchener, an’ Fremont, an’ Kit Carson,
an’ all of ‘em.”

Saxon nodded, while he continued, her own eyes shining, and it came to
her what a glory it would be to be the mother of a man-child like this.
Her body ached with the fancied quickening of unborn life. A good stock,
a good stock, she thought to herself. Then she thought of herself and
Billy, healthy shoots of that same stock, yet condemned to childlessness
because of the trap of the manmade world and the curse of being herded
with the stupid ones.

She came back to the boy.

“My father was a soldier in the Civil War,” he was telling her, “a scout
an’ a spy. The rebels were going to hang him twice for a spy. At the
battle of Wilson’s Creek he ran half a mile with his captain wounded on
his back. He’s got a bullet in his leg right now, just above the knee.
It’s been there all these years. He let me feel it once. He was a
buffalo hunter and a trapper before the war. He was sheriff of his
county when he was twenty years old. An’ after the war, when he was
marshal of Silver City, he cleaned out the bad men an’ gun-fighters.
He’s been in almost every state in the Union. He could wrestle any man
at the railings in his day, an’ he was bully of the raftsmen of the
Susquehanna when he was only a youngster. His father killed a man in a
standup fight with a blow of his fist when he was sixty years old. An’
when he was seventy-four, his second wife had twins, an’ he died when he
was plowing in the field with oxen when he was ninety-nine years old. He
just unyoked the oxen, an’ sat down under a tree, an’ died there sitting
up. An’ my father’s just like him. He’s pretty old now, but he ain’t
afraid of nothing. He’s a regular Anglo-Saxon, you see. He’s a special
policeman, an’ he didn’t do a thing to the strikers in some of the
fightin’. He had his face all cut up with a rock, but he broke his club
short off over some hoodlum’s head.”

He paused breathlessly and looked at her.

“Gee!” he said. “I’d hate to a-ben that hoodlum.”

“My name is Saxon,” she said.

“Your name?”

“My first name.”

“Gee!” he cried. “You’re lucky. Now if mine had been only Erling--you
know, Erling the Bold--or Wolf, or Swen, or Jarl!”

“What is it?” she asked.

“Only John,” he admitted sadly. “But I don’t let ‘em call me John.
Everybody’s got to call me Jack. I’ve scrapped with a dozen fellows
that tried to call me John, or Johnnie--wouldn’t that make you
sick?--Johnnie!”

They were now off the coal bunkers of Long Wharf, and the boy put the
skiff about, heading toward San Francisco. They were well out in the
open bay. The west wind had strengthened and was whitecapping the strong
ebb tide. The boat drove merrily along. When splashes of spray flew
aboard, wetting them, Saxon laughed, and the boy surveyed her with
approval. They passed a ferryboat, and the passengers on the upper deck
crowded to one side to watch them. In the swell of the steamer’s wake,
the skiff shipped quarter-full of water. Saxon picked up an empty can
and looked at the boy.

“That’s right,” he said. “Go ahead an’ bale out.” And, when she had
finished: “We’ll fetch Goat Island next tack. Right there off the
Torpedo Station is where we fish, in fifty feet of water an’ the tide
runnin’ to beat the band. You’re wringing wet, ain’t you? Gee! You’re
like your name. You’re a Saxon, all right. Are you married?”

Saxon nodded, and the boy frowned.

“What’d you want to do that for? Now you can’t wander over the world
like I’m going to. You’re tied down. You’re anchored for keeps.”

“It’s pretty good to be married, though,” she smiled.

“Sure, everybody gets married. But that’s no reason to be in a rush
about it. Why couldn’t you wait a while, like me. I’m goin’ to get
married, too, but not until I’m an old man an’ have been everywheres.”

Under the lee of Goat Island, Saxon obediently sitting still, he took in
the sail, and, when the boat had drifted to a position to suit him, he
dropped a tiny anchor. He got out the fish lines and showed Saxon how
to bait her hooks with salted minnows. Then they dropped the lines to
bottom, where they vibrated in the swift tide, and waited for bites.

“They’ll bite pretty soon,” he encouraged. “I’ve never failed but twice
to catch a mess here. What d’ye say we eat while we’re waiting?”

Vainly she protested she was not hungry. He shared his lunch with her
with a boy’s rigid equity, even to the half of a hard-boiled egg and the
half of a big red apple.

Still the rockcod did not bite. From under the stern-sheets he drew out
a cloth-bound book.

“Free Library,” he vouchsafed, as he began to read, with one hand
holding the place while with the other he waited for the tug on the
fishline that would announce rockcod.

Saxon read the title. It was “Afloat in the Forest.”

“Listen to this,” he said after a few minutes, and he read several pages
descriptive of a great flooded tropical forest being navigated by boys
on a raft.

“Think of that!” he concluded. “That’s the Amazon river in flood time
in South America. And the world’s full of places like that--everywhere,
most likely, except Oakland. Oakland’s just a place to start from, I
guess. Now that’s adventure, I want to tell you. Just think of the luck
of them boys! All the same, some day I’m going to go over the Andes to
the headwaters of the Amazon, all through the rubber country, an’ canoe
down the Amazon thousands of miles to its mouth where it’s that wide you
can’t see one bank from the other an’ where you can scoop up perfectly
fresh water out of the ocean a hundred miles from land.”

But Saxon was not listening. One pregnant sentence had caught her fancy.
Oakland just a place to start from. She had never viewed the city in
that light. She had accepted it as a place to live in, as an end in
itself. But a place to start from! Why not! Why not like any railroad
station or ferry depot! Certainly, as things were going, Oakland was not
a place to stop in. The boy was right. It was a place to start from. But
to go where? Here she was halted, and she was driven from the train of
thought by a strong pull and a series of jerks on the line. She began to
haul in, hand under hand, rapidly and deftly, the boy encouraging her,
until hooks, sinker, and a big gasping rockcod tumbled into the bottom
of the boat. The fish was free of the hook, and she baited afresh and
dropped the line over. The boy marked his place and closed the book.

“They’ll be biting soon as fast as we can haul ‘em in,” he said.

But the rush of fish did not come immediately.

“Did you ever read Captain Mayne Reid?” he asked. “Or Captain Marryatt?
Or Ballantyne?”

She shook her head.

“And you an Anglo-Saxon!” he cried derisively. “Why, there’s stacks of
‘em in the Free Library. I have two cards, my mother’s an’ mine, an’
I draw ‘em out all the time, after school, before I have to carry
my papers. I stick the books inside my shirt, in front, under the
suspenders. That holds ‘em. One time, deliverin’ papers at Second an’
Market--there’s an awful tough gang of kids hang out there--I got into a
fight with the leader. He hauled off to knock my wind out, an’ he landed
square on a book. You ought to seen his face. An’ then I landed on
him. An’ then his whole gang was goin’ to jump on me, only a couple
of iron-molders stepped in an’ saw fair play. I gave ‘em the books to
hold.”

“Who won?” Saxon asked.

“Nobody,” the boy confessed reluctantly. “I think I was lickin’ him, but
the molders called it a draw because the policeman on the beat stopped
us when we’d only ben fightin’ half an hour. But you ought to seen the
crowd. I bet there was five hundred--”

He broke off abruptly and began hauling in his line. Saxon, too, was
hauling in. And in the next couple of hours they caught twenty pounds of
fish between them.

That night, long after dark, the little, half-decked skiff sailed up the
Oakland Estuary. The wind was fair but light, and the boat moved slowly,
towing a long pile which the boy had picked up adrift and announced
as worth three dollars anywhere for the wood that was in it. The tide
flooded smoothly under the full moon, and Saxon recognized the points
they passed--the Transit slip, Sandy Beach, the shipyards, the nail
works, Market street wharf. The boy took the skiff in to a dilapidated
boat-wharf at the foot of Castro street, where the scow schooners, laden
with sand and gravel, lay hauled to the shore in a long row. He insisted
upon an equal division of the fish, because Saxon had helped catch them,
though he explained at length the ethics of flotsam to show her that the
pile was wholly his.

At Seventh and Poplar they separated, Saxon walking on alone to Pine
street with her load of fish. Tired though she was from the long day,
she had a strange feeling of well-being, and, after cleaning the fish,
she fell asleep wondering, when good times came again, if she could
persuade Billy to get a boat and go out with her on Sundays as she had
gone out that day.



CHAPTER XVII

She slept all night, without stirring, without dreaming, and awoke
naturally and, for the first time in weeks, refreshed. She felt her old
self, as if some depressing weight had been lifted, or a shadow had been
swept away from between her and the sun. Her head was clear. The seeming
iron band that had pressed it so hard was gone. She was cheerful. She
even caught herself humming aloud as she divided the fish into messes
for Mrs. Olsen, Maggie Donahue, and herself. She enjoyed her gossip with
each of them, and, returning home, plunged joyfully into the task of
putting the neglected house in order. She sang as she worked, and ever
as she sang the magic words of the boy danced and sparkled among the
notes: OAKLAND IS JUST A PLACE TO START FROM.

Everything was clear as print. Her and Billy’s problem was as simple as
an arithmetic problem at school: to carpet a room so many feet long, so
many feet wide, to paper a room so many feet high, so many feet around.
She had been sick in her head, she had had strange lapses, she had
been irresponsible. Very well. All this had been because of her
troubles--troubles in which she had had no hand in the making. Billy’s
case was hers precisely. He had behaved strangely because he had been
irresponsible. And all their troubles were the troubles of the trap.
Oakland was the trap. Oakland was a good place to start from.

She reviewed the events of her married life. The strikes and the hard
times had caused everything. If it had not been for the strike of the
shopmen and the fight in her front yard, she would not have lost her
baby. If Billy had not been made desperate by the idleness and the
hopeless fight of the teamsters, he would not have taken to drinking. If
they had not been hard up, they would not have taken a lodger, and Billy
would not be in jail.

Her mind was made up. The city was no place for her and Billy, no
place for love nor for babies. The way out was simple. They would leave
Oakland. It was the stupid that remained and bowed their heads to fate.
But she and Billy were not stupid. They would not bow their heads. They
would go forth and face fate.--Where, she did not know. But that would
come. The world was large. Beyond the encircling hills, out through the
Golden Gate, somewhere they would find what they desired. The boy had
been wrong in one thing. She was not tied to Oakland, even if she was
married. The world was free to her and Billy as it had been free to the
wandering generations before them. It was only the stupid who had been
left behind everywhere in the race’s wandering. The strong had gone on.
Well, she and Billy were strong. They would go on, over the brown Contra
Costa hills or out through the Golden Gate.

The day before Billy’s release Saxon completed her meager preparations
to receive him. She was without money, and, except for her resolve not
to offend Billy in that way again, she would have borrowed ferry fare
from Maggie Donahue and journeyed to San Francisco to sell some of
her personal pretties. As it was, with bread and potatoes and salted
sardines in the house, she went out at the afternoon low tide and dug
clams for a chowder. Also, she gathered a load of driftwood, and it was
nine in the evening when she emerged from the marsh, on her shoulder a
bundle of wood and a short-handled spade, in her free hand the pail
of clams. She sought the darker side of the street at the corner and
hurried across the zone of electric light to avoid detection by the
neighbors. But a woman came toward her, looked sharply and stopped in
front of her. It was Mary.

“My God, Saxon!” she exclaimed. “Is it as bad as this?”

Saxon looked at her old friend curiously, with a swift glance that
sketched all the tragedy. Mary was thinner, though there was more color
in her cheeks--color of which Saxon had her doubts. Mary’s bright eyes
were handsomer, larger--too large, too feverish bright, too restless.
She was well dressed--too well dressed; and she was suffering from
nerves. She turned her head apprehensively to glance into the darkness
behind her.

“My God!” Saxon breathed. “And you...” She shut her lips, then began
anew. “Come along to the house,” she said.

“If you’re ashamed to be seen with me--” Mary blurted, with one of her
old quick angers.

“No, no,” Saxon disclaimed. “It’s the driftwood and the clams. I don’t
want the neighbors to know. Come along.”

“No; I can’t, Saxon. I’d like to, but I can’t. I’ve got to catch the
next train to Frisco. I’ve ben waitin’ around. I knocked at your back
door. But the house was dark. Billy’s still in, ain’t he?”

“Yes, he gets out to-morrow.”

“I read about it in the papers,” Mary went on hurriedly, looking behind
her. “I was in Stockton when it happened.” She turned upon Saxon almost
savagely. “You don’t blame me, do you? I just couldn’t go back to work
after bein’ married. I was sick of work. Played out, I guess, an’ no
good anyway. But if you only knew how I hated the laundry even before I
got married. It’s a dirty world. You don’t dream. Saxon, honest to God,
you could never guess a hundredth part of its dirtiness. Oh, I wish I
was dead, I wish I was dead an’ out of it all. Listen--no, I can’t now.
There’s the down train puffin’ at Adeline. I’ll have to run for it. Can
I come--”

“Aw, get a move on, can’t you?” a man’s voice interrupted.

Behind her the speaker had partly emerged from the darkness. No
workingman, Saxon could see that--lower in the world scale, despite his
good clothes, than any workingman.

“I’m comin’, if you’ll only wait a second,” Mary placated.

And by her answer and its accents Saxon knew that Mary was afraid of
this man who prowled on the rim of light.

Mary turned to her.

“I got to beat it; good bye,” she said, fumbling in the palm of her
glove.

She caught Saxon’s free hand, and Saxon felt a small hot coin pressed
into it. She tried to resist, to force it back.

“No, no,” Mary pleaded. “For old times. You can do as much for me some
day. I’ll see you again. Good bye.”

Suddenly, sobbing, she threw her arms around Saxon’s waist, crushing
the feathers of her hat against the load of wood as she pressed her
face against Saxon’s breast. Then she tore herself away to arm’s length,
passionate, quivering, and stood gazing at Saxon.

“Aw, get a hustle, get a hustle,” came from the darkness the peremptory
voice of the man.

“Oh, Saxon!” Mary sobbed; and was gone.

In the house, the lamp lighted, Saxon looked at the coin. It was a
five-dollar piece--to her, a fortune. Then she thought of Mary, and
of the man of whom she was afraid. Saxon registered another black mark
against Oakland. Mary was one more destroyed. They lived only five
years, on the average, Saxon had heard somewhere. She looked at the coin
and tossed it into the kitchen sink. When she cleaned the clams, she
heard the coin tinkle down the vent pipe.

It was the thought of Billy, next morning, that led Saxon to go under
the sink, unscrew the cap to the catchtrap, and rescue the five-dollar
piece. Prisoners were not well fed, she had been told; and the thought
of placing clams and dry bread before Billy, after thirty days of prison
fare, was too appalling for her to contemplate. She knew how he liked
to spread his butter on thick, how he liked thick, rare steak fried on a
dry hot pan, and how he liked coffee that was coffee and plenty of it.

Not until after nine o’clock did Billy arrive, and she was dressed in
her prettiest house gingham to meet him. She peeped on him as he came
slowly up the front steps, and she would have run out to him except
for a group of neighborhood children who were staring from across the
street. The door opened before him as his hand reached for the knob,
and, inside, he closed it by backing against it, for his arms were
filled with Saxon. No, he had not had breakfast, nor did he want any
now that he had her. He had only stopped for a shave. He had stood the
barber off, and he had walked all the way from the City Hall because of
lack of the nickel carfare. But he’d like a bath most mighty well, and a
change of clothes. She mustn’t come near him until he was clean.

When all this was accomplished, he sat in the kitchen and watched her
cook, noting the driftwood she put in the stove and asking about it.
While she moved about, she told how she had gathered the wood, how she
had managed to live and not be beholden to the union, and by the time
they were seated at the table she was telling him about her meeting with
Mary the night before. She did not mention the five dollars.

Billy stopped chewing the first mouthful of steak. His expression
frightened her. He spat the meat out on his plate.

“You got the money to buy the meat from her,” he accused slowly. “You
had no money, no more tick with the butcher, yet here’s meat. Am I
right?”

Saxon could only bend her head.

The terrifying, ageless look had come into his face, the bleak and
passionless glaze into his eyes, which she had first seen on the day at
Weasel Park when he had fought with the three Irishmen.

“What else did you buy?” he demanded--not roughly, not angrily, but with
the fearful coldness of a rage that words could not express.

To her surprise, she had grown calm. What did it matter? It was merely
what one must expect, living in Oakland--something to be left behind
when Oakland was a thing behind, a place started from.

“The coffee,” she answered. “And the butter.”

He emptied his plate of meat and her plate into the frying pan, likewise
the roll of butter and the slice on the table, and on top he poured the
contents of the coffee canister. All this he carried into the back yard
and dumped in the garbage can. The coffee pot he emptied into the sink.
“How much of the money you got left?” he next wanted to know.

Saxon had already gone to her purse and taken it out.

“Three dollars and eighty cents,” she counted, handing it to him. “I
paid forty-five cents for the steak.”

He ran his eye over the money, counted it, and went to the front door.
She heard the door open and close, and knew that the silver had been
flung into the street. When he came back to the kitchen, Saxon was
already serving him fried potatoes on a clean plate.

“Nothin’s too good for the Robertses,” he said; “but, by God, that sort
of truck is too high for my stomach. It’s so high it stinks.”

He glanced at the fried potatoes, the fresh slice of dry bread, and the
glass of water she was placing by his plate.

“It’s all right,” she smiled, as he hesitated. “There’s nothing left
that’s tainted.”

He shot a swift glance at her face, as if for sarcasm, then sighed and
sat down. Almost immediately he was up again and holding out his arms to
her.

“I’m goin’ to eat in a minute, but I want to talk to you first,” he
said, sitting down and holding her closely. “Besides, that water ain’t
like coffee. Gettin’ cold won’t spoil it none. Now, listen. You’re the
only one I got in this world. You wasn’t afraid of me an’ what I just
done, an’ I’m glad of that. Now we’ll forget all about Mary. I got
charity enough. I’m just as sorry for her as you. I’d do anything for
her. I’d wash her feet for her like Christ did. I’d let her eat at my
table, an’ sleep under my roof. But all that ain’t no reason I should
touch anything she’s earned. Now forget her. It’s you an’ me, Saxon,
only you an’ me an’ to hell with the rest of the world. Nothing else
counts. You won’t never have to be afraid of me again. Whisky an’ I
don’t mix very well, so I’m goin’ to cut whisky out. I’ve been clean off
my nut, an’ I ain’t treated you altogether right. But that’s all past.
It won’t never happen again. I’m goin’ to start out fresh.

“Now take this thing. I oughtn’t to acted so hasty. But I did. I oughta
talked it over. But I didn’t. My damned temper got the best of me, an’
you know I got one. If a fellow can keep his temper in boxin’, why he
can keep it in bein’ married, too. Only this got me too sudden-like.
It’s something I can’t stomach, that I never could stomach. An’ you
wouldn’t want me to any more’n I’d want you to stomach something you
just couldn’t.”

She sat up straight on his knees and looked at him, afire with an idea.

“You mean that, Billy?”

“Sure I do.”

“Then I’ll tell you something I can’t stomach any more. I’ll die if I
have to.”

“Well?” he questioned, after a searching pause.

“It’s up to you,” she said.

“Then fire away.”

“You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for,” she warned. “Maybe
you’d better back out before it’s too late.”

He shook his head stubbornly.

“What you don’t want to stomach you ain’t goin’ to stomach. Let her go.”

“First,” she commenced, “no more slugging of scabs.”

His mouth opened, but he checked the involuntary protest.

“And, second, no more Oakland.”

“I don’t get that last.”

“No more Oakland. No more living in Oakland. I’ll die if I have to. It’s
pull up stakes and get out.”

He digested this slowly.

“Where?” he asked finally.

“Anywhere. Everywhere. Smoke a cigarette and think it over.”

He shook his head and studied her.

“You mean that?” he asked at length.

“I do. I want to chuck Oakland just as hard as you wanted to chuck the
beefsteak, the coffee, and the butter.”

She could see him brace himself. She could feel him brace his very body
ere he answered.

“All right then, if that’s what you want. We’ll quit Oakland. We’ll quit
it cold. God damn it, anyway, it never done nothin’ for me, an’ I
guess I’m husky enough to scratch for us both anywheres. An’ now that’s
settled, just tell me what you got it in for Oakland for.”

And she told him all she had thought out, marshaled all the facts in
her indictment of Oakland, omitting nothing, not even her last visit to
Doctor Hentley’s office nor Billy’s drinking. He but drew her closer and
proclaimed his resolves anew. The time passed. The fried potatoes grew
cold, and the stove went out.

When a pause came, Billy stood up, still holding her. He glanced at the
fried potatoes.

“Stone cold,” he said, then turned to her. “Come on. Put on your
prettiest. We’re goin’ up town for something to eat an’ to celebrate.
I guess we got a celebration comin’, seein’ as we’re going to pull up
stakes an’ pull our freight from the old burg. An’ we won’t have to
walk. I can borrow a dime from the barber, an’ I got enough junk to hock
for a blowout.”

His junk proved to be several gold medals won in his amateur days at
boxing tournaments. Once up town and in the pawnshop, Uncle Sam seemed
thoroughly versed in the value of the medals, and Billy jingled a
handful of silver in his pocket as they walked out.

He was as hilarious as a boy, and she joined in his good spirits. When
he stopped at a corner cigar store to buy a sack of Bull Durham, he
changed his mind and bought Imperials.

“Oh, I’m a regular devil,” he laughed. “Nothing’s too good to-day--not
even tailor-made smokes. An’ no chop houses nor Jap joints for you an’
me. It’s Barnum’s.”

They strolled to the restaurant at Seventh and Broadway where they had
had their wedding supper.

“Let’s make believe we’re not married,” Saxon suggested.

“Sure,” he agreed, “--an’ take a private room so as the waiter’ll have
to knock on the door each time he comes in.”

Saxon demurred at that.

“It will be too expensive, Billy. You’ll have to tip him for the
knocking. We’ll take the regular dining room.”

“Order anything you want,” Billy said largely, when they were seated.
“Here’s family porterhouse, a dollar an’ a half. What d’ye say?”

“And hash-browned,” she abetted, “and coffee extra special, and some
oysters first--I want to compare them with the rock oysters.”

Billy nodded, and looked up from the bill of fare.

“Here’s mussels bordelay. Try an order of them, too, an’ see if they
beat your Rock Wall ones.”

“Why not?” Saxon cried, her eyes dancing. “The world is ours. We’re just
travelers through this town.”

“Yep, that’s the stuff,” Billy muttered absently. He was looking at the
theater column. He lifted his eyes from the paper. “Matinee at Bell’s.
We can get reserved seats for a quarter.--Doggone the luck anyway!”

His exclamation was so aggrieved and violent that it brought alarm into
her eyes.

“If I’d only thought,” he regretted, “we could a-gone to the Forum for
grub. That’s the swell joint where fellows like Roy Blanchard hangs out,
blowin’ the money we sweat for them.”

They bought reserved tickets at Bell’s Theater; but it was too early
for the performance, and they went down Broadway and into the Electric
Theater to while away the time on a moving picture show. A cowboy
film was run off, and a French comic; then came a rural drama situated
somewhere in the Middle West. It began with a farm yard scene. The sun
blazed down on a corner of a barn and on a rail fence where the ground
lay in the mottled shade of large trees overhead. There were chickens,
ducks, and turkeys, scratching, waddling, moving about. A big
sow, followed by a roly-poly litter of seven little ones, marched
majestically through the chickens, rooting them out of the way. The
hens, in turn, took it out on the little porkers, pecking them when they
strayed too far from their mother. And over the top rail a horse
looked drowsily on, ever and anon, at mathematically precise intervals,
switching a lazy tail that flashed high lights in the sunshine.

“It’s a warm day and there are flies--can’t you just feel it?” Saxon
whispered.

“Sure. An’ that horse’s tail! It’s the most natural ever. Gee! I bet he
knows the trick of clampin’ it down over the reins. I wouldn’t wonder if
his name was Iron Tail.”

A dog ran upon the scene. The mother pig turned tail and with short
ludicrous jumps, followed by her progeny and pursued by the dog, fled
out of the film. A young girl came on, a sunbonnet hanging down her
back, her apron caught up in front and filled with grain which she threw
to the fluttering fowls. Pigeons flew down from the top of the film
and joined in the scrambling feast. The dog returned, wading scarcely
noticed among the feathered creatures, to wag his tail and laugh up at
the girl. And, behind, the horse nodded over the rail and switched on. A
young man entered, his errand immediately known to an audience educated
in moving pictures. But Saxon had no eyes for the love-making, the
pleading forcefulness, the shy reluctance, of man and maid. Ever her
gaze wandered back to the chickens, to the mottled shade under the
trees, to the warm wall of the barn, to the sleepy horse with its ever
recurrent whisk of tail.

She drew closer to Billy, and her hand, passed around his arm, sought
his hand.

“Oh, Billy,” she sighed. “I’d just die of happiness in a place like
that.” And, when the film was ended. “We got lots of time for Bell’s.
Let’s stay and see that one over again.”

They sat through a repetition of the performance, and when the farm yard
scene appeared, the longer Saxon looked at it the more it affected
her. And this time she took in further details. She saw fields beyond,
rolling hills in the background, and a cloud-flecked sky. She identified
some of the chickens, especially an obstreperous old hen who resented
the thrust of the sow’s muzzle, particularly pecked at the little pigs,
and laid about her with a vengeance when the grain fell. Saxon looked
back across the fields to the hills and sky, breathing the spaciousness
of it, the freedom, the content. Tears welled into her eyes and she wept
silently, happily.

“I know a trick that’d fix that old horse if he ever clamped his tail
down on me,” Billy whispered.

“Now I know where we’re going when we leave Oakland,” she informed him.

“Where?”

“There.”

He looked at her, and followed her gaze to the screen. “Oh,” he said,
and cogitated. “An’ why shouldn’t we?” he added.

“Oh, Billy, will you?”

Her lips trembled in her eagerness, and her whisper broke and was almost
inaudible “Sure,” he said. It was his day of royal largess.

“What you want is yourn, an’ I’ll scratch my fingers off for it. An’
I’ve always had a hankerin’ for the country myself. Say! I’ve known
horses like that to sell for half the price, an’ I can sure cure ‘em of
the habit.”



CHAPTER XVIII

It was early evening when they got off the car at Seventh and Pine on
their way home from Bell’s Theater. Billy and Saxon did their little
marketing together, then separated at the corner, Saxon to go on to the
house and prepare supper, Billy to go and see the boys--the teamsters
who had fought on in the strike during his month of retirement.

“Take care of yourself, Billy,” she called, as he started off.

“Sure,” he answered, turning his face to her over his shoulder.

Her heart leaped at the smile. It was his old, unsullied love-smile
which she wanted always to see on his face--for which, armed with her
own wisdom and the wisdom of Mercedes, she would wage the utmost woman’s
war to possess. A thought of this flashed brightly through her brain,
and it was with a proud little smile that she remembered all her pretty
equipment stored at home in the bureau and the chest of drawers.

Three-quarters of an hour later, supper ready, all but the putting on
of the lamb chops at the sound of his step, Saxon waited. She heard the
gate click, but instead of his step she heard a curious and confused
scraping of many steps. She flew to open the door. Billy stood there,
but a different Billy from the one she had parted from so short a
time before. A small boy, beside him, held his hat. His face had been
fresh-washed, or, rather, drenched, for his shirt and shoulders were
wet. His pale hair lay damp and plastered against his forehead, and was
darkened by oozing blood. Both arms hung limply by his side. But his
face was composed, and he even grinned.

“It’s all right,” he reassured Saxon. “The joke’s on me. Somewhat
damaged but still in the ring.” He stepped gingerly across the
threshold. “--Come on in, you fellows. We’re all mutts together.”

He was followed in by the boy with his hat, by Bud Strothers and
another teamster she knew, and by two strangers. The latter were big,
hard-featured, sheepish-faced men, who stared at Saxon as if afraid of
her.

“It’s all right, Saxon,” Billy began, but was interrupted by Bud.

“First thing is to get him on the bed an’ cut his clothes off him. Both
arms is broke, and here are the ginks that done it.”

He indicated the two strangers, who shuffled their feet with
embarrassment and looked more sheepish than ever.

Billy sat down on the bed, and while Saxon held the lamp, Bud and the
strangers proceeded to cut coat, shirt, and undershirt from him.

“He wouldn’t go to the receivin’ hospital,” Bud said to Saxon.

“Not on your life,” Billy concurred. “I had ‘em send for Doc Hentley.
He’ll be here any minute. Them two arms is all I got. They’ve done
pretty well by me, an’ I gotta do the same by them.--No medical students
a-learnin’ their trade on me.”

“But how did it happen?” Saxon demanded, looking from Billy to the two
strangers, puzzled by the amity that so evidently existed among them
all.

“Oh, they’re all right,” Billy dashed in. “They done it through mistake.
They’re Frisco teamsters, an’ they come over to help us--a lot of ‘em.”

The two teamsters seemed to cheer up at this, and nodded their heads.

“Yes, missus,” one of them rumbled hoarsely. “It’s all a mistake, an’...
well, the joke’s on us.”

“The drinks, anyway,” Billy grinned.

Not only was Saxon not excited, but she was scarcely perturbed. What had
happened was only to be expected.

It was in line with all that Oakland had already done to her and hers,
and, besides, Billy was not dangerously hurt. Broken arms and a sore
head would heal. She brought chairs and seated everybody.

“Now tell me what happened,” she begged. “I’m all at sea, what of you
two burleys breaking my husband’s arms, then seeing him home and holding
a love-fest with him.”

“An’ you got a right,” Bud Strothers assured her. “You see, it happened
this way--”

“You shut up, Bud,” Billy broke it. “You didn’t see anything of it.”

Saxon looked to the San Francisco teamsters.

“We’d come over to lend a hand, seein’ as the Oakland boys was gettin’
some the short end of it,” one spoke up, “an’ we’ve sure learned some
scabs there’s better trades than drivin’ team. Well, me an’ Jackson
here was nosin’ around to see what we can see, when your husband comes
moseyin’ along. When he--”

“Hold on,” Jackson interrupted. “Get it straight as you go along. We
reckon we know the boys by sight. But your husband we ain’t never seen
around, him bein’...”

“As you might say, put away for a while,” the first teamster took up the
tale. “So, when we sees what we thinks is a scab dodgin’ away from us
an’ takin’ the shortcut through the alley--”

“The alley back of Campbell’s grocery,” Billy elucidated.

“Yep, back of the grocery,” the first teamster went on; “why, we’re
sure he’s one of them squarehead scabs, hired through Murray an’ Ready,
makin’ a sneak to get into the stables over the back fences.”

“We caught one there, Billy an’ me,” Bud interpolated.

“So we don’t waste any time,” Jackson said, addressing himself to Saxon.
“We’ve done it before, an’ we know how to do ‘em up brown an’ tie ‘em
with baby ribbon. So we catch your husband right in the alley.”

“I was lookin’ for Bud,” said Billy. “The boys told me I’d find him
somewhere around the other end of the alley. An’ the first thing I know,
Jackson, here, asks me for a match.”

“An’ right there’s where I get in my fine work,” resumed the first
teamster.

“What?” asked Saxon.

“That.” The man pointed to the wound in Billy’s scalp. “I laid ‘m out.
He went down like a steer, an’ got up on his knees dippy, a-gabblin’
about somebody standin’ on their foot. He didn’t know where he was at,
you see, clean groggy. An’ then we done it.”

The man paused, the tale told.

“Broke both his arms with the crowbar,” Bud supplemented.

“That’s when I come to myself, when the bones broke,” Billy
corroborated. “An’ there was the two of ‘em givin’ me the ha-ha.
‘That’ll last you some time,’ Jackson was sayin’. An’ Anson says, ‘I’d
like to see you drive horses with them arms.’ An’ then Jackson says,
‘let’s give ‘m something for luck.’ An’ with that he fetched me a wallop
on the jaw--”

“No,” corrected Anson. “That wallop was mine.”

“Well, it sent me into dreamland over again,” Billy sighed. “An’ when
I come to, here was Bud an’ Anson an’ Jackson dousin’ me at a water
trough. An’ then we dodged a reporter an’ all come home together.”

Bud Strothers held up his fist and indicated freshly abraded skin.

“The reporter-guy just insisted on samplin’ it,” he said. Then, to
Billy: “That’s why I cut around Ninth an’ caught up with you down on
Sixth.”

A few minutes later Doctor Hentley arrived, and drove the men from the
rooms. They waited till he had finished, to assure themselves of Billy’s
well being, and then departed. In the kitchen Doctor Hentley washed his
hands and gave Saxon final instructions. As he dried himself he sniffed
the air and looked toward the stove where a pot was simmering.

“Clams,” he said. “Where did you buy them?”

“I didn’t buy them,” replied Saxon. “I dug them myself.”

“Not in the marsh?” he asked with quickened interest.

“Yes.”

“Throw them away. Throw them out. They’re death and corruption.
Typhoid--I’ve got three cases now, all traced to the clams and the
marsh.”

When he had gone, Saxon obeyed. Still another mark against Oakland,
she reflected--Oakland, the man-trap, that poisoned those it could not
starve.

“If it wouldn’t drive a man to drink,” Billy groaned, when Saxon
returned to him. “Did you ever dream such luck? Look at all my fights in
the ring, an’ never a broken bone, an’ here, snap, snap, just like that,
two arms smashed.”

“Oh, it might be worse,” Saxon smiled cheerfully.

“I’d like to know how.

“It might have been your neck.”

“An’ a good job. I tell you, Saxon, you gotta show me anything worse.”

“I can,” she said confidently.

“Well?”

“Well, wouldn’t it be worse if you intended staying on in Oakland where
it might happen again?”

“I can see myself becomin’ a farmer an’ plowin’ with a pair of
pipe-stems like these,” he persisted.

“Doctor Hentley says they’ll be stronger at the break than ever before.
And you know yourself that’s true of clean-broken bones. Now you close
your eyes and go to sleep. You’re all done up, and you need to keep your
brain quiet and stop thinking.”

He closed his eyes obediently. She slipped a cool hand under the nape of
his neck and let it rest.

“That feels good,” he murmured. “You’re so cool, Saxon. Your hand, and
you, all of you. Bein’ with you is like comin’ out into the cool night
after dancin’ in a hot room.”

After several minutes of quiet, he began to giggle.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Oh, nothin’. I was just thinkin’--thinking of them mutts doin’ me
up--me, that’s done up more scabs than I can remember.”

Next morning Billy awoke with his blues dissipated. From the kitchen
Saxon heard him painfully wrestling strange vocal acrobatics.

“I got a new song you never heard,” he told her when she came in with
a cup of coffee. “I only remember the chorus though. It’s the old man
talkin’ to some hobo of a hired man that wants to marry his daughter.
Mamie, that Billy Murphy used to run with before he got married, used to
sing it. It’s a kind of a sobby song. It used to always give Mamie the
weeps. Here’s the way the chorus goes--an’ remember, it’s the old man
spielin’.”

And with great solemnity and excruciating flatting, Billy sang:

“O treat my daughter kind-i-ly; An’ say you’ll do no harm, An’ when I
die I’ll will to you My little house an’ farm--My horse, my plow, my
sheep, my cow, An’ all them little chickens in the ga-a-rden.

“It’s them little chickens in the garden that gets me,” he explained.
“That’s how I remembered it--from the chickens in the movin’ pictures
yesterday. An’ some day we’ll have little chickens in the garden, won’t
we, old girl?”

“And a daughter, too,” Saxon amplified.

“An’ I’ll be the old geezer sayin’ them same words to the hired man,”
 Billy carried the fancy along. “It don’t take long to raise a daughter
if you ain’t in a hurry.”

Saxon took her long-neglected ukulele from its case and strummed it into
tune.

“And I’ve a song you never heard, Billy. Tom’s always singing it. He’s
crazy about taking up government land and going farming, only Sarah
won’t think of it. He sings it something like this:

“We’ll have a little farm, A pig, a horse, a cow, And you will drive the
wagon, And I will drive the plow.”

“Only in this case I guess it’s me that’ll do the plowin’,” Billy
approved. “Say, Saxon, sing ‘Harvest Days.’ That’s a farmer’s song,
too.”

After that she feared the coffee was growing cold and compelled Billy to
take it. In the helplessness of two broken arms, he had to be fed like a
baby, and as she fed him they talked.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Billy said, between mouthfuls. “Once we get
settled down in the country you’ll have that horse you’ve been wishin’
for all your life. An’ it’ll be all your own, to ride, drive, sell, or
do anything you want with.”

And, again, he ruminated: “One thing that’ll come handy in the country
is that I know horses; that’s a big start. I can always get a job at
that--if it ain’t at union wages. An’ the other things about farmin’ I
can learn fast enough.--Say, d’ye remember that day you first told me
about wantin’ a horse to ride all your life?”

Saxon remembered, and it was only by a severe struggle that she was able
to keep the tears from welling into her eyes. She seemed bursting with
happiness, and she was remembering many things--all the warm promise of
life with Billy that had been hers in the days before hard times. And
now the promise was renewed again. Since its fulfillment had not come
to them, they were going away to fulfill it for themselves and make the
moving pictures come true.

Impelled by a half-feigned fear, she stole away into the kitchen bedroom
where Bert had died, to study her face in the bureau mirror. No,
she decided; she was little changed. She was still equipped for the
battlefield of love. Beautiful she was not. She knew that. But had not
Mercedes said that the great women of history who had won men had not
been beautiful? And yet, Saxon insisted, as she gazed at her reflection,
she was anything but unlovely. She studied her wide gray eyes that were
so very gray, that were always alive with light and vivacities, where,
in the surface and depths, always swam thoughts unuttered, thoughts that
sank down and dissolved to give place to other thoughts. The brows were
excellent--she realized that. Slenderly penciled, a little darker than
her light brown hair, they just fitted her irregular nose that
was feminine but not weak, that if anything was piquant and that
picturesquely might be declared impudent.

She could see that her face was slightly thin, that the red of her lips
was not quite so red, and that she had lost some of her quick coloring.
But all that would come back again. Her mouth was not of the rosebud
type she saw in the magazines. She paid particular attention to it. A
pleasant mouth it was, a mouth to be joyous with, a mouth for laughter
and to make laughter in others. She deliberately experimented with it,
smiled till the corners dented deeper. And she knew that when she smiled
her smile was provocative of smiles. She laughed with her eyes alone--a
trick of hers. She threw back her head and laughed with eyes and mouth
together, between her spread lips showing the even rows of strong white
teeth.

And she remembered Billy’s praise of her teeth, the night at Germanic
Hall after he had told Charley Long he was standing on his foot. “Not
big, and not little dinky baby’s teeth either,” Billy had said, “...
just right, and they fit you.” Also, he had said that to look at them
made him hungry, and that they were good enough to eat.

She recollected all the compliments he had ever paid her. Beyond all
treasures, these were treasures to her--the love phrases, praises, and
admirations. He had said her skin was cool--soft as velvet, too, and
smooth as silk. She rolled up her sleeve to the shoulder, brushed her
cheek with the white skin for a test, with deep scrutiny examined the
fineness of its texture. And he had told her that she was sweet; that he
hadn’t known what it meant when they said a girl was sweet, not until he
had known her. And he had told her that her voice was cool, that it gave
him the feeling her hand did when it rested on his forehead. Her
voice went all through him, he had said, cool and fine, like a wind of
coolness. And he had likened it to the first of the sea breeze setting
in the afternoon after a scorching hot morning. And, also, when
she talked low, that it was round and sweet, like the ‘cello in the
Macdonough Theater orchestra.

He had called her his Tonic Kid. He had called her a thoroughbred,
clean-cut and spirited, all fine nerves and delicate and sensitive.
He had liked the way she carried her clothes. She carried them like a
dream, had been his way of putting it. They were part of her, just as
much as the cool of her voice and skin and the scent of her hair.

And her figure! She got upon a chair and tilted the mirror so that she
could see herself from hips to feet. She drew her skirt back and up.
The slender ankle was just as slender. The calf had lost none of its
delicately mature swell. She studied her hips, her waist, her bosom,
her neck, the poise of her head, and sighed contentedly. Billy must be
right, and he had said that she was built like a French woman, and that
in the matter of lines and form she could give Annette Kellerman cards
and spades.

He had said so many things, now that she recalled them all at one time.
Her lips! The Sunday he proposed he had said: “I like to watch your lips
talking. It’s funny, but every move they make looks like a tickly kiss.”
 And afterward, that same day: “You looked good to me from the first
moment I spotted you.” He had praised her housekeeping. He had said he
fed better, lived more comfortably, held up his end with the fellows,
and saved money. And she remembered that day when he had crushed her in
his arms and declared she was the greatest little bit of a woman that
had ever come down the pike.

She ran her eyes over all herself in the mirror again, gathered herself
together into a whole, compact and good to look upon--delicious, she
knew. Yes, she would do. Magnificent as Billy was in his man way, in her
own way she was a match for him. Yes, she had done well by Billy. She
deserved much--all he could give her, the best he could give her. But
she made no blunder of egotism. Frankly valuing herself, she as frankly
valued him. When he was himself, his real self, not harassed by trouble,
not pinched by the trap, not maddened by drink, her man-boy and lover,
he was well worth all she gave him or could give him.

Saxon gave herself a farewell look. No. She was not dead, any more than
was Billy’s love dead, than was her love dead. All that was needed was
the proper soil, and their love would grow and blossom. And they were
turning their backs upon Oakland to go and seek that proper soil.

“Oh, Billy!” she called through the partition, still standing on the
chair, one hand tipping the mirror forward and back, so that she was
able to run her eyes from the reflection of her ankles and calves to her
face, warm with color and roguishly alive.

“Yes?” she heard him answer.

“I’m loving myself,” she called back.

“What’s the game?” came his puzzled query. “What are you so stuck on
yourself for!”

“Because you love me,” she answered. “I love every bit of me, Billy,
because... because... well, because you love every bit of me.”



CHAPTER XIX

Between feeding and caring for Billy, doing the housework, making plans,
and selling her store of pretty needlework, the days flew happily for
Saxon. Billy’s consent to sell her pretties had been hard to get, but at
last she succeeded in coaxing it out of him.

“It’s only the ones I haven’t used,” she urged; “and I can always make
more when we get settled somewhere.”

What she did not sell, along with the household linen and hers and
Billy’s spare clothing, she arranged to store with Tom.

“Go ahead,” Billy said. “This is your picnic. What you say goes. You’re
Robinson Crusoe an’ I’m your man Friday. Make up your mind yet which way
you’re goin’ to travel?”

Saxon shook her head.

“Or how?”

She held up one foot and then the other, encased in stout walking shoes
which she had begun that morning to break in about the house. “Shank’s
mare, eh?”

“It’s the way our people came into the West,” she said proudly.

“It’ll be regular trampin’, though,” he argued. “An’ I never heard of a
woman tramp.”

“Then here’s one. Why, Billy, there’s no shame in tramping. My mother
tramped most of the way across the Plains. And ‘most everybody else’s
mother tramped across in those days. I don’t care what people will
think. I guess our race has been on the tramp since the beginning of
creation, just like we’ll be, looking for a piece of land that looked
good to settle down on.”

After a few days, when his scalp was sufficiently healed and the
bone-knitting was nicely in process, Billy was able to be up and about.
He was still quite helpless, however, with both his arms in splints.

Doctor Hentley not only agreed, but himself suggested, that his bill
should wait against better times for settlement. Of government land, in
response to Saxon’s eager questioning, he knew nothing, except that he
had a hazy idea that the days of government land were over.

Tom, on the contrary, was confident that there was plenty of government
land. He talked of Honey Lake, of Shasta County, and of Humboldt.

“But you can’t tackle it at this time of year, with winter comin’ on,”
 he advised Saxon. “The thing for you to do is head south for warmer
weather--say along the coast. It don’t snow down there. I tell you what
you do. Go down by San Jose and Salinas an’ come out on the coast at
Monterey. South of that you’ll find government land mixed up with forest
reserves and Mexican rancheros. It’s pretty wild, without any roads to
speak of. All they do is handle cattle. But there’s some fine redwood
canyons, with good patches of farming ground that run right down to the
ocean. I was talkin’ last year with a fellow that’s been all through
there. An’ I’d a-gone, like you an’ Billy, only Sarah wouldn’t hear of
it. There’s gold down there, too. Quite a bunch is in there prospectin’,
an’ two or three good mines have opened. But that’s farther along and in
a ways from the coast. You might take a look.”

Saxon shook her head. “We’re not looking for gold but for chickens and
a place to grow vegetables. Our folks had all the chance for gold in the
early days, and what have they got to show for it?”

“I guess you’re right,” Tom conceded. “They always played too big a
game, an’ missed the thousand little chances right under their nose.
Look at your pa. I’ve heard him tell of selling three Market street
lots in San Francisco for fifty dollars each. They’re worth five hundred
thousand right now. An’ look at Uncle Will. He had ranches till the
cows come home. Satisfied? No. He wanted to be a cattle king, a regular
Miller and Lux. An’ when he died he was a night watchman in Los Angeles
at forty dollars a month. There’s a spirit of the times, an’ the spirit
of the times has changed. It’s all big business now, an’ we’re the
small potatoes. Why, I’ve heard our folks talk of livin’ in the Western
Reserve. That was all around what’s Ohio now. Anybody could get a farm
them days. All they had to do was yoke their oxen an’ go after it, an’
the Pacific Ocean thousands of miles to the west, an’ all them thousands
of miles an’ millions of farms just waitin’ to be took up. A hundred an’
sixty acres? Shucks. In the early days in Oregon they talked six hundred
an’ forty acres. That was the spirit of them times--free land, an’
plenty of it. But when we reached the Pacific Ocean them times was
ended. Big business begun; an’ big business means big business men;
an’ every big business man means thousands of little men without any
business at all except to work for the big ones. They’re the losers,
don’t you see? An’ if they don’t like it they can lump it, but it won’t
do them no good. They can’t yoke up their oxen an’ pull on. There’s no
place to pull on. China’s over there, an’ in between’s a mighty lot of
salt water that’s no good for farmin’ purposes.”

“That’s all clear enough,” Saxon commented.

“Yes,” her brother went on. “We can all see it after it’s happened, when
it’s too late.”

“But the big men were smarter,” Saxon remarked.

“They were luckier,” Tom contended. “Some won, but most lost, an’ just
as good men lost. It was almost like a lot of boys scramblin’ on the
sidewalk for a handful of small change. Not that some didn’t have
far-seein’. But just take your pa, for example. He come of good Down
East stock that’s got business instinct an’ can add to what it’s got.
Now suppose your pa had developed a weak heart, or got kidney disease,
or caught rheumatism, so he couldn’t go gallivantin’ an’ rainbow
chasin’, an’ fightin’ an’ explorin’ all over the West. Why, most likely
he’d a settled down in San Francisco--he’d a-had to--an’ held onto them
three Market street lots, an’ bought more lots, of course, an’ gone
into steamboat companies, an’ stock gamblin’, an’ railroad buildin’, an’
Comstock-tunnelin’.

“Why, he’d a-become big business himself. I know ‘m. He was the most
energetic man I ever saw, think quick as a wink, as cool as an icicle
an’ as wild as a Comanche. Why, he’d a-cut a swath through the free an’
easy big business gamblers an’ pirates of them days; just as he cut a
swath through the hearts of the ladies when he went gallopin’ past on
that big horse of his, sword clatterin’, spurs jinglin’, his long hair
flyin’, straight as an Indian, clean-built an’ graceful as a blue-eyed
prince out of a fairy book an’ a Mexican caballero all rolled into
one; just as he cut a swath through the Johnny Rebs in Civil War days,
chargin’ with his men all the way through an’ back again, an’ yellin’
like a wild Indian for more. Cady, that helped raise you, told me about
that. Cady rode with your pa.

“Why, if your pa’d only got laid up in San Francisco, he would a-ben one
of the big men of the West. An’ in that case, right now, you’d be a rich
young woman, travelin’ in Europe, with a mansion on Nob Hill along with
the Floods and Crockers, an’ holdin’ majority stock most likely in the
Fairmount Hotel an’ a few little concerns like it. An’ why ain’t you?
Because your pa wasn’t smart? No. His mind was like a steel trap. It’s
because he was filled to burstin’ an’ spillin’ over with the spirit of
the times; because he was full of fire an’ vinegar an’ couldn’t set down
in one place. That’s all the difference between you an’ the young women
right now in the Flood and Crocker families. Your father didn’t catch
rheumatism at the right time, that’s all.”

Saxon sighed, then smiled.

“Just the same, I’ve got them beaten,” she said. “The Miss Floods and
Miss Crockers can’t marry prize-fighters, and I did.”

Tom looked at her, taken aback for the moment, with admiration, slowly
at first, growing in his face.

“Well, all I got to say,” he enunciated solemnly, “is that Billy’s so
lucky he don’t know how lucky he is.”


Not until Doctor Hentley gave the word did the splints come off Billy’s
arms, and Saxon insisted upon an additional two weeks’ delay so that no
risk would be run. These two weeks would complete another month’s rent,
and the landlord had agreed to wait payment for the last two months
until Billy was on his feet again.

Salinger’s awaited the day set by Saxon for taking back their furniture.
Also, they had returned to Billy seventy-five dollars.

“The rest you’ve paid will be rent,” the collector told Saxon. “And the
furniture’s second hand now, too. The deal will be a loss to Salinger’s’
and they didn’t have to do it, either; you know that. So just remember
they’ve been pretty square with you, and if you start over again don’t
forget them.”

Out of this sum, and out of what was realized from Saxon’s pretties,
they were able to pay all their small bills and yet have a few dollars
remaining in pocket.

“I hate owin’ things worse ‘n poison,” Billy said to Saxon. “An’ now we
don’t owe a soul in this world except the landlord an’ Doc Hentley.”

“And neither of them can afford to wait longer than they have to,” she
said.

“And they won’t,” Billy answered quietly.

She smiled her approval, for she shared with Billy his horror of debt,
just as both shared it with that early tide of pioneers with a Puritan
ethic, which had settled the West.

Saxon timed her opportunity when Billy was out of the house to pack the
chest of drawers which had crossed the Atlantic by sailing ship and the
Plains by ox team. She kissed the bullet hole in it, made in the fight
at Little Meadow, as she kissed her father’s sword, the while she
visioned him, as she always did, astride his roan warhorse. With the old
religious awe, she pored over her mother’s poems in the scrap-book, and
clasped her mother’s red satin Spanish girdle about her in a farewell
embrace. She unpacked the scrap-book in order to gaze a last time at the
wood engraving of the Vikings, sword in hand, leaping upon the English
sands. Again she identified Billy as one of the Vikings, and pondered
for a space on the strange wanderings of the seed from which she sprang.
Always had her race been land-hungry, and she took delight in believing
she had bred true; for had not she, despite her life passed in a city,
found this same land-hunger in her? And was she not going forth to
satisfy that hunger, just as her people of old time had done, as her
father and mother before her? She remembered her mother’s tale of how
the promised land looked to them as their battered wagons and weary oxen
dropped down through the early winter snows of the Sierras to the vast
and flowering sun-land of California: In fancy, herself a child of nine,
she looked down from the snowy heights as her mother must have looked
down. She recalled and repeated aloud one of her mother’s stanzas:

“‘Sweet as a wind-lute’s airy strains Your gentle muse has learned to
sing And California’s boundless plains Prolong the soft notes echoing.’”

She sighed happily and dried her eyes. Perhaps the hard times were
past. Perhaps they had constituted HER Plains, and she and Billy had won
safely across and were even then climbing the Sierras ere they dropped
down into the pleasant valley land.

Salinger’s wagon was at the house, taking out the furniture, the morning
they left. The landlord, standing at the gate, received the keys, shook
hands with them, and wished them luck. “You’re goin’ at it right,” he
congratulated them. “Sure an’ wasn’t it under me roll of blankets I
tramped into Oakland meself forty year ago! Buy land, like me, when it’s
cheap. It’ll keep you from the poorhouse in your old age. There’s plenty
of new towns springin’ up. Get in on the ground floor. The work of your
hands’ll keep you in food an’ under a roof, an’ the land ‘ll make you
well to do. An’ you know me address. When you can spare send me along
that small bit of rent. An’ good luck. An’ don’t mind what people think.
‘Tis them that looks that finds.”

Curious neighbors peeped from behind the blinds as Billy and Saxon
strode up the street, while the children gazed at them in gaping
astonishment. On Billy’s back, inside a painted canvas tarpaulin, was
slung the roll of bedding. Inside the roll were changes of underclothing
and odds and ends of necessaries. Outside, from the lashings, depended
a frying pan and cooking pail. In his hand he carried the coffee pot.
Saxon carried a small telescope basket protected by black oilcloth, and
across her back was the tiny ukulele case.

“We must look like holy frights,” Billy grumbled, shrinking from every
gaze that was bent upon him.

“It’d be all right, if we were going camping,” Saxon consoled. “Only
we’re not.”

“But they don’t know that,” she continued. “It’s only you know that, and
what you think they’re thinking isn’t what they’re thinking at all. Most
probably they think we’re going camping. And the best of it is we are
going camping. We are! We are!”

At this Billy cheered up, though he muttered his firm intention to knock
the block off of any guy that got fresh. He stole a glance at Saxon. Her
cheeks were red, her eyes glowing.

“Say,” he said suddenly. “I seen an opera once, where fellows wandered
over the country with guitars slung on their backs just like you with
that strummy-strum. You made me think of them. They was always singin’
songs.”

“That’s what I brought it along for,” Saxon answered.

“And when we go down country roads we’ll sing as we go along, and we’ll
sing by the campfires, too. We’re going camping, that’s all. Taking a
vacation and seeing the country. So why shouldn’t we have a good time?
Why, we don’t even know where we’re going to sleep to-night, or any
night. Think of the fun!”

“It’s a sporting proposition all right, all right,” Billy considered.
“But, just the same, let’s turn off an’ go around the block. There’s
some fellows I know, standin’ up there on the next corner, an’ I don’t
want to knock THEIR blocks off.”



BOOK III



CHAPTER I

The car ran as far as Hayward’s, but at Saxon’s suggestion they got off
at San Leandro.

“It doesn’t matter where we start walking,” she said, “for start to walk
somewhere we must. And as we’re looking for land and finding out about
land, the quicker we begin to investigate the better. Besides, we want
to know all about all kinds of land, close to the big cities as well as
back in the mountains.”

“Gee!--this must be the Porchugeeze headquarters,” was Billy’s
reiterated comment, as they walked through San Leandro.

“It looks as though they’d crowd our kind out,” Saxon adjudged.

“Some tall crowdin’, I guess,” Billy grumbled. “It looks like the
free-born American ain’t got no room left in his own land.”

“Then it’s his own fault,” Saxon said, with vague asperity, resenting
conditions she was just beginning to grasp.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I reckon the American could do what the
Porchugeeze do if he wanted to. Only he don’t want to, thank God. He
ain’t much given to livin’ like a pig offen leavin’s.”

“Not in the country, maybe,” Saxon controverted. “But I’ve seen an awful
lot of Americans living like pigs in the cities.”

Billy grunted unwilling assent. “I guess they quit the farms an’ go to
the city for something better, an’ get it in the neck.”

“Look at all the children!” Saxon cried. “School’s letting out. And
nearly all are Portuguese, Billy, NOT Porchugeeze. Mercedes taught me
the right way.”

“They never wore glad rags like them in the old country,” Billy sneered.
“They had to come over here to get decent clothes and decent grub.
They’re as fat as butterballs.”

Saxon nodded affirmation, and a great light seemed suddenly to kindle in
her understanding.

“That’s the very point, Billy. They’re doing it--doing it farming, too.
Strikes don’t bother THEM.”

“You don’t call that dinky gardening farming,” he objected, pointing to
a piece of land barely the size of an acre, which they were passing.

“Oh, your ideas are still big,” she laughed. “You’re like Uncle Will,
who owned thousands of acres and wanted to own a million, and who wound
up as night watchman. That’s what was the trouble with all us Americans.
Everything large scale. Anything less than one hundred and sixty acres
was small scale.”

“Just the same,” Billy held stubbornly, “large scale’s a whole lot
better’n small scale like all these dinky gardens.”

Saxon sighed. “I don’t know which is the dinkier,” she observed finally,
“--owning a few little acres and the team you’re driving, or not owning
any acres and driving a team somebody else owns for wages.”

Billy winced.

“Go on, Robinson Crusoe,” he growled good naturedly. “Rub it in good
an’ plenty. An’ the worst of it is it’s correct. A hell of a free-born
American I’ve been, adrivin’ other folkses’ teams for a livin’,
a-strikin’ and a-sluggin’ scabs, an’ not bein’ able to keep up with the
installments for a few sticks of furniture. Just the same I was sorry
for one thing. I hated worse ‘n Sam Hill to see that Morris chair go
back--you liked it so. We did a lot of honeymoonin’ in that chair.”

They were well out of San Leandro, walking through a region of tiny
holdings--“farmlets,” Billy called them; and Saxon got out her ukulele
to cheer him with a song.

First, it was “Treat my daughter kind-i-ly,” and then she swung into
old-fashioned darky camp-meeting hymns, beginning with:

“Oh! de Judgmen’ Day am rollin’ roun’, Rollin’, yes, a-rollin’, I hear
the trumpets’ awful soun’, Rollin’, yes, a-rollin’.”

A big touring car, dashing past, threw a dusty pause in her singing, and
Saxon delivered herself of her latest wisdom.

“Now, Billy, remember we’re not going to take up with the first piece of
land we see. We’ve got to go into this with our eyes open--”

“An’ they ain’t open yet,” he agreed.

“And we’ve got to get them open. ‘’Tis them that looks that finds.’
There’s lots of time to learn things. We don’t care if it takes months
and months. We’re footloose. A good start is better than a dozen bad
ones. We’ve got to talk and find out. We’ll talk with everybody we meet.
Ask questions. Ask everybody. It’s the only way to find out.”

“I ain’t much of a hand at askin’ questions,” Billy demurred.

“Then I’ll ask,” she cried. “We’ve got to win out at this game, and
the way is to know. Look at all these Portuguese. Where are all the
Americans? They owned the land first, after the Mexicans. What made the
Americans clear out? How do the Portuguese make it go? Don’t you see?
We’ve got to ask millions of questions.”

She strummed a few chords, and then her clear sweet voice rang out
gaily:

“I’s g’wine back to Dixie, I’s g’wine back to Dixie, I’s g’wine where de
orange blossoms grow, For I hear de chillun callin’, I see de sad tears
fallin’--My heart’s turned back to Dixie, An’ I mus’go.”

She broke off to exclaim: “Oh! What a lovely place! See that arbor--just
covered with grapes!”

Again and again she was attracted by the small places they passed. Now
it was: “Look at the flowers!” or: “My! those vegetables!” or: “See!
They’ve got a cow!”

Men--Americans--driving along in buggies or runabouts looked at Saxon
and Billy curiously. This Saxon could brook far easier than could Billy,
who would mutter and grumble deep in his throat.

Beside the road they came upon a lineman eating his lunch.

“Stop and talk,” Saxon whispered.

“Aw, what’s the good? He’s a lineman. What’d he know about farmin’?”

“You never can tell. He’s our kind. Go ahead, Billy. You just speak to
him. He isn’t working now anyway, and he’ll be more likely to talk. See
that tree in there, just inside the gate, and the way the branches are
grown together. It’s a curiosity. Ask him about it. That’s a good way to
get started.”

Billy stopped, when they were alongside.

“How do you do,” he said gruffly.

The lineman, a young fellow, paused in the cracking of a hard-boiled egg
to stare up at the couple.

“How do you do,” he said.

Billy swung his pack from his shoulders to the ground, and Saxon rested
her telescope basket.

“Peddlin’?” the young man asked, too discreet to put his question
directly to Saxon, yet dividing it between her and Billy, and cocking
his eye at the covered basket.

“No,” she spoke up quickly. “We’re looking for land. Do you know of any
around here?”

Again he desisted from the egg, studying them with sharp eyes as if to
fathom their financial status.

“Do you know what land sells for around here?” he asked.

“No,” Saxon answered. “Do you?”

“I guess I ought to. I was born here. And land like this all around you
runs at from two to three hundred to four an’ five hundred dollars an
acre.”

“Whew!” Billy whistled. “I guess we don’t want none of it.”

“But what makes it that high? Town lots?” Saxon wanted to know.

“Nope. The Porchugeeze make it that high, I guess.”

“I thought it was pretty good land that fetched a hundred an acre,”
 Billy said.

“Oh, them times is past. They used to give away land once, an’ if you
was good, throw in all the cattle runnin’ on it.”

“How about government land around here?” was Billy’a next query.

“Ain’t none, an’ never was. This was old Mexican grants. My grandfather
bought sixteen hundred of the best acres around here for fifteen
hundred dollars--five hundred down an’ the balance in five years without
interest. But that was in the early days. He come West in ‘48, tryin’ to
find a country without chills an’ fever.”

“He found it all right,” said Billy.

“You bet he did. An’ if him an’ father ‘d held onto the land it’d been
better than a gold mine, an’ I wouldn’t be workin’ for a livin’. What’s
your business?”

“Teamster.”

“Ben in the strike in Oakland?”

“Sure thing. I’ve teamed there most of my life.”

Here the two men wandered off into a discussion of union affairs and the
strike situation; but Saxon refused to be balked, and brought back the
talk to the land.

“How was it the Portuguese ran up the price of land?” she asked.

The young fellow broke away from union matters with an effort, and for a
moment regarded her with lack luster eyes, until the question sank into
his consciousness.

“Because they worked the land overtime. Because they worked mornin’,
noon, an’ night, all hands, women an’ kids. Because they could get more
out of twenty acres than we could out of a hundred an’ sixty. Look at
old Silva--Antonio Silva. I’ve known him ever since I was a shaver.
He didn’t have the price of a square meal when he hit this section and
begun leasin’ land from my folks. Look at him now--worth two hundred
an’ fifty thousan’ cold, an’ I bet he’s got credit for a million, an’
there’s no tellin’ what the rest of his family owns.”

“And he made all that out of your folks’ land?” Saxon demanded.

The young man nodded his head with evident reluctance.

“Then why didn’t your folks do it?” she pursued.

The lineman shrugged his shoulders.

“Search me,” he said.

“But the money was in the land,” she persisted.

“Blamed if it was,” came the retort, tinged slightly with color. “We
never saw it stickin’ out so as you could notice it. The money was in
the hands of the Porchugeeze, I guess. They knew a few more ‘n we did,
that’s all.”

Saxon showed such dissatisfaction with his explanation that he was stung
to action. He got up wrathfully. “Come on, an’ I’ll show you,” he
said. “I’ll show you why I’m workin’ for wages when I might a-ben a
millionaire if my folks hadn’t been mutts. That’s what we old Americans
are, Mutts, with a capital M.”

He led them inside the gate, to the fruit tree that had first attracted
Saxon’s attention. From the main crotch diverged the four main branches
of the tree. Two feet above the crotch the branches were connected, each
to the ones on both sides, by braces of living wood.

“You think it growed that way, eh? Well, it did. But it was old Silva
that made it just the same--caught two sprouts, when the tree was young,
an’ twisted ‘em together. Pretty slick, eh? You bet. That tree’ll never
blow down. It’s a natural, springy brace, an’ beats iron braces stiff.
Look along all the rows. Every tree’s that way. See? An’ that’s just one
trick of the Porchugeeze. They got a million like it.

“Figure it out for yourself. They don’t need props when the crop’s
heavy. Why, when we had a heavy crop, we used to use five props to
a tree. Now take ten acres of trees. That’d be some several thousan’
props. Which cost money, an’ labor to put in an’ take out every year.
These here natural braces don’t have to have a thing done. They’re
Johnny-on-the-spot all the time. Why, the Porchugeeze has got us skinned
a mile. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Billy, with city notions of trespass, betrayed perturbation at the
freedom they were making of the little farm.

“Oh, it’s all right, as long as you don’t step on nothin’,” the lineman
reassured him. “Besides, my grandfather used to own this. They know me.
Forty years ago old Silva come from the Azores. Went sheep-herdin’ in
the mountains for a couple of years, then blew in to San Leandro. These
five acres was the first land he leased. That was the beginnin’. Then he
began leasin’ by the hundreds of acres, an’ by the hundred-an’-sixties.
An’ his sisters an’ his uncles an’ his aunts begun pourin’ in from the
Azores--they’re all related there, you know; an’ pretty soon San Leandro
was a regular Porchugeeze settlement.

“An’ old Silva wound up by buyin’ these five acres from grandfather.
Pretty soon--an’ father by that time was in the hole to the neck--he was
buyin’ father’s land by the hundred-an’-sixties. An’ all the rest of
his relations was doin’ the same thing. Father was always gettin’ rich
quick, an’ he wound up by dyin’ in debt. But old Silva never overlooked
a bet, no matter how dinky. An’ all the rest are just like him. You
see outside the fence there, clear to the wheel-tracks in the
road--horse-beans. We’d a-scorned to do a picayune thing like that. Not
Silva. Why he’s got a town house in San Leandro now. An’ he rides around
in a four-thousan’-dollar tourin’ car. An’ just the same his front door
yard grows onions clear to the sidewalk. He clears three hundred a year
on that patch alone. I know ten acres of land he bought last year,--a
thousan’ an acre they asked’m, an’ he never batted an eye. He knew it
was worth it, that’s all. He knew he could make it pay. Back in the
hills, there, he’s got a ranch of five hundred an’ eighty acres, bought
it dirt cheap, too; an’ I want to tell you I could travel around in a
different tourin’ car every day in the week just outa the profits he
makes on that ranch from the horses all the way from heavy draughts to
fancy steppers.

“But how?--how?--how did he get it all?” Saxon clamored.

“By bein’ wise to farmin’. Why, the whole blame family works. They
ain’t ashamed to roll up their sleeves an’ dig--sons an’ daughters an’
daughter-in-laws, old man, old woman, an’ the babies. They have a sayin’
that a kid four years old that can’t pasture one cow on the county road
an’ keep it fat ain’t worth his salt. Why, the Silvas, the whole tribe
of ‘em, works a hundred acres in peas, eighty in tomatoes, thirty in
asparagus, ten in pie-plant, forty in cucumbers, an’--oh, stacks of
other things.”

“But how do they do it?” Saxon continued to demand. “We’ve never been
ashamed to work. We’ve worked hard all our lives. I can out-work any
Portuguese woman ever born. And I’ve done it, too, in the jute mills.
There were lots of Portuguese girls working at the looms all around me,
and I could out-weave them, every day, and I did, too. It isn’t a case
of work. What is it?”

The lineman looked at her in a troubled way.

“Many’s the time I’ve asked myself that same question. ‘We’re better’n
these cheap emigrants,’ I’d say to myself. ‘We was here first, an’ owned
the land. I can lick any Dago that ever hatched in the Azores. I got a
better education. Then how in thunder do they put it all over us, get
our land, an’ start accounts in the banks?’ An’ the only answer I know
is that we ain’t got the sabe. We don’t use our head-pieces right.
Something’s wrong with us. Anyway, we wasn’t wised up to farming. We
played at it. Show you? That’s what I brung you in for--the way old
Silva an’ all his tribe farms. Look at this place. Some cousin of his,
just out from the Azores, is makin’ a start on it, an’ payin’ good rent
to Silva. Pretty soon he’ll be up to snuff an’ buyin’ land for himself
from some perishin’ American farmer.

“Look at that--though you ought to see it in summer. Not an inch wasted.
Where we got one thin crop, they get four fat crops. An’ look at the way
they crowd it--currants between the tree rows, beans between the currant
rows, a row of beans close on each side of the trees, an’ rows of beans
along the ends of the tree rows. Why, Silva wouldn’t sell these five
acres for five hundred an acre cash down. He gave grandfather fifty
an acre for it on long time, an’ here am I, workin’ for the telephone
company an’ putting’ in a telephone for old Silva’s cousin from the
Azores that can’t speak American yet. Horse-beans along the road--say,
when Silva swung that trick he made more outa fattenin’ hogs with ‘em
than grandfather made with all his farmin’. Grandfather stuck up his
nose at horse-beans. He died with it stuck up, an’ with more mortgages
on the land he had left than you could shake a stick at. Plantin’
tomatoes wrapped up in wrappin’ paper--ever heard of that? Father
snorted when he first seen the Porchugeeze doin’ it. An’ he went on
snortin’. Just the same they got bumper crops, an’ father’s house-patch
of tomatoes was eaten by the black beetles. We ain’t got the sabe,
or the knack, or something or other. Just look at this piece of
ground--four crops a year, an’ every inch of soil workin’ over time.
Why, back in town there, there’s single acres that earns more than fifty
of ours in the old days. The Porchugeeze is natural-born farmers, that’s
all, an’ we don’t know nothin’ about farmin’ an’ never did.”

Saxon talked with the lineman, following him about, till one o’clock,
when he looked at his watch, said good bye, and returned to his task of
putting in a telephone for the latest immigrant from the Azores.

When in town, Saxon carried her oilcloth-wrapped telescope in her hand;
but it was so arranged with loops, that, once on the road, she could
thrust her arms through the loops and carry it on her back. When she did
this, the tiny ukulele case was shifted so that it hung under her left
arm.

A mile on from the lineman, they stopped where a small creek, fringed
with brush, crossed the county road. Billy was for the cold lunch, which
was the last meal Saxon had prepared in the Pine street cottage; but
she was determined upon building a fire and boiling coffee. Not that she
desired it for herself, but that she was impressed with the idea
that everything at the starting of their strange wandering must be as
comfortable as possible for Billy’s sake. Bent on inspiring him with
enthusiasm equal to her own, she declined to dampen what sparks he had
caught by anything so uncheerful as a cold meal.

“Now one thing we want to get out of our heads right at the start,
Billy, is that we’re in a hurry. We’re not in a hurry, and we don’t care
whether school keeps or not. We’re out to have a good time, a regular
adventure like you read about in books.--My! I wish that boy that took
me fishing to Goat Island could see me now. Oakland was just a place
to start from, he said. And, well, we’ve started, haven’t we? And right
here’s where we stop and boil coffee. You get the fire going, Billy, and
I’ll get the water and the things ready to spread out.”

“Say,” Billy remarked, while they waited for the water to boil, “d’ye
know what this reminds me of?”

Saxon was certain she did know, but she shook her head. She wanted to
hear him say it.

“Why, the second Sunday I knew you, when we drove out to Moraga Valley
behind Prince and King. You spread the lunch that day.”

“Only it was a more scrumptious lunch,” she added, with a happy smile.

“But I wonder why we didn’t have coffee that day,” he went on.

“Perhaps it would have been too much like housekeeping,” she laughed;
“kind of what Mary would call indelicate--”

“Or raw,” Billy interpolated. “She was always springin’ that word.”

“And yet look what became of her.”

“That’s the way with all of them,” Billy growled somberly. “I’ve always
noticed it’s the fastidious, la-de-da ones that turn out the rottenest.
They’re like some horses I know, a-shyin’ at the things they’re the
least afraid of.”

Saxon was silent, oppressed by a sadness, vague and remote, which the
mention of Bert’s widow had served to bring on.

“I know something else that happened that day which you’d never guess,”
 Billy reminisced. “I bet you couldn’t.

“I wonder,” Saxon murmured, and guessed it with her eyes.

Billy’s eyes answered, and quite spontaneously he reached over, caught
her hand, and pressed it caressingly to his cheek.

“It’s little, but oh my,” he said, addressing the imprisoned hand.
Then he gazed at Saxon, and she warmed with his words. “We’re beginnin’
courtin’ all over again, ain’t we?”

Both ate heartily, and Billy was guilty of three cups of coffee.

“Say, this country air gives some appetite,” he mumbled, as he sank his
teeth into his fifth bread-and-meat sandwich. “I could eat a horse, an’
drown his head off in coffee afterward.”

Saxon’s mind had reverted to all the young lineman had told her, and
she completed a sort of general resume of the information. “My!” she
exclaimed, “but we’ve learned a lot!”

“An’ we’ve sure learned one thing,” Billy said. “An’ that is that this
is no place for us, with land a thousan’ an acre an’ only twenty dollars
in our pockets.”

“Oh, we’re not going to stop here,” she hastened to say.

“But just the same it’s the Portuguese that gave it its price, and they
make things go on it--send their children to school... and have them;
and, as you said yourself, they’re as fat as butterballs.”

“An’ I take my hat off to them,” Billy responded.

“But all the same, I’d sooner have forty acres at a hundred an acre than
four at a thousan’ an acre. Somehow, you know, I’d be scared stiff on
four acres--scared of fallin’ off, you know.”

She was in full sympathy with him. In her heart of hearts the forty
acres tugged much the harder. In her way, allowing for the difference
of a generation, her desire for spaciousness was as strong as her Uncle
Will’s.

“Well, we’re not going to stop here,” she assured Billy. “We’re going
in, not for forty acres, but for a hundred and sixty acres free from the
government.”

“An’ I guess the government owes it to us for what our fathers an’
mothers done. I tell you, Saxon, when a woman walks across the plains
like your mother done, an’ a man an’ wife gets massacred by the Indians
like my grandfather an’ mother done, the government does owe them
something.”

“Well, it’s up to us to collect.”

“An’ we’ll collect all right, all right, somewhere down in them redwood
mountains south of Monterey.”



CHAPTER II

It was a good afternoon’s tramp to Niles, passing through the town of
Haywards; yet Saxon and Billy found time to diverge from the main county
road and take the parallel roads through acres of intense cultivation
where the land was farmed to the wheel-tracks. Saxon looked with
amazement at these small, brown-skinned immigrants who came to the soil
with nothing and yet made the soil pay for itself to the tune of two
hundred, of five hundred, and of a thousand dollars an acre.

On every hand was activity. Women and children were in the fields as
well as men. The land was turned endlessly over and over. They seemed
never to let it rest. And it rewarded them. It must reward them, or
their children would not be able to go to school, nor would so many of
them be able to drive by in rattletrap, second-hand buggies or in stout
light wagons.

“Look at their faces,” Saxon said. “They are happy and contented. They
haven’t faces like the people in our neighborhood after the strikes
began.”

“Oh, sure, they got a good thing,” Billy agreed. “You can see it
stickin’ out all over them. But they needn’t get chesty with ME, I can
tell you that much--just because they’ve jiggerooed us out of our land
an’ everything.”

“But they’re not showing any signs of chestiness,” Saxon demurred.

“No, they’re not, come to think of it. All the same, they ain’t so wise.
I bet I could tell ‘em a few about horses.”

It was sunset when they entered the little town of Niles. Billy, who had
been silent for the last half mile, hesitantly ventured a suggestion.

“Say... I could put up for a room in the hotel just as well as not. What
d ‘ye think?”

But Saxon shook her head emphatically.

“How long do you think our twenty dollars will last at that rate?
Besides, the only way to begin is to begin at the beginning. We didn’t
plan sleeping in hotels.”

“All right,” he gave in. “I’m game. I was just thinkin’ about you.”

“Then you’d better think I’m game, too,” she flashed forgivingly. “And
now we’ll have to see about getting things for supper.”

They bought a round steak, potatoes, onions, and a dozen eating apples,
then went out from the town to the fringe of trees and brush that
advertised a creek. Beside the trees, on a sand bank, they pitched
camp. Plenty of dry wood lay about, and Billy whistled genially while he
gathered and chopped. Saxon, keen to follow his every mood, was cheered
by the atrocious discord on his lips. She smiled to herself as she
spread the blankets, with the tarpaulin underneath, for a table, having
first removed all twigs from the sand. She had much to learn in the
matter of cooking over a camp-fire, and made fair progress, discovering,
first of all, that control of the fire meant far more than the size of
it. When the coffee was boiled, she settled the grounds with a part-cup
of cold water and placed the pot on the edge of the coals where it would
keep hot and yet not boil. She fried potato dollars and onions in the
same pan, but separately, and set them on top of the coffee pot in the
tin plate she was to eat from, covering it with Billy’s inverted plate.
On the dry hot pan, in the way that delighted Billy, she fried the
steak. This completed, and while Billy poured the coffee, she served
the steak, putting the dollars and onions back into the frying pan for a
moment to make them piping hot again.

“What more d’ye want than this?” Billy challenged with deep-toned
satisfaction, in the pause after his final cup of coffee, while he
rolled a cigarette. He lay on his side, full length, resting on his
elbow. The fire was burning brightly, and Saxon’s color was heightened
by the flickering flames. “Now our folks, when they was on the move, had
to be afraid for Indians, and wild animals and all sorts of things; an’
here we are, as safe as bugs in a rug. Take this sand. What better bed
could you ask? Soft as feathers. Say--you look good to me, heap little
squaw. I bet you don’t look an inch over sixteen right now, Mrs.
Babe-in-the-Woods.”

“Don’t I?” she glowed, with a flirt of the head sideward and a white
flash of teeth. “If you weren’t smoking a cigarette I’d ask you if your
mother knew you’re out, Mr. Babe-in-the-Sandbank.”

“Say,” he began, with transparently feigned seriousness. “I want to ask
you something, if you don’t mind. Now, of course, I don’t want to hurt
your feelin’s or nothin’, but just the same there’s something important
I’d like to know.”

“Well, what is it?” she inquired, after a fruitless wait.

“Well, it’s just this, Saxon. I like you like anything an’ all that,
but here’s night come on, an’ we’re a thousand miles from anywhere,
and--well, what I wanta know is: are we really an’ truly married, you
an’ me?”

“Really and truly,” she assured him. “Why?”

“Oh, nothing; but I’d kind a-forgotten, an’ I was gettin’ embarrassed,
you know, because if we wasn’t, seein’ the way I was brought up, this’d
be no place--”

“That will do you,” she said severely. “And this is just the time and
place for you to get in the firewood for morning while I wash up the
dishes and put the kitchen in order.”

He started to obey, but paused to throw his arm about her and draw
her close. Neither spoke, but when he went his way Saxon’s breast was
fluttering and a song of thanksgiving breathed on her lips.

The night had come on, dim with the light of faint stars. But these had
disappeared behind clouds that seemed to have arisen from nowhere. It
was the beginning of California Indian summer. The air was warm, with
just the first hint of evening chill, and there was no wind.

“I’ve a feeling as if we’ve just started to live,” Saxon said, when
Billy, his firewood collected, joined her on the blankets before the
fire. “I’ve learned more to-day than ten years in Oakland.” She drew a
long breath and braced her shoulders. “Farming’s a bigger subject than I
thought.”

Billy said nothing. With steady eyes he was staring into the fire, and
she knew he was turning something over in his mind.

“What is it,” she asked, when she saw he had reached a conclusion, at
the same time resting her hand on the back of his.

“Just been framin’ up that ranch of ourn,” he answered. “It’s all
well enough, these dinky farmlets. They’ll do for foreigners. But we
Americans just gotta have room. I want to be able to look at a hilltop
an’ know it’s my land, and know it’s my land down the other side an’ up
the next hilltop, an’ know that over beyond that, down alongside some
creek, my mares are most likely grazin’, an’ their little colts grazin’
with ‘em or kickin’ up their heels. You know, there’s money in raisin’
horses--especially the big workhorses that run to eighteen hundred an’
two thousand pounds. They’re payin’ for ‘em, in the cities, every day in
the year, seven an’ eight hundred a pair, matched geldings, four years
old. Good pasture an’ plenty of it, in this kind of a climate, is all
they need, along with some sort of shelter an’ a little hay in long
spells of bad weather. I never thought of it before, but let me tell you
that this ranch proposition is beginnin’ to look good to ME.”

Saxon was all excitement. Here was new information on the cherished
subject, and, best of all, Billy was the authority. Still better, he was
taking an interest himself.

“There’ll be room for that and for everything on a quarter section,” she
encouraged.

“Sure thing. Around the house we’ll have vegetables an’ fruit and
chickens an’ everything, just like the Porchugeeze, an’ plenty of room
beside to walk around an’ range the horses.”

“But won’t the colts cost money, Billy?”

“Not much. The cobblestones eat horses up fast. That’s where I’ll get my
brood mares, from the ones knocked out by the city. I know THAT end of
it. They sell ‘em at auction, an’ they’re good for years an’ years, only
no good on the cobbles any more.”

There ensued a long pause. In the dying fire both were busy visioning
the farm to be.

“It’s pretty still, ain’t it?” Billy said, rousing himself at last.
He gazed about him. “An’ black as a stack of black cats.” He shivered,
buttoned his coat, and tossed several sticks on the fire. “Just the
same, it’s the best kind of a climate in the world. Many’s the time,
when I was a little kid, I’ve heard my father brag about California’s
bein’ a blanket climate. He went East, once, an’ staid a summer an’ a
winter, an’ got all he wanted. Never again for him.”

“My mother said there never was such a land for climate. How wonderful
it must have seemed to them after crossing the deserts and mountains.
They called it the land of milk and honey. The ground was so rich that
all they needed to do was scratch it, Cady used to say.”

“And wild game everywhere,” Billy contributed. “Mr. Roberts, the one
that adopted my father, he drove cattle from the San Joaquin to the
Columbia river. He had forty men helpin’ him, an’ all they took along
was powder an’ salt. They lived off the game they shot.”

“The hills were full of deer, and my mother saw whole herds of elk
around Santa Rosa. Some time we’ll go there, Billy. I’ve always wanted
to.”

“And when my father was a young man, somewhere up north of Sacramento,
in a creek called Cache Slough, the tules was full of grizzlies. He used
to go in an’ shoot ‘em. An’ when they caught ‘em in the open, he an’
the Mexicans used to ride up an’ rope them--catch them with lariats, you
know. He said a horse that wasn’t afraid of grizzlies fetched ten times
as much as any other horse. An’ panthers!--all the old folks called ‘em
painters an’ catamounts an’ varmints. Yes, we’ll go to Santa Rosa some
time. Maybe we won’t like that land down the coast, an’ have to keep on
hikin’.”

By this time the fire had died down, and Saxon had finished brushing and
braiding her hair. Their bed-going preliminaries were simple, and in a
few minutes they were side by side under the blankets. Saxon closed her
eyes, but could not sleep. On the contrary, she had never been more wide
awake. She had never slept out of doors in her life, and by no exertion
of will could she overcome the strangeness of it. In addition, she
was stiffened from the long trudge, and the sand, to her surprise, was
anything but soft. An hour passed. She tried to believe that Billy was
asleep, but felt certain he was not. The sharp crackle of a dying ember
startled her. She was confident that Billy had moved slightly.

“Billy,” she whispered, “are you awake?”

“Yep,” came his low answer, “--an’ thinkin’ this sand is harder’n a
cement floor. It’s one on me, all right. But who’d a-thought it?”

Both shifted their postures slightly, but vain was the attempt to escape
from the dull, aching contact of the sand.

An abrupt, metallic, whirring noise of some nearby cricket gave Saxon
another startle. She endured the sound for some minutes, until Billy
broke forth.

“Say, that gets my goat whatever it is.”

“Do you think it’s a rattlesnake?” she asked, maintaining a calmness she
did not feel.

“Just what I’ve been thinkin’.”

“I saw two, in the window of Bowman’s Drug Store. An’ you know, Billy,
they’ve got a hollow fang, and when they stick it into you the poison
runs down the hollow.”

“Br-r-r-r,” Billy shivered, in fear that was not altogether mockery.
“Certain death, everybody says, unless you’re a Bosco. Remember him?”

“He eats ‘em alive! He eats ‘em alive! Bosco! Bosco!” Saxon responded,
mimicking the cry of a side-show barker. “Just the same, all Bosco’s
rattlers had the poison-sacs cut outa them. They must a-had. Gee! It’s
funny I can’t get asleep. I wish that damned thing’d close its trap. I
wonder if it is a rattlesnake.”

“No; it can’t be,” Saxon decided. “All the rattlesnakes are killed off
long ago.”

“Then where did Bosco get his?” Billy demanded with unimpeachable logic.
“An’ why don’t you get to sleep?”

“Because it’s all new, I guess,” was her reply. “You see, I never camped
out in my life.”

“Neither did I. An’ until now I always thought it was a lark.” He
changed his position on the maddening sand and sighed heavily. “But
we’ll get used to it in time, I guess. What other folks can do, we can,
an’ a mighty lot of ‘em has camped out. It’s all right. Here we are,
free an’ independent, no rent to pay, our own bosses--”

He stopped abruptly. From somewhere in the brush came an intermittent
rustling. When they tried to locate it, it mysteriously ceased, and
when the first hint of drowsiness stole upon them the rustling as
mysteriously recommenced.

“It sounds like something creeping up on us,” Saxon suggested, snuggling
closer to Billy.

“Well, it ain’t a wild Indian, at all events,” was the best he could
offer in the way of comfort. He yawned deliberately. “Aw, shucks! What’s
there to be scared of? Think of what all the pioneers went through.”

Several minutes later his shoulders began to shake, and Saxon knew he
was giggling.

“I was just thinkin’ of a yarn my father used to tell about,” he
explained. “It was about old Susan Kleghorn, one of the Oregon pioneer
women. Wall-Eyed Susan, they used to call her; but she could shoot to
beat the band. Once, on the Plains, the wagon train she was in, was
attacked by Indians. They got all the wagons in a circle, an’ all hands
an’ the oxen inside, an’ drove the Indians off, killin’ a lot of ‘em.
They was too strong that way, so what’d the Indians do, to draw ‘em out
into the open, but take two white girls, captured from some other train,
an’ begin to torture ‘em. They done it just out of gunshot, but so
everybody could see. The idea was that the white men couldn’t stand it,
an’ would rush out, an’ then the Indians’d have ‘em where they wanted
‘em.

“The white men couldn’t do a thing. If they rushed out to save the
girls, they’d be finished, an’ then the Indians’d rush the train. It
meant death to everybody. But what does old Susan do, but get out an
old, long-barreled Kentucky rifle. She rams down about three times the
regular load of powder, takes aim at a big buck that’s pretty busy at
the torturin’, an’ bangs away. It knocked her clean over backward, an’
her shoulder was lame all the rest of the way to Oregon, but she dropped
the big Indian deado. He never knew what struck ‘m.

“But that wasn’t the yarn I wanted to tell. It seems old Susan liked
John Barleycorn. She’d souse herself to the ears every chance she got.
An’ her sons an’ daughters an’ the old man had to be mighty careful not
to leave any around where she could get hands on it.”

“On what?” asked Saxon.

“On John Barleycorn.--Oh, you ain’t on to that. It’s the old fashioned
name for whisky. Well, one day all the folks was goin’ away--that was
over somewhere at a place called Bodega, where they’d settled after
comin’ down from Oregon. An’ old Susan claimed her rheumatics was
hurtin’ her an’ so she couldn’t go. But the family was on. There was
a two-gallon demijohn of whisky in the house. They said all right, but
before they left they sent one of the grandsons to climb a big tree in
the barnyard, where he tied the demijohn sixty feet from the ground.
Just the same, when they come home that night they found Susan on the
kitchen floor dead to the world.”

“And she’d climbed the tree after all,” Saxon hazarded, when Billy had
shown no inclination of going on.

“Not on your life,” he laughed jubilantly. “All she’d done was to put
a washtub on the ground square under the demijohn. Then she got out her
old rifle an’ shot the demijohn to smithereens, an’ all she had to do
was lap the whisky outa the tub.”

Again Saxon was drowsing, when the rustling sound was heard, this time
closer. To her excited apprehension there was something stealthy about
it, and she imagined a beast of prey creeping upon them. “Billy,” she
whispered.

“Yes, I’m a-listenin’ to it,” came his wide awake answer.

“Mightn’t that be a panther, or maybe... a wildcat?”

“It can’t be. All the varmints was killed off long ago. This is
peaceable farmin’ country.”

A vagrant breeze sighed through the trees and made Saxon shiver. The
mysterious cricket-noise ceased with suspicious abruptness. Then, from
the rustling noise, ensued a dull but heavy thump that caused both Saxon
and Billy to sit up in the blankets. There were no further sounds, and
they lay down again, though the very silence now seemed ominous.

“Huh,” Billy muttered with relief. “As though I don’t know what it was.
It was a rabbit. I’ve heard tame ones bang their hind feet down on the
floor that way.”

In vain Saxon tried to win sleep. The sand grew harder with the passage
of time. Her flesh and her bones ached from contact with it. And, though
her reason flouted any possibility of wild dangers, her fancy went on
picturing them with unflagging zeal.

A new sound commenced. It was neither a rustling nor a rattling, and
it tokened some large body passing through the brush. Sometimes twigs
crackled and broke, and, once, they heard bush-branches press aside and
spring back into place.

“If that other thing was a panther, this is an elephant,” was Billy’s
uncheering opinion. “It’s got weight. Listen to that. An’ it’s comin’
nearer.”

There were frequent stoppages, then the sounds would begin again, always
louder, always closer. Billy sat up in the blankets once more, passing
one arm around Saxon, who had also sat up.

“I ain’t slept a wink,” he complained. “--There it goes again. I wish I
could see.”

“It makes a noise big enough for a grizzly,” Saxon chattered, partly
from nervousness, partly from the chill of the night.

“It ain’t no grasshopper, that’s sure.”

Billy started to leave the blankets, but Saxon caught his arm.

“What are you going to do?”

“Oh, I ain’t scairt none,” he answered. “But, honest to God, this is
gettin’ on my nerves. If I don’t find what that thing is, it’ll give me
the willies. I’m just goin’ to reconnoiter. I won’t go close.”

So intensely dark was the night, that the moment Billy crawled beyond
the reach of her hand he was lost to sight. She sat and waited. The
sound had ceased, though she could follow Billy’s progress by the
cracking of dry twigs and limbs. After a few moments he returned and
crawled under the blankets.

“I scared it away, I guess. It’s got better ears, an’ when it heard me
comin’ it skinned out most likely. I did my dangdest, too, not to make a
sound.--O Lord, there it goes again.”

They sat up. Saxon nudged Billy.

“There,” she warned, in the faintest of whispers. “I can hear it
breathing. It almost made a snort.”

A dead branch cracked loudly, and so near at hand, that both of them
jumped shamelessly.

“I ain’t goin’ to stand any more of its foolin’,” Billy declared
wrathfully. “It’ll be on top of us if I don’t.”

“What are you going to do?” she queried anxiously.

“Yell the top of my head off. I’ll get a fall outa whatever it is.”

He drew a deep breath and emitted a wild yell.

The result far exceeded any expectation he could have entertained, and
Saxon’s heart leaped up in sheer panic. On the instant the darkness
erupted into terrible sound and movement. There were trashings
of underbrush and lunges and plunges of heavy bodies in different
directions. Fortunately for their ease of mind, all these sounds receded
and died away.

“An’ what d’ye think of that?” Billy broke the silence.

“Gee! all the fight fans used to say I was scairt of nothin’. Just the
same I’m glad they ain’t seein’ me to-night.”

He groaned. “I’ve got all I want of that blamed sand. I’m goin’ to get
up and start the fire.”

This was easy. Under the ashes were live embers which quickly ignited
the wood he threw on. A few stars were peeping out in the misty zenith.
He looked up at them, deliberated, and started to move away.

“Where are you going now?” Saxon called.

“Oh, I’ve got an idea,” he replied noncommittally, and walked boldly
away beyond the circle of the firelight.

Saxon sat with the blankets drawn closely under her chin, and admired
his courage. He had not even taken the hatchet, and he was going in the
direction in which the disturbance had died away.

Ten minutes later he came back chuckling.

“The sons-of-guns, they got my goat all right. I’ll be scairt of my
own shadow next.--What was they? Huh! You couldn’t guess in a thousand
years. A bunch of half-grown calves, an’ they was worse scairt than us.”

He smoked a cigarette by the fire, then rejoined Saxon under the
blankets.

“A hell of a farmer I’ll make,” he chafed, “when a lot of little calves
can scare the stuffin’ outa me. I bet your father or mine wouldn’t
a-batted an eye. The stock has gone to seed, that’s what it has.”

“No, it hasn’t,” Saxon defended. “The stock is all right. We’re just
as able as our folks ever were, and we’re healthier on top of it. We’ve
been brought up different, that’s all. We’ve lived in cities all our
lives. We know the city sounds and thugs, but we don’t know the country
ones. Our training has been unnatural, that’s the whole thing in a
nutshell. Now we’re going in for natural training. Give us a little
time, and we’ll sleep as sound out of doors as ever your father or mine
did.”

“But not on sand,” Billy groaned.

“We won’t try. That’s one thing, for good and all, we’ve learned the
very first time. And now hush up and go to sleep.”

Their fears had vanished, but the sand, receiving now their undivided
attention, multiplied its unyieldingness. Billy dozed off first, and
roosters were crowing somewhere in the distance when Saxon’s eyes
closed. But they could not escape the sand, and their sleep was fitful.

At the first gray of dawn, Billy crawled out and built a roaring fire.
Saxon drew up to it shiveringly. They were hollow-eyed and weary. Saxon
began to laugh. Billy joined sulkily, then brightened up as his eyes
chanced upon the coffee pot, which he immediately put on to boil.



CHAPTER III

It is forty miles from Oakland to San Jose, and Saxon and Billy
accomplished it in three easy days. No more obliging and angrily
garrulous linemen were encountered, and few were the opportunities for
conversation with chance wayfarers. Numbers of tramps, carrying rolls of
blankets, were met, traveling both north and south on the county road;
and from talks with them Saxon quickly learned that they knew little or
nothing about farming. They were mostly old men, feeble or besotted, and
all they knew was work--where jobs might be good, where jobs had been
good; but the places they mentioned were always a long way off. One
thing she did glean from them, and that was that the district she and
Billy were passing through was “small-farmer” country in which labor was
rarely hired, and that when it was it generally was Portuguese.

The farmers themselves were unfriendly. They drove by Billy and Saxon,
often with empty wagons, but never invited them to ride. When chance
offered and Saxon did ask questions, they looked her over curiously, or
suspiciously, and gave ambiguous and facetious answers.

“They ain’t Americans, damn them,” Billy fretted. “Why, in the old days
everybody was friendly to everybody.”

But Saxon remembered her last talk with her brother.

“It’s the spirit of the times, Billy. The spirit has changed. Besides,
these people are too near. Wait till we get farther away from the
cities, then we’ll find them more friendly.”

“A measly lot these ones are,” he sneered.

“Maybe they’ve a right to be,” she laughed. “For all you know, more than
one of the scabs you’ve slugged were sons of theirs.”

“If I could only hope so,” Billy said fervently. “But I don’t care if I
owned ten thousand acres, any man hikin’ with his blankets might be just
as good a man as me, an’ maybe better, for all I’d know. I’d give ‘m the
benefit of the doubt, anyway.”

Billy asked for work, at first, indiscriminately, later, only at the
larger farms. The unvarying reply was that there was no work. A few said
there would be plowing after the first rains. Here and there, in a small
way, dry plowing was going on. But in the main the farmers were waiting.

“But do you know how to plow?” Saxon asked Billy.

“No; but I guess it ain’t much of a trick to turn. Besides, next man I
see plowing I’m goin’ to get a lesson from.”

In the mid-afternoon of the second day his opportunity came. He climbed
on top of the fence of a small field and watched an old man plow round
and round it.

“Aw, shucks, just as easy as easy,” Billy commented scornfully. “If an
old codger like that can handle one plow, I can handle two.”

“Go on and try it,” Saxon urged.

“What’s the good?”

“Cold feet,” she jeered, but with a smiling face. “All you have to do
is ask him. All he can do is say no. And what if he does? You faced the
Chicago Terror twenty rounds without flinching.”

“Aw, but it’s different,” he demurred, then dropped to the ground inside
the fence. “Two to one the old geezer turns me down.”

“No, he won’t. Just tell him you want to learn, and ask him if he’ll let
you drive around a few times. Tell him it won’t cost him anything.”

“Huh! If he gets chesty I’ll take his blamed plow away from him.”

From the top of the fence, but too far away to hear, Saxon watched the
colloquy. After several minutes, the lines were transferred to Billy’s
neck, the handles to his hands. Then the team started, and the old man,
delivering a rapid fire of instructions, walked alongside of Billy. When
a few turns had been made, the farmer crossed the plowed strip to Saxon,
and joined her on the rail.

“He’s plowed before, a little mite, ain’t he?”

Saxon shook her head.

“Never in his life. But he knows how to drive horses.”

“He showed he wasn’t all greenhorn, an’ he learns pretty quick.” Here
the farmer chuckled and cut himself a chew from a plug of tobacco. “I
reckon he won’t tire me out a-settin’ here.”

The unplowed area grew smaller and smaller, but Billy evinced no
intention of quitting, and his audience on the fence was deep in
conversation. Saxon’s questions flew fast and furious, and she was not
long in concluding that the old man bore a striking resemblance to the
description the lineman had given of his father.

Billy persisted till the field was finished, and the old man invited him
and Saxon to stop for the night. There was a disused outbuilding where
they would find a small cook stove, he said, and also he would give them
fresh milk. Further, if Saxon wanted to test HER desire for farming, she
could try her hand on the cow.

The milking lesson did not prove as successful as Billy’s plowing; but
when he had mocked sufficiently, Saxon challenged him to try, and
he failed as grievously as she. Saxon had eyes and questions for
everything, and it did not take her long to realize that she was
looking upon the other side of the farming shield. Farm and farmer were
old-fashioned. There was no intensive cultivation. There was too much
land too little farmed. Everything was slipshod. House and barn and
outbuildings were fast falling into ruin. The front yard was weed-grown.
There was no vegetable garden. The small orchard was old, sickly, and
neglected. The trees were twisted, spindling, and overgrown with a gray
moss. The sons and daughters were away in the cities, Saxon found out.
One daughter had married a doctor, the other was a teacher in the state
normal school; one son was a locomotive engineer, the second was an
architect, and the third was a police court reporter in San Francisco.
On occasion, the father said, they helped out the old folks.

“What do you think?” Saxon asked Billy as he smoked his after-supper
cigarette.

His shoulders went up in a comprehensive shrug.

“Huh! That’s easy. The old geezer’s like his orchard--covered with moss.
It’s plain as the nose on your face, after San Leandro, that he don’t
know the first thing. An’ them horses. It’d be a charity to him, an’ a
savin’ of money for him, to take ‘em out an’ shoot ‘em both. You bet you
don’t see the Porchugeeze with horses like them. An’ it ain’t a case of
bein’ proud, or puttin’ on side, to have good horses. It’s brass tacks
an’ business. It pays. That’s the game. Old horses eat more ‘n young
ones to keep in condition an’ they can’t do the same amount of work. But
you bet it costs just as much to shoe them. An’ his is scrub on top of
it. Every minute he has them horses he’s losin’ money. You oughta see
the way they work an’ figure horses in the city.”

They slept soundly, and, after an early breakfast, prepared to start.

“I’d like to give you a couple of days’ work,” the old man regretted, at
parting, “but I can’t see it. The ranch just about keeps me and the old
woman, now that the children are gone. An’ then it don’t always. Seems
times have been bad for a long spell now. Ain’t never been the same
since Grover Cleveland.”

Early in the afternoon, on the outskirts of San Jose, Saxon called a
halt.

“I’m going right in there and talk,” she declared, “unless they set the
dogs on me. That’s the prettiest place yet, isn’t it?”

Billy, who was always visioning hills and spacious ranges for his
horses, mumbled unenthusiastic assent.

“And the vegetables! Look at them! And the flowers growing along the
borders! That beats tomato plants in wrapping paper.”

“Don’t see the sense of it,” Billy objected. “Where’s the money come
in from flowers that take up the ground that good vegetables might be
growin’ on?”

“And that’s what I’m going to find out.” She pointed to a woman, stooped
to the ground and working with a trowel; in front of the tiny bungalow.
“I don’t know what she’s like, but at the worst she can only be mean.
See! She’s looking at us now. Drop your load alongside of mine, and come
on in.”

Billy slung the blankets from his shoulder to the ground, but elected to
wait. As Saxon went up the narrow, flower-bordered walk, she noted two
men at work among the vegetables--one an old Chinese, the other old and
of some dark-eyed foreign breed. Here were neatness, efficiency, and
intensive cultivation with a vengeance--even her untrained eye could see
that. The woman stood up and turned from her flowers, and Saxon saw that
she was middle-aged, slender, and simply but nicely dressed. She wore
glasses, and Saxon’s reading of her face was that it was kind but
nervous looking.

“I don’t want anything to-day,” she said, before Saxon could speak,
administering the rebuff with a pleasant smile.

Saxon groaned inwardly over the black-covered telescope basket.
Evidently the woman had seen her put it down.

“We’re not peddling,” she explained quickly.

“Oh, I am sorry for the mistake.”

This time the woman’s smile was even pleasanter, and she waited for
Saxon to state her errand.

Nothing loath, Saxon took it at a plunge.

“We’re looking for land. We want to be farmers, you know, and before we
get the land we want to find out what kind of land we want. And seeing
your pretty place has just filled me up with questions. You see, we
don’t know anything about farming. We’ve lived in the city all our life,
and now we’ve given it up and are going to live in the country and be
happy.”

She paused. The woman’s face seemed to grow quizzical, though the
pleasantness did not abate.

“But how do you know you will be happy in the country?” she asked.

“I don’t know. All I do know is that poor people can’t be happy in the
city where they have labor troubles all the time. If they can’t be happy
in the country, then there’s no happiness anywhere, and that doesn’t
seem fair, does it?”

“It is sound reasoning, my dear, as far as it goes. But you must
remember that there are many poor people in the country and many unhappy
people.”

“You look neither poor nor unhappy,” Saxon challenged.

“You ARE a dear.”

Saxon saw the pleased flush in the other’s face, which lingered as she
went on.

“But still, I may be peculiarly qualified to live and succeed in the
country. As you say yourself, you’ve spent your life in the city. You
don’t know the first thing about the country. It might even break your
heart.”

Saxon’s mind went back to the terrible months in the Pine street
cottage.

“I know already that the city will break my heart. Maybe the country
will, too, but just the same it’s my only chance, don’t you see. It’s
that or nothing. Besides, our folks before us were all of the country.
It seems the more natural way. And better, here I am, which proves
that ‘way down inside I must want the country, must, as you call it, be
peculiarly qualified for the country, or else I wouldn’t be here.”

The other nodded approval, and looked at her with growing interest.

“That young man--” she began.

“Is my husband. He was a teamster until the big strike came. My name is
Roberts, Saxon Roberts, and my husband is William Roberts.”

“And I am Mrs. Mortimer,” the other said, with a bow of acknowledgment.
“I am a widow. And now, if you will ask your husband in, I shall try to
answer some of your many questions. Tell him to put the bundles inside
the gate.. .. And now what are all the questions you are filled with?”

“Oh, all kinds. How does it pay? How did you manage it all? How much did
the land cost? Did you build that beautiful house? How much do you pay
the men? How did you learn all the different kinds of things, and which
grew best and which paid best? What is the best way to sell them? How do
you sell them?” Saxon paused and laughed. “Oh, I haven’t begun yet.
Why do you have flowers on the borders everywhere? I looked over the
Portuguese farms around San Leandro, but they never mixed flowers and
vegetables.”

Mrs. Mortimer held up her hand. “Let me answer the last first. It is the
key to almost everything.”

But Billy arrived, and the explanation was deferred until after his
introduction.

“The flowers caught your eyes, didn’t they, my dear?” Mrs. Mortimer
resumed. “And brought you in through my gate and right up to me. And
that’s the very reason they were planted with the vegetables--to catch
eyes. You can’t imagine how many eyes they have caught, nor how many
owners of eyes they have lured inside my gate. This is a good road, and
is a very popular short country drive for townsfolk. Oh, no; I’ve never
had any luck with automobiles. They can’t see anything for dust. But I
began when nearly everybody still used carriages. The townswomen would
drive by. My flowers, and then my place, would catch their eyes. They
would tell their drivers to stop. And--well, somehow, I managed to be in
the front within speaking distance. Usually I succeeded in inviting them
in to see my flowers... and vegetables, of course. Everything was
sweet, clean, pretty. It all appealed. And--” Mrs. Mortimer shrugged her
shoulders. “It is well known that the stomach sees through the eyes. The
thought of vegetables growing among flowers pleased their fancy. They
wanted my vegetables. They must have them. And they did, at double the
market price, which they were only too glad to pay. You see, I became
the fashion, or a fad, in a small way. Nobody lost. The vegetables were
certainly good, as good as any on the market and often fresher. And,
besides, my customers killed two birds with one stone; for they were
pleased with themselves for philanthropic reasons. Not only did they
obtain the finest and freshest possible vegetables, but at the same time
they were happy with the knowledge that they were helping a deserving
widow-woman. Yes, and it gave a certain tone to their establishments to
be able to say they bought Mrs. Mortimer’s vegetables. But that’s
too big a side to go into. In short, my little place became a show
place--anywhere to go, for a drive or anything, you know, when time has
to be killed. And it became noised about who I was, and who my
husband had been, what I had been. Some of the townsladies I had known
personally in the old days. They actually worked for my success. And
then, too, I used to serve tea. My patrons became my guests for the time
being. I still serve it, when they drive out to show me off to their
friends. So you see, the flowers are one of the ways I succeeded.”

Saxon was glowing with appreciation, but Mrs. Mortimer, glancing at
Billy, noted not entire approval. His blue eyes were clouded.

“Well, out with it,” she encouraged. “What are you thinking?”

To Saxon’s surprise, he answered directly, and to her double surprise,
his criticism was of a nature which had never entered her head.

“It’s just a trick,” Billy expounded. “That’s what I was gettin’ at--”

“But a paying trick,” Mrs. Mortimer interrupted, her eyes dancing and
vivacious behind the glasses.

“Yes, and no,” Billy said stubbornly, speaking in his slow, deliberate
fashion. “If every farmer was to mix flowers an’ vegetables, then every
farmer would get double the market price, an’ then there wouldn’t be any
double market price. Everything’d be as it was before.”

“You are opposing a theory to a fact,” Mrs. Mortimer stated. “The fact
is that all the farmers do not do it. The fact is that I do receive
double the price. You can’t get away from that.”

Billy was unconvinced, though unable to reply.

“Just the same,” he muttered, with a slow shake of the head, “I
don’t get the hang of it. There’s something wrong so far as we’re
concerned--my wife an’ me, I mean. Maybe I’ll get hold of it after a
while.”

“And in the meantime, we’ll look around,” Mrs. Mortimer invited. “I want
to show you everything, and tell you how I make it go. Afterward, we’ll
sit down, and I’ll tell you about the beginning. You see--” she bent her
gaze on Saxon--“I want you thoroughly to understand that you can succeed
in the country if you go about it right. I didn’t know a thing about
it when I began, and I didn’t have a fine big man like yours. I was all
alone. But I’ll tell you about that.”


For the next hour, among vegetables, berry-bushes and fruit trees, Saxon
stored her brain with a huge mass of information to be digested at her
leisure. Billy, too, was interested, but he left the talking to Saxon,
himself rarely asking a question. At the rear of the bungalow, where
everything was as clean and orderly as the front, they were shown
through the chicken yard. Here, in different runs, were kept several
hundred small and snow-white hens.

“White Leghorns,” said Mrs. Mortimer. “You have no idea what they netted
me this year. I never keep a hen a moment past the prime of her laying
period--”

“Just what I was tellin’ you, Saxon, about horses,” Billy broke in.

“And by the simplest method of hatching them at the right time, which
not one farmer in ten thousand ever dreams of doing, I have them laying
in the winter when most hens stop laying and when eggs are highest.
Another thing: I have my special customers. They pay me ten cents a
dozen more than the market price, because my specialty is one-day eggs.”

Here she chanced to glance at Billy, and guessed that he was still
wrestling with his problem.

“Same old thing?” she queried.

He nodded. “Same old thing. If every farmer delivered day-old eggs,
there wouldn’t be no ten cents higher ‘n the top price. They’d be no
better off than they was before.”

“But the eggs would be one-day eggs, all the eggs would be one-day eggs,
you mustn’t forget that,” Mrs. Mortimer pointed out.

“But that don’t butter no toast for my wife an’ me,” he objected. “An’
that’s what I’ve been tryin’ to get the hang of, an’ now I got it. You
talk about theory an’ fact. Ten cents higher than top price is a theory
to Saxon an’ me. The fact is, we ain’t got no eggs, no chickens, an’ no
land for the chickens to run an’ lay eggs on.”

Their hostess nodded sympathetically.

“An’ there’s something else about this outfit of yourn that I don’t get
the hang of,” he pursued. “I can’t just put my finger on it, but it’s
there all right.”

They were shown over the cattery, the piggery, the milkers, and the
kennelry, as Mrs. Mortimer called her live stock departments. None
was large. All were moneymakers, she assured them, and rattled off her
profits glibly. She took their breaths away by the prices given and
received for pedigreed Persians, pedigreed Ohio Improved Chesters,
pedigreed Scotch collies, and pedigreed Jerseys. For the milk of the
last she also had a special private market, receiving five cents more a
quart than was fetched by the best dairy milk. Billy was quick to point
out the difference between the look of her orchard and the look of the
orchard they had inspected the previous afternoon, and Mrs. Mortimer
showed him scores of other differences, many of which he was compelled
to accept on faith.

Then she told them of another industry, her home-made jams and jellies,
always contracted for in advance, and at prices dizzyingly beyond the
regular market. They sat in comfortable rattan chairs on the veranda,
while she told the story of how she had drummed up the jam and jelly
trade, dealing only with the one best restaurant and one best club
in San Jose. To the proprietor and the steward she had gone with her
samples, in long discussions beaten down their opposition, overcome
their reluctance, and persuaded the proprietor, in particular, to make
a “special” of her wares, to boom them quietly with his patrons, and,
above all, to charge stiffly for dishes and courses in which they
appeared.

Throughout the recital Billy’s eyes were moody with dissatisfaction.
Mrs. Mortimer saw, and waited.

“And now, begin at the beginning,” Saxon begged.

But Mrs. Mortimer refused unless they agreed to stop for supper. Saxon
frowned Billy’s reluctance away, and accepted for both of them.

“Well, then,” Mrs. Mortimer took up her tale, “in the beginning I was a
greenhorn, city born and bred. All I knew of the country was that it
was a place to go to for vacations, and I always went to springs and
mountain and seaside resorts. I had lived among books almost all my
life. I was head librarian of the Doncaster Library for years. Then
I married Mr. Mortimer. He was a book man, a professor in San Miguel
University. He had a long sickness, and when he died there was nothing
left. Even his life insurance was eaten into before I could be free
of creditors. As for myself, I was worn out, on the verge of nervous
prostration, fit for nothing. I had five thousand dollars left, however,
and, without going into the details, I decided to go farming. I found
this place, in a delightful climate, close to San Jose--the end of the
electric line is only a quarter of a mile on--and I bought it. I paid
two thousand cash, and gave a mortgage for two thousand. It cost two
hundred an acre, you see.”

“Twenty acres!” Saxon cried.

“Wasn’t that pretty small?” Billy ventured.

“Too large, oceans too large. I leased ten acres of it the first thing.
And it’s still leased after all this time. Even the ten I’d retained was
much too large for a long, long time. It’s only now that I’m beginning
to feel a tiny mite crowded.”

“And ten acres has supported you an’ two hired men?” Billy demanded,
amazed.

Mrs. Mortimer clapped her hands delightedly.

“Listen. I had been a librarian. I knew my way among books. First of all
I’d read everything written on the subject, and subscribed to some of
the best farm magazines and papers. And you ask if my ten acres have
supported me and two hired men. Let me tell you. I have four hired men.
The ten acres certainly must support them, as it supports Hannah--she’s
a Swedish widow who runs the house and who is a perfect Trojan during
the jam and jelly season--and Hannah’s daughter, who goes to school
and lends a hand, and my nephew whom I have taken to raise and educate.
Also, the ten acres have come pretty close to paying for the whole
twenty, as well as for this house, and all the outbuildings, and all the
pedigreed stock.”

Saxon remembered what the young lineman had said about the Portuguese.

“The ten acres didn’t do a bit of it,” she cried. “It was your head that
did it all, and you know it.”

“And that’s the point, my dear. It shows the right kind of person can
succeed in the country. Remember, the soil is generous. But it must be
treated generously, and that is something the old style American farmer
can’t get into his head. So it IS head that counts. Even when his
starving acres have convinced him of the need for fertilizing, he can’t
see the difference between cheap fertilizer and good fertilizer.”

“And that’s something I want to know about,” Saxon exclaimed. “And I’ll
tell you all I know, but, first, you must be very tired. I noticed you
were limping. Let me take you in--never mind your bundles; I’ll send
Chang for them.”

To Saxon, with her innate love of beauty and charm in all personal
things, the interior of the bungalow was a revelation. Never before
had she been inside a middle class home, and what she saw not only far
exceeded anything she had imagined, but was vastly different from her
imaginings. Mrs. Mortimer noted her sparkling glances which took in
everything, and went out of her way to show Saxon around, doing it
under the guise of gleeful boastings, stating the costs of the different
materials, explaining how she had done things with her own hands, such
as staining the doors, weathering the bookcases, and putting together
the big Mission Morris chair. Billy stepped gingerly behind, and though
it never entered his mind to ape to the manner born, he succeeded in
escaping conspicuous awkwardness, even at the table where he and Saxon
had the unique experience of being waited on in a private house by a
servant.

“If you’d only come along next year,” Mrs. Mortimer mourned; “then I
should have had the spare room I had planned--”

“That’s all right,” Billy spoke up; “thank you just the same. But we’ll
catch the electric cars into San Jose an’ get a room.”

Mrs. Mortimer was still disturbed at her inability to put them up for
the night, and Saxon changed the conversation by pleading to be told
more.

“You remember, I told you I’d paid only two thousand down on the land,”
 Mrs. Mortimer complied. “That left me three thousand to experiment with.
Of course, all my friends and relatives prophesied failure. And, of
course, I made my mistakes, plenty of them, but I was saved from still
more by the thorough study I had made and continued to make.” She
indicated shelves of farm books and files of farm magazines that lined
the walls. “And I continued to study. I was resolved to be up to
date, and I sent for all the experiment station reports. I went almost
entirely on the basis that whatever the old type farmer did was wrong,
and, do you know, in doing that I was not so far wrong myself. It’s
almost unthinkable, the stupidity of the old-fashioned farmers. Oh,
I consulted with them, talked things over with them, challenged
their stereotyped ways, demanded demonstration of their dogmatic and
prejudiced beliefs, and quite succeeded in convincing the last of them
that I was a fool and doomed to come to grief.”

“But you didn’t! You didn’t!”

Mrs. Mortimer smiled gratefully.

“Sometimes, even now, I’m amazed that I didn’t. But I came of a
hard-headed stock which had been away from the soil long enough to
gain a new perspective. When a thing satisfied my judgment, I did it
forthwith and downright, no matter how extravagant it seemed. Take the
old orchard. Worthless! Worse than worthless! Old Calkins nearly died
of heart disease when he saw the devastation I had wreaked upon it. And
look at it now. There was an old rattletrap ruin where the bungalow now
stands. I put up with it, but I immediately pulled down the cow barn,
the pigsties, the chicken houses, everything--made a clean sweep. They
shook their heads and groaned when they saw such wanton waste by a widow
struggling to make a living. But worse was to come. They were paralyzed
when I told them the price of the three beautiful O.I.C.’s--pigs, you
know, Chesters--which I bought, sixty dollars for the three, and
only just weaned. Then I hustled the nondescript chickens to market,
replacing them with the White Leghorns. The two scrub cows that came
with the place I sold to the butcher for thirty dollars each, paying
two hundred and fifty for two blue-blooded Jersey heifers... and coined
money on the exchange, while Calkins and the rest went right on with
their scrubs that couldn’t give enough milk to pay for their board.”

Billy nodded approval.

“Remember what I told you about horses,” he reiterated to Saxon; and,
assisted by his hostess, he gave a very creditable disquisition on
horseflesh and its management from a business point of view.

When he went out to smoke Mrs. Mortimer led Saxon into talking about
herself and Billy, and betrayed not the slightest shock when she learned
of his prizefighting and scab-slugging proclivities.

“He’s a splendid young man, and good,” she assured Saxon. “His face
shows that. And, best of all, he loves you and is proud of you. You
can’t imagine how I have enjoyed watching the way he looks at you,
especially when you are talking. He respects your judgment. Why, he
must, for here he is with you on this pilgrimage which is wholly your
idea.” Mrs. Mortimer sighed. “You are very fortunate, dear child, very
fortunate. And you don’t yet know what a man’s brain is. Wait till he is
quite fired with enthusiasm for your project. You will be astounded by
the way he takes hold. You will have to exert yourself to keep up with
him. In the meantime, you must lead. Remember, he is city bred. It will
be a struggle to wean him from the only life he’s known.”

“Oh, but he’s disgusted with the city, too--” Saxon began.

“But not as you are. Love is not the whole of man, as it is of woman.
The city hurt you more than it hurt him. It was you who lost the dear
little babe. His interest, his connection, was no more than casual and
incidental compared with the depth and vividness of yours.”

Mrs. Mortimer turned her head to Billy, who was just entering.

“Have you got the hang of what was bothering you?” she asked.

“Pretty close to it,” he answered, taking the indicated big Morris
chair. “It’s this--”

“One moment,” Mrs. Mortimer checked him. “That is a beautiful, big,
strong chair, and so are you, at any rate big and strong, and your
little wife is very weary--no, no; sit down, it’s your strength she
needs. Yes, I insist. Open your arms.”

And to him she led Saxon, and into his arms placed her. “Now, sir--and
you look delicious, the pair of you--register your objections to my way
of earning a living.”

“It ain’t your way,” Billy repudiated quickly. “Your way’s all right.
It’s great. What I’m trying to get at is that your way don’t fit us.
We couldn’t make a go of it your way. Why you had pull--well-to-do
acquaintances, people that knew you’d been a librarian an’ your husband
a professor. An’ you had....” Here he floundered a moment, seeking
definiteness for the idea he still vaguely grasped. “Well, you had a way
we couldn’t have. You were educated, an’... an’--I don’t know, I guess
you knew society ways an’ business ways we couldn’t know.”

“But, my dear boy, you could learn what was necessary,” she contended.

Billy shook his head.

“No. You don’t quite get me. Let’s take it this way. Just suppose it’s
me, with jam an’ jelly, a-wadin’ into that swell restaurant like you did
to talk with the top guy. Why, I’d be outa place the moment I stepped
into his office. Worse’n that, I’d feel outa place. That’d make me have
a chip on my shoulder an’ lookin’ for trouble, which is a poor way to do
business. Then, too, I’d be thinkin’ he was thinkin’ I was a whole lot
of a husky to be peddlin’ jam. What’d happen, I’d be chesty at the drop
of the hat. I’d be thinkin’ he was thinkin’ I was standin’ on my foot,
an’ I’d beat him to it in tellin’ him he was standin’ on HIS foot. Don’t
you see? It’s because I was raised that way. It’d be take it or leave it
with me, an’ no jam sold.”

“What you say is true,” Mrs. Mortimer took up brightly. “But there is
your wife. Just look at her. She’d make an impression on any business
man. He’d be only too willing to listen to her.”

Billy stiffened, a forbidding expression springing into his eyes.

“What have I done now?” their hostess laughed.

“I ain’t got around yet to tradin’ on my wife’s looks,” he rumbled
gruffly.

“Right you are. The only trouble is that you, both of you, are fifty
years behind the times. You’re old American. How you ever got here in
the thick of modern conditions is a miracle. You’re Rip Van Winkles. Who
ever heard, in these degenerate times, of a young man and woman of the
city putting their blankets on their backs and starting out in search of
land? Why, it’s the old Argonaut spirit. You’re as like as peas in a
pod to those who yoked their oxen and held west to the lands beyond
the sunset. I’ll wager your fathers and mothers, or grandfathers and
grandmothers, were that very stock.”

Saxon’s eyes were glistening, and Billy’s were friendly once more. Both
nodded their heads.

“I’m of the old stock myself,” Mrs. Mortimer went on proudly.
“My grandmother was one of the survivors of the Donner Party. My
grandfather, Jason Whitney, came around the Horn and took part in
the raising of the Bear Flag at Sonoma. He was at Monterey when John
Marshall discovered gold in Sutter’s mill-race. One of the streets in
San Francisco is named after him.”

“I know it,” Billy put in. “Whitney Street. It’s near Russian Hill.
Saxon’s mother walked across the Plains.”

“And Billy’s grandfather and grandmother were massacred by the Indians,”
 Saxon contributed. “His father was a little baby boy, and lived with the
Indians, until captured by the whites. He didn’t even know his name and
was adopted by a Mr. Roberts.”

“Why, you two dear children, we’re almost like relatives,” Mrs. Mortimer
beamed. “It’s a breath of old times, alas! all forgotten in these
fly-away days. I am especially interested, because I’ve catalogued and
read everything covering those times. You--” she indicated Billy, “you
are historical, or at least your father is. I remember about him. The
whole thing is in Bancroft’s History. It was the Modoc Indians. There
were eighteen wagons. Your father was the only survivor, a mere baby
at the time, with no knowledge of what happened. He was adopted by the
leader of the whites.”

“That’s right,” said Billy. “It was the Modocs. His train must have ben
bound for Oregon. It was all wiped out. I wonder if you know anything
about Saxon’s mother. She used to write poetry in the early days.”

“Was any of it printed?”

“Yes,” Saxon answered. “In the old San Jose papers.”

“And do you know any of it?”

“Yes, there’s one beginning:

“‘Sweet as the wind-lute’s airy strains Your gentle muse has learned
to sing, And California’s boundless plains Prolong the soft notes
echoing.’”

“It sounds familiar,” Mrs. Mortimer said, pondering.

“And there was another I remember that began:

“‘I’ve stolen away from the crowd in the groves, Where the nude statues
stand, and the leaves point and shiver,’--

“And it run on like that. I don’t understand it all. It was written to
my father--”

“A love poem!” Mrs. Mortimer broke in. “I remember it. Wait a minute....
Da-da-dah, da-da-dah, da-da-dah, da-da--STANDS--

“‘In the spray of a fountain, whose seed-amethysts Tremble lightly
a moment on bosom and hands, Then drip in their basin from bosom and
wrists.’

“I’ve never forgotten the drip of the seed-amethysts, though I don’t
remember your mother’s name.”

“It was Daisy--” Saxon began.

“No; Dayelle,” Mrs. Mortimer corrected with quickening recollection.

“Oh, but nobody called her that.”

“But she signed it that way. What is the rest?”

“Daisy Wiley Brown.”

Mrs. Mortimer went to the bookshelves and quickly returned with a large,
soberly-bound volume.

“It’s ‘The Story of the Files,’” she explained. “Among other things, all
the good fugitive verse was gathered here from the old newspaper files.”
 Her eyes running down the index suddenly stopped. “I was right. Dayelle
Wiley Brown. There it is. Ten of her poems, too: ‘The Viking’s Quest’;
‘Days of Gold’; ‘Constancy’; ‘The Caballero’; ‘Graves at Little
Meadow’--”

“We fought off the Indians there,” Saxon interrupted in her excitement.
“And mother, who was only a little girl, went out and got water for the
wounded. And the Indians wouldn’t shoot at her. Everybody said it was
a miracle.” She sprang out of Billy’s arms, reaching for the book and
crying: “Oh, let me see it! Let me see it! It’s all new to me. I don’t
know these poems. Can I copy them? I’ll learn them by heart. Just to
think, my mother’s!”

Mrs. Mortimer’s glasses required repolishing; and for half an hour she
and Billy remained silent while Saxon devoured her mother’s lines. At
the end, staring at the book which she had closed on her finger, she
could only repeat in wondering awe:

“And I never knew, I never knew.”

But during that half hour Mrs. Mortimer’s mind had not been idle. A
little later, she broached her plan. She believed in intensive dairying
as well as intensive farming, and intended, as soon as the lease
expired, to establish a Jersey dairy on the other ten acres. This, like
everything she had done, would be model, and it meant that she would
require more help. Billy and Saxon were just the two. By next summer she
could have them installed in the cottage she intended building. In the
meantime she could arrange, one way and another, to get work for Billy
through the winter. She would guarantee this work, and she knew a
small house they could rent just at the end of the car-line. Under
her supervision Billy could take charge from the very beginning of the
building. In this way they would be earning money, preparing themselves
for independent farming life, and have opportunity to look about them.

But her persuasions were in vain. In the end Saxon succinctly epitomized
their point of view.

“We can’t stop at the first place, even if it is as beautiful and kind
as yours and as nice as this valley is. We don’t even know what we want.
We’ve got to go farther, and see all kinds of places and all kinds of
ways, in order to find out. We’re not in a hurry to make up our minds.
We want to make, oh, so very sure! And besides....” She hesitated.
“Besides, we don’t like altogether flat land. Billy wants some hills in
his. And so do I.”

When they were ready to leave Mrs. Mortimer offered to present Saxon
with “The Story of the Files”; but Saxon shook her head and got some
money from Billy.

“It says it costs two dollars,” she said. “Will you buy me one, and keep
it till we get settled? Then I’ll write, and you can send it to me.”

“Oh, you Americans,” Mrs. Mortimer chided, accepting the money. “But you
must promise to write from time to time before you’re settled.”

She saw them to the county road.

“You are brave young things,” she said at parting. “I only wish I were
going with you, my pack upon my back. You’re perfectly glorious, the
pair of you. If ever I can do anything for you, just let me know. You’re
bound to succeed, and I want a hand in it myself. Let me know how that
government land turns out, though I warn you I haven’t much faith in its
feasibility. It’s sure to be too far away from markets.”

She shook hands with Billy. Saxon she caught into her arms and kissed.

“Be brave,” she said, with low earnestness, in Saxon’s ear. “You’ll win.
You are starting with the right ideas. And you were right not to accept
my proposition. But remember, it, or better, will always be open to you.
You’re young yet, both of you. Don’t be in a hurry. Any time you
stop anywhere for a while, let me know, and I’ll mail you heaps of
agricultural reports and farm publications. Good-bye. Heaps and heaps
and heaps of luck.”



CHAPTER IV

Billy sat motionless on the edge of the bed in their little room in San
Jose that night, a musing expression in his eyes.

“Well,” he remarked at last, with a long-drawn breath, “all I’ve got
to say is there’s some pretty nice people in this world after all. Take
Mrs. Mortimer. Now she’s the real goods--regular old American.”

“A fine, educated lady,” Saxon agreed, “and not a bit ashamed to work at
farming herself. And she made it go, too.”

“On twenty acres--no, ten; and paid for ‘em, an’ all improvements, an’
supported herself, four hired men, a Swede woman an’ daughter, an’ her
own nephew. It gets me. Ten acres! Why, my father never talked less’n
one hundred an’ sixty acres. Even your brother Tom still talks in
quarter sections.--An’ she was only a woman, too. We was lucky in
meetin’ her.”

“Wasn’t it an adventure!” Saxon cried. “That’s what comes of traveling.
You never know what’s going to happen next. It jumped right out at us,
just when we were tired and wondering how much farther to San Jose.
We weren’t expecting it at all. And she didn’t treat us as if we were
tramping. And that house--so clean and beautiful. You could eat off the
floor. I never dreamed of anything so sweet and lovely as the inside of
that house.”

“It smelt good,” Billy supplied.

“That’s the very thing. It’s what the women’s pages call atmosphere.
I didn’t know what they meant before. That house has beautiful, sweet
atmosphere--”

“Like all your nice underthings,” said Billy.

“And that’s the next step after keeping your body sweet and clean and
beautiful. It’s to have your house sweet and clean and beautiful.”

“But it can’t be a rented one, Saxon. You’ve got to own it. Landlords
don’t build houses like that. Just the same, one thing stuck out plain:
that house was not expensive. It wasn’t the cost. It was the way. The
wood was ordinary wood you can buy in any lumber yard. Why, our house
on Pine street was made out of the same kind of wood. But the way it was
made was different. I can’t explain, but you can see what I’m drivin’
at.”

Saxon, revisioning the little bungalow they had just left, repeated
absently: “That’s it--the way.”

The next morning they were early afoot, seeking through the suburbs of
San Jose the road to San Juan and Monterey. Saxon’s limp had increased.
Beginning with a burst blister, her heel was skinning rapidly. Billy
remembered his father’s talks about care of the feet, and stopped at a
butcher shop to buy five cents’ worth of mutton tallow.

“That’s the stuff,” he told Saxon. “Clean foot-gear and the feet well
greased. We’ll put some on as soon as we’re clear of town. An’ we might
as well go easy for a couple of days. Now, if I could get a little work
so as you could rest up several days it’d be just the thing. I ‘ll keep
my eye peeled.”

Almost on the outskirts of town he left Saxon on the county road and
went up a long driveway to what appeared a large farm. He came back
beaming.

“It’s all hunkydory,” he called as he approached. “We’ll just go down
to that clump of trees by the creek an’ pitch camp. I start work in the
mornin’, two dollars a day an’ board myself. It’d been a dollar an’ a
half if he furnished the board. I told ‘m I liked the other way best,
an’ that I had my camp with me. The weather’s fine, an’ we can make out
a few days till your foot’s in shape. Come on. We’ll pitch a regular,
decent camp.”

“How did you get the job,” Saxon asked, as they cast about, determining
their camp-site.

“Wait till we get fixed an’ I’ll tell you all about it. It was a dream,
a cinch.”

Not until the bed was spread, the fire built, and a pot of beans boiling
did Billy throw down the last armful of wood and begin.

“In the first place, Benson’s no old-fashioned geezer. You wouldn’t
think he was a farmer to look at ‘m. He’s up to date, sharp as tacks,
talks an’ acts like a business man. I could see that, just by lookin’ at
his place, before I seen HIM. He took about fifteen seconds to size me
up.

“‘Can you plow?’ says he.

“‘Sure thing,’ I told ‘m.

“‘Know horses?’

“‘I was hatched in a box-stall,’ says I.

“An’ just then--you remember that four-horse load of machinery that come
in after me?--just then it drove up.

“‘How about four horses?’ he asks, casual-like.

“‘Right to home. I can drive ‘m to a plow, a sewin’ machine, or a
merry-go-round.’

“‘Jump up an’ take them lines, then,’ he says, quick an’ sharp, not
wastin’ seconds. ‘See that shed. Go ‘round the barn to the right an’
back in for unloadin’.’

“An’ right here I wanta tell you it was some nifty drivin’ he was
askin’. I could see by the tracks the wagons’d all ben goin’ around the
barn to the left. What he was askin’ was too close work for comfort--a
double turn, like an S, between a corner of a paddock an’ around the
corner of the barn to the last swing. An’, to eat into the little room
there was, there was piles of manure just thrown outa the barn an’ not
hauled away yet. But I wasn’t lettin’ on nothin’. The driver gave me the
lines, an’ I could see he was grinnin’, sure I’d make a mess of it. I
bet he couldn’t a-done it himself. I never let on, an’ away we went,
me not even knowin’ the horses--but, say, if you’d seen me throw them
leaders clean to the top of the manure till the nigh horse was scrapin’
the side of the barn to make it, an’ the off hind hub was cuttin’ the
corner post of the paddock to miss by six inches. It was the only way.
An’ them horses was sure beauts. The leaders slacked back an’ darn near
sat down on their singletrees when I threw the back into the wheelers
an’ slammed on the brake an’ stopped on the very precise spot.

“‘You’ll do,’ Benson says. ‘That was good work.’

“‘Aw, shucks,’ I says, indifferent as hell. ‘Gimme something real hard.’

“He smiles an’ understands.

“‘You done that well,’ he says. ‘An’ I’m particular about who handles
my horses. The road ain’t no place for you. You must be a good man gone
wrong. Just the same you can plow with my horses, startin’ in to-morrow
mornin’.’

“Which shows how wise he wasn’t. I hadn’t showed I could plow.”

When Saxon had served the beans, and Billy the coffee, she stood still
a moment and surveyed the spread meal on the blankets--the canister of
sugar, the condensed milk tin, the sliced corned beef, the lettuce salad
and sliced tomatoes, the slices of fresh French bread, and the steaming
plates of beans and mugs of coffee.

“What a difference from last night!” Saxon exclaimed, clapping her
hands. “It’s like an adventure out of a book. Oh, that boy I went
fishing with! Think of that beautiful table and that beautiful house
last night, and then look at this. Why, we could have lived a thousand
years on end in Oakland and never met a woman like Mrs. Mortimer nor
dreamed a house like hers existed. And, Billy, just to think, we’ve only
just started.”

Billy worked for three days, and while insisting that he was doing very
well, he freely admitted that there was more in plowing than he had
thought. Saxon experienced quiet satisfaction when she learned he was
enjoying it.

“I never thought I’d like plowin’--much,” he observed. “But it’s fine.
It’s good for the leg-muscles, too. They don’t get exercise enough in
teamin’. If ever I trained for another fight, you bet I’d take a whack
at plowin’. An’, you know, the ground has a regular good smell to it,
a-turnin’ over an’ turnin’ over. Gosh, it’s good enough to eat, that
smell. An’ it just goes on, turnin’ up an’ over, fresh an’ thick an’
good, all day long. An’ the horses are Joe-dandies. They know their
business as well as a man. That’s one thing, Benson ain’t got a scrub
horse on the place.”

The last day Billy worked, the sky clouded over, the air grew damp, a
strong wind began to blow from the southeast, and all the signs were
present of the first winter rain. Billy came back in the evening with a
small roll of old canvas he had borrowed, which he proceeded to arrange
over their bed on a framework so as to shed rain. Several times he
complained about the little finger of his left hand. It had been
bothering him all day he told Saxon, for several days slightly, in fact,
and it was as tender as a boil--most likely a splinter, but he had been
unable to locate it.

He went ahead with storm preparations, elevating the bed on old boards
which he lugged from a disused barn falling to decay on the opposite
bank of the creek. Upon the boards he heaped dry leaves for a mattress.
He concluded by reinforcing the canvas with additional guys of odd
pieces of rope and bailing-wire.

When the first splashes of rain arrived Saxon was delighted. Billy
betrayed little interest. His finger was hurting too much, he said.
Neither he nor Saxon could make anything of it, and both scoffed at the
idea of a felon.

“It might be a run-around,” Saxon hazarded.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know. I remember Mrs. Cady had one once, but I was too small.
It was the little finger, too. She poulticed it, I think. And I remember
she dressed it with some kind of salve. It got awful bad, and finished
by her losing the nail. After that it got well quick, and a new nail
grew out. Suppose I make a hot bread poultice for yours.”

Billy declined, being of the opinion that it would be better in the
morning. Saxon was troubled, and as she dozed off she knew that he was
lying restlessly wide awake. A few minutes afterward, roused by a heavy
blast of wind and rain on the canvas, she heard Billy softly groaning.
She raised herself on her elbow and with her free hand, in the way
she knew, manipulating his forehead and the surfaces around his eyes,
soothed him off to sleep.

Again she slept. And again she was aroused, this time not by the storm,
but by Billy. She could not see, but by feeling she ascertained his
strange position. He was outside the blankets and on his knees, his
forehead resting on the boards, his shoulders writhing with suppressed
anguish.

“She’s pulsin’ to beat the band,” he said, when she spoke. “It’s worsen
a thousand toothaches. But it ain’t nothin’... if only the canvas don’t
blow down. Think what our folks had to stand,” he gritted out between
groans. “Why, my father was out in the mountains, an’ the man with ‘m
got mauled by a grizzly--clean clawed to the bones all over. An’ they
was outa grub an’ had to travel. Two times outa three, when my father
put ‘m on the horse, he’d faint away. Had to be tied on. An’ that lasted
five weeks, an’ HE pulled through. Then there was Jack Quigley. He
blowed off his whole right hand with the burstin’ of his shotgun, an’
the huntin’ dog pup he had with ‘m ate up three of the fingers. An’ he
was all alone in the marsh, an’--”

But Saxon heard no more of the adventures of Jack Quigley. A terrific
blast of wind parted several of the guys, collapsed the framework,
and for a moment buried them under the canvas. The next moment canvas,
framework, and trailing guys were whisked away into the darkness, and
Saxon and Billy were deluged with rain.

“Only one thing to do,” he yelled in her ear. “--Gather up the things
an’ get into that old barn.”

They accomplished this in the drenching darkness, making two trips
across the stepping stones of the shallow creek and soaking themselves
to the knees. The old barn leaked like a sieve, but they managed to find
a dry space on which to spread their anything but dry bedding. Billy’s
pain was heart-rending to Saxon. An hour was required to subdue him to a
doze, and only by continuously stroking his forehead could she keep him
asleep. Shivering and miserable, she accepted a night of wakefulness
gladly with the knowledge that she kept him from knowing the worst of
his pain.

At the time when she had decided it must be past midnight, there was an
interruption. From the open doorway came a flash of electric light, like
a tiny searchlight, which quested about the barn and came to rest on her
and Billy. From the source of light a harsh voice said:

“Ah! ha! I’ve got you! Come out of that!”

Billy sat up, his eyes dazzled by the light. The voice behind the light
was approaching and reiterating its demand that they come out of that.

“What’s up?” Billy asked.

“Me,” was the answer; “an’ wide awake, you bet.”

The voice was now beside them, scarcely a yard away, yet they could
see nothing on account of the light, which was intermittent, frequently
going out for an instant as the operator’s thumb tired on the switch.

“Come on, get a move on,” the voice went on. “Roll up your blankets an’
trot along. I want you.”

“Who in hell are you?” Billy demanded.

“I’m the constable. Come on.”

“Well, what do you want?”

“You, of course, the pair of you.”

“What for?”

“Vagrancy. Now hustle. I ain’t goin’ to loaf here all night.”

“Aw, chase yourself,” Billy advised. “I ain’t a vag. I’m a workingman.”

“Maybe you are an’ maybe you ain’t,” said the constable; “but you can
tell all that to Judge Neusbaumer in the mornin’.”

“Why you... you stinkin’, dirty cur, you think you’re goin’ to pull me,”
 Billy began. “Turn the light on yourself. I want to see what kind of an
ugly mug you got. Pull me, eh? Pull me? For two cents I’d get up there
an’ beat you to a jelly, you--”

“No, no, Billy,” Saxon pleaded. “Don’t make trouble. It would mean
jail.”

“That’s right,” the constable approved, “listen to your woman.”

“She’s my wife, an’ see you speak of her as such,” Billy warned. “Now
get out, if you know what’s good for yourself.”

“I’ve seen your kind before,” the constable retorted. “An’ I’ve got my
little persuader with me. Take a squint.”

The shaft of light shifted, and out of the darkness, illuminated with
ghastly brilliance, they saw thrust a hand holding a revolver. This hand
seemed a thing apart, self-existent, with no corporeal attachment, and
it appeared and disappeared like an apparition as the thumb-pressure
wavered on the switch. One moment they were staring at the hand and
revolver, the next moment at impenetrable darkness, and the next moment
again at the hand and revolver.

“Now, I guess you’ll come,” the constable gloated.

“You got another guess comin’,” Billy began.

But at that moment the light went out. They heard a quick movement on
the officer’s part and the thud of the light-stick on the ground. Both
Billy and the constable fumbled for it, but Billy found it and flashed
it on the other. They saw a gray-bearded man clad in streaming oilskins.
He was an old man, and reminded Saxon of the sort she had been used to
see in Grand Army processions on Decoration Day.

“Give me that stick,” he bullied.

Billy sneered a refusal.

“Then I’ll put a hole through you, by criminy.”

He leveled the revolver directly at Billy, whose thumb on the switch did
not waver, and they could see the gleaming bullet-tips in the chambers
of the cylinder.

“Why, you whiskery old skunk, you ain’t got the grit to shoot sour
apples,” was Billy’s answer. “I know your kind--brave as lions when it
comes to pullin’ miserable, broken-spirited bindle stiffs, but as
leery as a yellow dog when you face a man. Pull that trigger! Why, you
pusillanimous piece of dirt, you’d run with your tail between your legs
if I said boo!”

Suiting action to the word, Billy let out an explosive “BOO!” and Saxon
giggled involuntarily at the startle it caused in the constable.

“I’ll give you a last chance,” the latter grated through his teeth.
“Turn over that light-stick an’ come along peaceable, or I’ll lay you
out.”

Saxon was frightened for Billy’s sake, and yet only half frightened. She
had a faith that the man dared not fire, and she felt the old familiar
thrills of admiration for Billy’s courage. She could not see his face,
but she knew in all certitude that it was bleak and passionless in the
terrifying way she had seen it when he fought the three Irishmen.

“You ain’t the first man I killed,” the constable threatened. “I’m an
old soldier, an’ I ain’t squeamish over blood--”

“And you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Saxon broke in, “trying to
shame and disgrace peaceable people who’ve done no wrong.”

“You’ve done wrong sleepin’ here,” was his vindication. “This ain’t your
property. It’s agin the law. An’ folks that go agin the law go to jail,
as the two of you’ll go. I’ve sent many a tramp up for thirty days for
sleepin’ in this very shack. Why, it’s a regular trap for ‘em. I got a
good glimpse of your faces an’ could see you was tough characters.” He
turned on Billy. “I’ve fooled enough with you. Are you goin’ to give in
an’ come peaceable?”

“I’m goin’ to tell you a couple of things, old hoss,” Billy answered.
“Number one: you ain’t goin’ to pull us. Number two: we’re goin’ to
sleep the night out here.”

“Gimme that light-stick,” the constable demanded peremptorily.

“G’wan, Whiskers. You’re standin’ on your foot. Beat it. Pull your
freight. As for your torch you’ll find it outside in the mud.”

Billy shifted the light until it illuminated the doorway, and then threw
the stick as he would pitch a baseball. They were now in total darkness,
and they could hear the intruder gritting his teeth in rage.

“Now start your shootin’ an’ see what’ll happen to you,” Billy advised
menacingly.

Saxon felt for Billy’s hand and squeezed it proudly. The constable
grumbled some threat.

“What’s that?” Billy demanded sharply. “Ain’t you gone yet? Now listen
to me, Whiskers. I’ve put up with all your shenanigan I’m goin’ to. Now
get out or I’ll throw you out. An’ if you come monkeyin’ around here
again you’ll get yours. Now get!”

So great was the roar of the storm that they could hear nothing. Billy
rolled a cigarette. When he lighted it, they saw the barn was empty.
Billy chuckled.

“Say, I was so mad I clean forgot my run-around. It’s only just
beginnin’ to tune up again.”

Saxon made him lie down and receive her soothing ministrations.

“There is no use moving till morning,” she said. “Then, just as soon
as it’s light, we’ll catch a car into San Jose, rent a room, get a hot
breakfast, and go to a drug store for the proper stuff for poulticing or
whatever treatment’s needed.”

“But Benson,” Billy demurred.

“I’ll telephone him from town. It will only cost five cents. I saw he
had a wire. And you couldn’t plow on account of the rain, even if your
finger was well. Besides, we’ll both be mending together. My heel will
be all right by the time it clears up and we can start traveling.”



CHAPTER V

Early on Monday morning, three days later, Saxon and Billy took an
electric car to the end of the line, and started a second time for San
Juan. Puddles were standing in the road, but the sun shone from a blue
sky, and everywhere, on the ground, was a faint hint of budding green.
At Benson’s Saxon waited while Billy went in to get his six dollars for
the three days’ plowing.

“Kicked like a steer because I was quittin’,” he told her when he came
back. “He wouldn’t listen at first. Said he’d put me to drivin’ in a
few days, an’ that there wasn’t enough good four-horse men to let one go
easily.”

“And what did you say?”

“Oh, I just told ‘m I had to be movin’ along. An’ when he tried to argue
I told ‘m my wife was with me, an’ she was blamed anxious to get along.”

“But so are you, Billy.”

“Sure, Pete; but just the same I wasn’t as keen as you. Doggone it, I
was gettin’ to like that plowin’. I’ll never be scairt to ask for a job
at it again. I’ve got to where I savvy the burro, an’ you bet I can plow
against most of ‘m right now.”

An hour afterward, with a good three miles to their credit, they edged
to the side of the road at the sound of an automobile behind them. But
the machine did not pass. Benson was alone in it, and he came to a stop
alongside.

“Where are you bound?” he inquired of Billy, with a quick, measuring
glance at Saxon.

“Monterey--if you’re goin’ that far,” Billy answered with a chuckle.

“I can give you a lift as far as Watsonville. It would take you several
days on shank’s mare with those loads. Climb in.” He addressed Saxon
directly. “Do you want to ride in front?”

Saxon glanced to Billy.

“Go on,” he approved. “It’s fine in front.--This is my wife, Mr.
Benson--Mrs. Roberts.”

“Oh, ho, so you’re the one that took your husband away from me,” Benson
accused good humoredly, as he tucked the robe around her.

Saxon shouldered the responsibility and became absorbed in watching him
start the car.

“I’d be a mighty poor farmer if I owned no more land than you’d plowed
before you came to me,” Benson, with a twinkling eye, jerked over his
shoulder to Billy.

“I’d never had my hands on a plow but once before,” Billy confessed.
“But a fellow has to learn some time.”

“At two dollars a day?”

“If he can get some alfalfa artist to put up for it,” Billy met him
complacently.

Benson laughed heartily.

“You’re a quick learner,” he complimented. “I could see that you and
plows weren’t on speaking acquaintance. But you took hold right. There
isn’t one man in ten I could hire off the county road that could do as
well as you were doing on the third day. But your big asset is that you
know horses. It was half a joke when I told you to take the lines that
morning. You’re a trained horseman and a born horseman as well.”

“He’s very gentle with horses,” Saxon said.

“But there’s more than that to it,” Benson took her up. “Your husband’s
got the WAY with him. It’s hard to explain. But that’s what it is--the
WAY. It’s an instinct almost. Kindness is necessary. But GRIP is more
so. Your husband grips his horses. Take the test I gave him with the
four-horse load. It was too complicated and severe. Kindness couldn’t
have done it. It took grip. I could see it the moment he started. There
wasn’t any doubt in his mind. There wasn’t any doubt in the horses. They
got the feel of him. They just knew the thing was going to be done and
that it was up to them to do it. They didn’t have any fear, but just
the same they knew the boss was in the seat. When he took hold of those
lines, he took hold of the horses. He gripped them, don’t you see. He
picked them up and put them where he wanted them, swung them up and down
and right and left, made them pull, and slack, and back--and they knew
everything was going to come out right. Oh, horses may be stupid, but
they’re not altogether fools. They know when the proper horseman has
hold of them, though how they know it so quickly is beyond me.”

Benson paused, half vexed at his volubility, and gazed keenly at
Saxon to see if she had followed him. What he saw in her face and eyes
satisfied him, and he added, with a short laugh:

“Horseflesh is a hobby of mine. Don’t think otherwise because I am
running a stink engine. I’d rather be streaking along here behind a pair
of fast-steppers. But I’d lose time on them, and, worse than that, I’d
be too anxious about them all the time. As for this thing, why, it has
no nerves, no delicate joints nor tendons; it’s a case of let her rip.”

The miles flew past and Saxon was soon deep in talk with her host. Here
again, she discerned immediately, was a type of the new farmer. The
knowledge she had picked up enabled her to talk to advantage, and when
Benson talked she was amazed that she could understand so much. In
response to his direct querying, she told him her and Billy’s plans,
sketching the Oakland life vaguely, and dwelling on their future
intentions.

Almost as in a dream, when they passed the nurseries at Morgan Hill, she
learned they had come twenty miles, and realized that it was a longer
stretch than they had planned to walk that day. And still the machine
hummed on, eating up the distance as ever it flashed into view.

“I wondered what so good a man as your husband was doing on the road,”
 Benson told her.

“Yes,” she smiled. “He said you said he must be a good man gone wrong.”

“But you see, I didn’t know about YOU. Now I understand. Though I must
say it’s extraordinary in these days for a young couple like you to pack
your blankets in search of land. And, before I forget it, I want to tell
you one thing.” He turned to Billy. “I am just telling your wife that
there’s an all-the-year job waiting for you on my ranch. And there’s
a tight little cottage of three rooms the two of you can housekeep in.
Don’t forget.”

Among other things Saxon discovered that Benson had gone through the
College of Agriculture at the University of California--a branch of
learning she had not known existed. He gave her small hope in her search
for government land.

“The only government land left,” he informed her, “is what is not good
enough to take up for one reason or another. If it’s good land down
there where you’re going, then the market is inaccessible. I know no
railroads tap in there.”

“Wait till we strike Pajaro Valley,” he said, when they had passed
Gilroy and were booming on toward Sargent’s. “I’ll show you what can be
done with the soil--and not by cow-college graduates but by uneducated
foreigners that the high and mighty American has always sneered at. I’ll
show you. It’s one of the most wonderful demonstrations in the state.”

At Sargent’s he left them in the machine a few minutes while he
transacted business.

“Whew! It beats hikin’,” Billy said. “The day’s young yet and when he
drops us we’ll be fresh for a few miles on our own. Just the same,
when we get settled an’ well off, I guess I’ll stick by horses. They’ll
always be good enough for me.”

“A machine’s only good to get somewhere in a hurry,” Saxon agreed. “Of
course, if we got very, very rich--”

“Say, Saxon,” Billy broke in, suddenly struck with an idea. “I’ve
learned one thing. I ain’t afraid any more of not gettin’ work in the
country. I was at first, but I didn’t tell you. Just the same I was dead
leery when we pulled out on the San Leandro pike. An’ here, already,
is two places open--Mrs. Mortimer’s an’ Benson’s; an’ steady jobs, too.
Yep, a man can get work in the country.”

“Ah,” Saxon amended, with a proud little smile, “you haven’t said it
right. Any GOOD man can get work in the country. The big farmers don’t
hire men out of charity.”

“Sure; they ain’t in it for their health,” he grinned.

“And they jump at you. That’s because you are a good man. They can see
it with half an eye. Why, Billy, take all the working tramps we’ve met
on the road already. There wasn’t one to compare with you. I looked them
over. They’re all weak--weak in their bodies, weak in their heads, weak
both ways.”

“Yep, they are a pretty measly bunch,” Billy admitted modestly.

“It’s the wrong time of the year to see Pajaro Valley,” Benson said,
when he again sat beside Saxon and Sargent’s was a thing of the past.
“Just the same, it’s worth seeing any time. Think of it--twelve thousand
acres of apples! Do you know what they call Pajaro Valley now? New
Dalmatia. We’re being squeezed out. We Yankees thought we were smart.
Well, the Dalmatians came along and showed they were smarter. They were
miserable immigrants--poorer than Job’s turkey. First, they worked
at day’s labor in the fruit harvest. Next they began, in a small way,
buying the apples on the trees. The more money they made the bigger
became their deals. Pretty soon they were renting the orchards on long
leases. And now, they are beginning to buy the land. It won’t be long
before they own the whole valley, and the last American will be gone.

“Oh, our smart Yankees! Why, those first ragged Slavs in their first
little deals with us only made something like two and three thousand
per cent. profits. And now they’re satisfied to make a hundred per cent.
It’s a calamity if their profits sink to twenty-five or fifty per cent.”

“It’s like San Leandro,” Saxon said. “The original owners of the land
are about all gone already. It’s intensive cultivation.” She liked that
phrase. “It isn’t a case of having a lot of acres, but of how much they
can get out of one acre.”

“Yes, and more than that,” Benson answered, nodding his head
emphatically. “Lots of them, like Luke Scurich, are in it on a large
scale. Several of them are worth a quarter of a million already. I know
ten of them who will average one hundred and fifty thousand each. They
have a WAY with apples. It’s almost a gift. They KNOW trees in much
the same way your husband knows horses. Each tree is just as much an
individual to them as a horse is to me. They know each tree, its whole
history, everything that ever happened to it, its every idiosyncrasy.
They have their fingers on its pulse. They can tell if it’s feeling as
well to-day as it felt yesterday. And if it isn’t, they know why and
proceed to remedy matters for it. They can look at a tree in bloom and
tell how many boxes of apples it will pack, and not only that--they’ll
know what the quality and grades of those apples are going to be. Why,
they know each individual apple, and they pick it tenderly, with love,
never hurting it, and pack it and ship it tenderly and with love, and
when it arrives at market, it isn’t bruised nor rotten, and it fetches
top price.

“Yes, it’s more than intensive. These Adriatic Slavs are long-headed in
business. Not only can they grow apples, but they can sell apples. No
market? What does it matter? Make a market. That’s their way, while our
kind let the crops rot knee-deep under the trees. Look at Peter Mengol.
Every year he goes to England, and he takes a hundred carloads of yellow
Newton pippins with him. Why, those Dalmatians are showing Pajaro apples
on the South African market right now, and coining money out of it hand
over fist.”

“What do they do with all the money?” Saxon queried.

“Buy the Americans of Pajaro Valley out, of course, as they are already
doing.”

“And then?” she questioned.

Benson looked at her quickly.

“Then they’ll start buying the Americans out of some other valley. And
the Americans will spend the money and by the second generation start
rotting in the cities, as you and your husband would have rotted if you
hadn’t got out.”

Saxon could not repress a shudder.--As Mary had rotted, she thought; as
Bert and all the rest had rotted; as Tom and all the rest were rotting.

“Oh, it’s a great country,” Benson was continuing. “But we’re not a
great people. Kipling is right. We’re crowded out and sitting on the
stoop. And the worst of it is there’s no reason we shouldn’t know
better. We’re teaching it in all our agricultural colleges, experiment
stations, and demonstration trains. But the people won’t take hold, and
the immigrant, who has learned in a hard school, beats them out. Why,
after I graduated, and before my father died--he was of the old school
and laughed at what he called my theories--I traveled for a couple of
years. I wanted to see how the old countries farmed. Oh, I saw.

“We’ll soon enter the valley. You bet I saw. First thing, in Japan, the
terraced hillsides. Take a hill so steep you couldn’t drive a horse up
it. No bother to them. They terraced it--a stone wall, and good masonry,
six feet high, a level terrace six feet wide; up and up, walls and
terraces, the same thing all the way, straight into the air, walls upon
walls, terraces upon terraces, until I’ve seen ten-foot walls built to
make three-foot terraces, and twenty-foot walls for four or five feet
of soil they could grow things on. And that soil, packed up the
mountainsides in baskets on their backs!

“Same thing everywhere I went, in Greece, in Ireland, in Dalmatia--I
went there, too. They went around and gathered every bit of soil they
could find, gleaned it and even stole it by the shovelful or handful,
and carried it up the mountains on their backs and built farms--BUILT
them, MADE them, on the naked rock. Why, in France, I’ve seen hill
peasants mining their stream-beds for soil as our fathers mined the
streams of California for gold. Only our gold’s gone, and the peasants’
soil remains, turning over and over, doing something, growing something,
all the time. Now, I guess I’ll hush.”

“My God!” Billy muttered in awe-stricken tones. “Our folks never done
that. No wonder they lost out.”

“There’s the valley now,” Benson said. “Look at those trees! Look at
those hillsides! That’s New Dalmatia. Look at it! An apple paradise!
Look at that soil! Look at the way it’s worked!”

It was not a large valley that Saxon saw. But everywhere, across the
flat-lands and up the low rolling hills, the industry of the Dalmatians
was evident. As she looked she listened to Benson.

“Do you know what the old settlers did with this beautiful soil? Planted
the flats in grain and pastured cattle on the hills. And now twelve
thousand acres of it are in apples. It’s a regular show place for the
Eastern guests at Del Monte, who run out here in their machines to see
the trees in bloom or fruit. Take Matteo Lettunich--he’s one of the
originals. Entered through Castle Garden and became a dish-washer.
When he laid eyes on this valley he knew it was his Klondike. To-day he
leases seven hundred acres and owns a hundred and thirty of his own--the
finest orchard in the valley, and he packs from forty to fifty thousand
boxes of export apples from it every year. And he won’t let a soul but a
Dalmatian pick a single apple of all those apples. One day, in a banter,
I asked him what he’d sell his hundred and thirty acres for. He answered
seriously. He told me what it had netted him, year by year, and struck
an average. He told me to calculate the principal from that at six per
cent. I did. It came to over three thousand dollars an acre.”

“What are all the Chinks doin’ in the Valley?” Billy asked. “Growin’
apples, too?”

Benson shook his head.

“But that’s another point where we Americans lose out. There isn’t
anything wasted in this valley, not a core nor a paring; and it isn’t
the Americans who do the saving. There are fifty-seven apple-evaporating
furnaces, to say nothing of the apple canneries and cider and vinegar
factories. And Mr. John Chinaman owns them. They ship fifteen thousand
barrels of cider and vinegar each year.”

“It was our folks that made this country,” Billy reflected. “Fought for
it, opened it up, did everything--”

“But develop it,” Benson caught him up. “We did our best to destroy it,
as we destroyed the soil of New England.” He waved his hand, indicating
some place beyond the hills. “Salinas lies over that way. If you went
through there you’d think you were in Japan. And more than one fat
little fruit valley in California has been taken over by the Japanese.
Their method is somewhat different from the Dalmatians’. First they
drift in fruit picking at day’s wages. They give better satisfaction
than the American fruit-pickers, too, and the Yankee grower is glad to
get them. Next, as they get stronger, they form in Japanese unions
and proceed to run the American labor out. Still the fruit-growers are
satisfied. The next step is when the Japs won’t pick. The American labor
is gone. The fruit-grower is helpless. The crop perishes. Then in step
the Jap labor bosses. They’re the masters already. They contract for
the crop. The fruit-growers are at their mercy, you see. Pretty soon
the Japs are running the valley. The fruit-growers have become absentee
landlords and are busy learning higher standards of living in the cities
or making trips to Europe. Remains only one more step. The Japs buy
them out. They’ve got to sell, for the Japs control the labor market and
could bankrupt them at will.”

“But if this goes on, what is left for us?” asked Saxon.

“What is happening. Those of us who haven’t anything rot in the cities.
Those of us who have land, sell it and go to the cities. Some become
larger capitalists; some go into the professions; the rest spend the
money and start rotting when it’s gone, and if it lasts their life-time
their children do the rotting for them.”

Their long ride was soon over, and at parting Benson reminded Billy of
the steady job that awaited him any time he gave the word.

“I guess we’ll take a peep at that government land first,” Billy
answered. “Don’t know what we’ll settle down to, but there’s one thing
sure we won’t tackle.”

“What’s that?”

“Start in apple-growin’ at three thousan’ dollars an acre.”

Billy and Saxon, their packs upon the backs, trudged along a hundred
yards. He was the first to break silence.

“An’ I tell you another thing, Saxon. We’ll never be goin’ around
smellin’ out an’ swipin’ bits of soil an’ carryin’ it up a hill in a
basket. The United States is big yet. I don’t care what Benson or any of
‘em says, the United States ain’t played out. There’s millions of acres
untouched an’ waitin’, an’ it’s up to us to find ‘em.”

“And I’ll tell you one thing,” Saxon said. “We’re getting an education.
Tom was raised on a ranch, yet he doesn’t know right now as much about
farming conditions as we do. And I’ll tell you another thing. The more
I think of it, the more it seems we are going to be disappointed about
that government land.”

“Ain’t no use believin’ what everybody tells you,” he protested.

“Oh, it isn’t that. It’s what I think. I leave it to you. If this land
around here is worth three thousand an acre, why is it that government
land, if it’s any good, is waiting there, only a short way off, to be
taken for the asking.”

Billy pondered this for a quarter of a mile, but could come to no
conclusion. At last he cleared his throat and remarked:

“Well, we can wait till we see it first, can’t we?”

“All right,” Saxon agreed. “We’ll wait till we see it.”



CHAPTER VI

They had taken the direct county road across the hills from Monterey,
instead of the Seventeen Mile Drive around by the coast, so that Carmel
Bay came upon them without any fore-glimmerings of its beauty. Dropping
down through the pungent pines, they passed woods-embowered cottages,
quaint and rustic, of artists and writers, and went on across wind-blown
rolling sandhills held to place by sturdy lupine and nodding with pale
California poppies. Saxon screamed in sudden wonder of delight, then
caught her breath and gazed at the amazing peacock-blue of a breaker,
shot through with golden sunlight, overfalling in a mile-long sweep and
thundering into white ruin of foam on a crescent beach of sand scarcely
less white.

How long they stood and watched the stately procession of breakers,
rising from out the deep and wind-capped sea to froth and thunder at
their feet, Saxon did not know. She was recalled to herself when Billy,
laughing, tried to remove the telescope basket from her shoulders.

“You kind of look as though you was goin’ to stop a while,” he said. “So
we might as well get comfortable.”

“I never dreamed it, I never dreamed it,” she repeated, with
passionately clasped hands. “I... I thought the surf at the Cliff House
was wonderful, but it gave no idea of this.--Oh! Look! LOOK! Did you
ever see such an unspeakable color? And the sunlight flashing right
through it! Oh! Oh! Oh!”

At last she was able to take her eyes from the surf and gaze at the
sea-horizon of deepest peacock-blue and piled with cloud-masses, at the
curve of the beach south to the jagged point of rocks, and at the rugged
blue mountains seen across soft low hills, landward, up Carmel Valley.

“Might as well sit down an’ take it easy,” Billy indulged her. “This is
too good to want to run away from all at once.”

Saxon assented, but began immediately to unlace her shoes.

“You ain’t a-goin’ to?” Billy asked in surprised delight, then began
unlacing his own.

But before they were ready to run barefooted on the perilous fringe
of cream-wet sand where land and ocean met, a new and wonderful thing
attracted their attention. Down from the dark pines and across the
sandhills ran a man, naked save for narrow trunks. He was smooth and
rosy-skinned, cherubic-faced, with a thatch of curly yellow hair, but
his body was hugely thewed as a Hercules’.

“Gee!--must be Sandow,” Billy muttered low to Saxon.

But she was thinking of the engraving in her mother’s scrapbook and of
the Vikings on the wet sands of England.

The runner passed them a dozen feet away, crossed the wet sand, never
pausing, till the froth wash was to his knees while above him, ten feet
at least, upreared a wall of overtopping water. Huge and powerful as
his body had seemed, it was now white and fragile in the face of that
imminent, great-handed buffet of the sea. Saxon gasped with anxiety, and
she stole a look at Billy to note that he was tense with watching.

But the stranger sprang to meet the blow, and, just when it seemed he
must be crushed, he dived into the face of the breaker and disappeared.
The mighty mass of water fell in thunder on the beach, but beyond
appeared a yellow head, one arm out-reaching, and a portion of a
shoulder. Only a few strokes was he able to make ere he was compelled
to dive through another breaker. This was the battle--to win seaward
against the sweep of the shoreward hastening sea. Each time he dived
and was lost to view Saxon caught her breath and clenched her hands.
Sometimes, after the passage of a breaker, they could not find him, and
when they did he would be scores of feet away, flung there like a chip
by a smoke-bearded breaker. Often it seemed he must fail and be thrown
upon the beach, but at the end of half an hour he was beyond the outer
edge of the surf and swimming strong, no longer diving, but topping the
waves. Soon he was so far away that only at intervals could they find
the speck of him. That, too, vanished, and Saxon and Billy looked at
each other, she with amazement at the swimmer’s valor, Billy with blue
eyes flashing.

“Some swimmer, that boy, some swimmer,” he praised. “Nothing
chicken-hearted about him.--Say, I only know tank-swimmin’, an’
bay-swimmin’, but now I’m goin’ to learn ocean-swimmin’. If I could do
that I’d be so proud you couldn’t come within forty feet of me. Why,
Saxon, honest to God, I’d sooner do what he done than own a thousan’
farms. Oh, I can swim, too, I’m tellin’ you, like a fish--I swum,
one Sunday, from the Narrow Gauge Pier to Sessions’ Basin, an’ that’s
miles--but I never seen anything like that guy in the swimmin’ line.
An’ I’m not goin’ to leave this beach until he comes back.--All by his
lonely out there in a mountain sea, think of it! He’s got his nerve all
right, all right.”

Saxon and Billy ran barefooted up and down the beach, pursuing each
other with brandished snakes of seaweed and playing like children for
an hour. It was not until they were putting on their shoes that they
sighted the yellow head bearing shoreward. Billy was at the edge of the
surf to meet him, emerging, not white-skinned as he had entered, but red
from the pounding he had received at the hands of the sea.

“You’re a wonder, and I just got to hand it to you,” Billy greeted him
in outspoken admiration.

“It was a big surf to-day,” the young man replied, with a nod of
acknowledgment.

“It don’t happen that you are a fighter I never heard of?” Billy
queried, striving to get some inkling of the identity of the physical
prodigy.

The other laughed and shook his head, and Billy could not guess that he
was an ex-captain of a ‘Varsity Eleven, and incidentally the father of
a family and the author of many books. He looked Billy over with an eye
trained in measuring freshmen aspirants for the gridiron.

“You’re some body of a man,” he appreciated. “You’d strip with the best
of them. Am I right in guessing that you know your way about in the
ring?”

Billy nodded. “My name’s Roberts.”

The swimmer scowled with a futile effort at recollection.

“Bill--Bill Roberts,” Billy supplemented.

“Oh, ho!--Not BIG Bill Roberts? Why, I saw you fight, before the
earthquake, in the Mechanic’s Pavilion. It was a preliminary to Eddie
Hanlon and some other fellow. You’re a two-handed fighter, I remember
that, with an awful wallop, but slow. Yes, I remember, you were slow
that night, but you got your man.” He put out a wet hand. “My name’s
Hazard--Jim Hazard.”

“An’ if you’re the football coach that was, a couple of years ago, I’ve
read about you in the papers. Am I right?”

They shook hands heartily, and Saxon was introduced. She felt very small
beside the two young giants, and very proud, withal, that she belonged
to the race that gave them birth. She could only listen to them talk.

“I’d like to put on the gloves with you every day for half an hour,”
 Hazard said. “You could teach me a lot. Are you going to stay around
here?”

“No. We’re goin’ on down the coast, lookin’ for land. Just the same, I
could teach you a few, and there’s one thing you could teach me--surf
swimmin’.”

“I’ll swap lessons with you any time,” Hazard offered. He turned to
Saxon. “Why don’t you stop in Carmel for a while? It isn’t so bad.”

“It’s beautiful,” she acknowledged, with a grateful smile, “but--” She
turned and pointed to their packs on the edge of the lupine. “We’re on
the tramp, and lookin’ for government land.”

“If you’re looking down past the Sur for it, it will keep,” he laughed.
“Well, I’ve got to run along and get some clothes on. If you come back
this way, look me up. Anybody will tell you where I live. So long.”

And, as he had first arrived, he departed, crossing the sandhills on the
run.

Billy followed him with admiring eyes.

“Some boy, some boy,” he murmured. “Why, Saxon, he’s famous. If I’ve
seen his face in the papers once, I’ve seen it a thousand times. An’ he
ain’t a bit stuck on himself. Just man to man. Say!--I’m beginnin’ to
have faith in the old stock again.”

They turned their backs on the beach and in the tiny main street bought
meat, vegetables, and half a dozen eggs. Billy had to drag Saxon away
from the window of a fascinating shop where were iridescent pearls of
abalone, set and unset.

“Abalones grow here, all along the coast,” Billy assured her; “an’ I’ll
get you all you want. Low tide’s the time.”

“My father had a set of cuff-buttons made of abalone shell,” she said.
“They were set in pure, soft gold. I haven’t thought about them for
years, and I wonder who has them now.”

They turned south. Everywhere from among the pines peeped the quaint
pretty houses of the artist folk, and they were not prepared, where the
road dipped to Carmel River, for the building that met their eyes.

“I know what it is,” Saxon almost whispered. “It’s an old Spanish
Mission. It’s the Carmel Mission, of course. That’s the way the
Spaniards came up from Mexico, building missions as they came and
converting the Indians.”

“Until we chased them out, Spaniards an’ Indians, whole kit an’
caboodle,” Billy observed with calm satisfaction.

“Just the same, it’s wonderful,” Saxon mused, gazing at the big,
half-ruined adobe structure. “There is the Mission Dolores, in San
Francisco, but it’s smaller than this and not as old.”

Hidden from the sea by low hillocks, forsaken by human being and human
habitation, the church of sun-baked clay and straw and chalk-rock stood
hushed and breathless in the midst of the adobe ruins which once had
housed its worshiping thousands. The spirit of the place descended upon
Saxon and Billy, and they walked softly, speaking in whispers, almost
afraid to go in through the open ports. There was neither priest nor
worshiper, yet they found all the evidences of use, by a congregation
which Billy judged must be small from the number of the benches. Later
they climbed the earthquake-racked belfry, noting the hand-hewn timbers;
and in the gallery, discovering the pure quality of their voices, Saxon,
trembling at her own temerity, softly sang the opening bars of “Jesus
Lover of My Soul.” Delighted with the result, she leaned over the
railing, gradually increasing her voice to its full strength as she
sang:

“Jesus, Lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly, While the nearer
waters roll, While the tempest still is nigh. Hide me, O my Saviour,
hide, Till the storm of life is past; Safe into the haven guide And
receive my soul at last.”

Billy leaned against the ancient wall and loved her with his eyes, and,
when she had finished, he murmured, almost in a whisper:

“That was beautiful--just beautiful. An’ you ought to a-seen your face
when you sang. It was as beautiful as your voice. Ain’t it funny?--I
never think of religion except when I think of you.”

They camped in the willow bottom, cooked dinner, and spent the afternoon
on the point of low rocks north of the mouth of the river. They had not
intended to spend the afternoon, but found themselves too fascinated to
turn away from the breakers bursting upon the rocks and from the many
kinds of colorful sea life -- starfish, crabs, mussels, sea anemones, and,
once, in a rock-pool, a small devilfish that chilled their blood when
it cast the hooded net of its body around the small crabs they tossed
to it. As the tide grew lower, they gathered a mess of mussels--huge
fellows, five and six inches long and bearded like patriarchs. Then,
while Billy wandered in a vain search for abalones, Saxon lay and
dabbled in the crystal-clear water of a rock-pool, dipping up handfuls
of glistening jewels--ground bits of shell and pebble of flashing rose
and blue and green and violet. Billy came back and lay beside her,
lazying in the sea-cool sunshine, and together they watched the sun sink
into the horizon where the ocean was deepest peacock-blue.

She reached out her hand to Billy’s and sighed with sheer repletion of
content. It seemed she had never lived such a wonderful day. It was as
if all old dreams were coming true. Such beauty of the world she had
never guessed in her fondest imagining. Billy pressed her hand tenderly.

“What was you thinkin’ of?” he asked, as they arose finally to go.

“Oh, I don’t know, Billy. Perhaps that it was better, one day like this,
than ten thousand years in Oakland.”



CHAPTER VII

They left Carmel River and Carmel Valley behind, and with a rising sun
went south across the hills between the mountains and the sea. The road
was badly washed and gullied and showed little sign of travel.

“It peters out altogether farther down,” Billy said. “From there on it’s
only horse trails. But I don’t see much signs of timber, an’ this soil’s
none so good. It’s only used for pasture--no farmin’ to speak of.”

The hills were bare and grassy. Only the canyons were wooded, while the
higher and more distant hills were furry with chaparral. Once they saw
a coyote slide into the brush, and once Billy wished for a gun when
a large wildcat stared at them malignantly and declined to run until
routed by a clod of earth that burst about its ears like shrapnel.

Several miles along Saxon complained of thirst. Where the road dipped
nearly at sea level to cross a small gulch Billy looked for water. The
bed of the gulch was damp with hill-drip, and he left her to rest while
he sought a spring.

“Say,” he hailed a few minutes afterward. “Come on down. You just gotta
see this. It’ll ‘most take your breath away.”

Saxon followed the faint path that led steeply down through the thicket.
Midway along, where a barbed wire fence was strung high across the mouth
of the gulch and weighted down with big rocks, she caught her first
glimpse of the tiny beach. Only from the sea could one guess its
existence, so completely was it tucked away on three precipitous sides
by the land, and screened by the thicket. Furthermore, the beach was the
head of a narrow rock cove, a quarter of a mile long, up which pent way
the sea roared and was subdued at the last to a gentle pulse of surf.
Beyond the mouth many detached rocks, meeting the full force of the
breakers, spouted foam and spray high in the air. The knees of these
rocks, seen between the surges, were black with mussels. On their
tops sprawled huge sea-lions tawny-wet and roaring in the sun, while
overhead, uttering shrill cries, darted and wheeled a multitude of sea
birds.

The last of the descent, from the barbed wire fence, was a sliding fall
of a dozen feet, and Saxon arrived on the soft dry sand in a sitting
posture.

“Oh, I tell you it’s just great,” Billy bubbled. “Look at it for a
camping spot. In among the trees there is the prettiest spring you
ever saw. An’ look at all the good firewood, an’...” He gazed about and
seaward with eyes that saw what no rush of words could compass. “...
An’, an’ everything. We could live here. Look at the mussels out
there. An’ I bet you we could catch fish. What d’ye say we stop a few
days?--It’s vacation anyway--an’ I could go back to Carmel for hooks an’
lines.”

Saxon, keenly appraising his glowing face, realized that he was indeed
being won from the city.

“An’ there ain’t no wind here,” he was recommending. “Not a breath. An’
look how wild it is. Just as if we was a thousand miles from anywhere.”

The wind, which had been fresh and raw across the bare hills, gained no
entrance to the cove; and the beach was warm and balmy, the air sweetly
pungent with the thicket odors. Here and there, in the midst of the
thicket, severe small oak trees and other small trees of which Saxon did
not know the names. Her enthusiasm now vied with Billy’s, and, hand in
hand, they started to explore.

“Here’s where we can play real Robinson Crusoe,” Billy cried, as they
crossed the hard sand from highwater mark to the edge of the water.
“Come on, Robinson. Let’s stop over. Of course, I’m your Man Friday, an’
what you say goes.”

“But what shall we do with Man Saturday!” She pointed in mock
consternation to a fresh footprint in the sand. “He may be a savage
cannibal, you know.”

“No chance. It’s not a bare foot but a tennis shoe.”

“But a savage could get a tennis shoe from a drowned or eaten sailor,
couldn’t he?” she contended.

“But sailors don’t wear tennis shoes,” was Billy’s prompt refutation.

“You know too much for Man Friday,” she chided; “but, just the same; if
you’ll fetch the packs we’ll make camp. Besides, it mightn’t have been a
sailor that was eaten. It might have been a passenger.”

By the end of an hour a snug camp was completed. The blankets were
spread, a supply of firewood was chopped from the seasoned driftwood,
and over a fire the coffee pot had begun to sing. Saxon called to
Billy, who was improvising a table from a wave-washed plank. She pointed
seaward. On the far point of rocks, naked except for swimming trunks,
stood a man. He was gazing toward them, and they could see his long
mop of dark hair blown by the wind. As he started to climb the rocks
landward Billy called Saxon’s attention to the fact that the stranger
wore tennis shoes. In a few minutes he dropped down from the rock to the
beach and walked up to them.

“Gosh!” Billy whispered to Saxon. “He’s lean enough, but look at his
muscles. Everybody down here seems to go in for physical culture.”

As the newcomer approached, Saxon glimpsed sufficient of his face to
be reminded of the old pioneers and of a certain type of face seen
frequently among the old soldiers: Young though he was--not more than
thirty, she decided--this man had the same long and narrow face, with
the high cheekbones, high and slender forehead, and nose high, lean,
and almost beaked. The lips were thin and sensitive; but the eyes were
different from any she had ever seen in pioneer or veteran or any
man. They were so dark a gray that they seemed brown, and there were a
farness and alertness of vision in them as of bright questing through
profounds of space. In a misty way Saxon felt that she had seen him
before.

“Hello,” he greeted. “You ought to be comfortable here.” He threw down a
partly filled sack. “Mussels. All I could get. The tide’s not low enough
yet.”

Saxon heard Billy muffle an ejaculation, and saw painted on his face the
extremest astonishment.

“Well, honest to God, it does me proud to meet you,” he blurted out.
“Shake hands. I always said if I laid eyes on you I’d shake.--Say!”

But Billy’s feelings mastered him, and, beginning with a choking giggle,
he roared into helpless mirth.

The stranger looked at him curiously across their clasped hands, and
glanced inquiringly to Saxon.

“You gotta excuse me,” Billy gurgled, pumping the other’s hand up and
down. “But I just gotta laugh. Why, honest to God, I’ve woke up nights
an’ laughed an’ gone to sleep again. Don’t you recognize ‘m, Saxon? He’s
the same identical dude -- say, friend, you’re some punkins at a hundred
yards dash, ain’t you?”

And then, in a sudden rush, Saxon placed him. He it was who had stood
with Roy Blanchard alongside the automobile on the day she had wandered,
sick and unwitting, into strange neighborhoods. Nor had that day been
the first time she had seen him.

“Remember the Bricklayers’ Picnic at Weasel Park?” Billy was asking.
“An’ the foot race? Why, I’d know that nose of yours anywhere among a
million. You was the guy that stuck your cane between Timothy McManus’s
legs an’ started the grandest roughhouse Weasel Park or any other park
ever seen.”

The visitor now commenced to laugh. He stood on one leg as he laughed
harder, then stood on the other leg. Finally he sat down on a log of
driftwood.

“And you were there,” he managed to gasp to Billy at last. “You saw it.
You saw it.” He turned to Saxon. “--And you?”

She nodded.

“Say,” Billy began again, as their laughter eased down, “what I wanta
know is what’d you wanta do it for. Say, what’d you wanta do it for?
I’ve been askin’ that to myself ever since.”

“So have I,” was the answer.

“You didn’t know Timothy McManus, did you?”

“No; I’d never seen him before, and I’ve never seen him since.”

“But what’d you wanta do it for?” Billy persisted.

The young man laughed, then controlled himself.

“To save my life, I don’t know. I have one friend, a most intelligent
chap that writes sober, scientific books, and he’s always aching to
throw an egg into an electric fan to see what will happen. Perhaps
that’s the way it was with me, except that there was no aching. When I
saw those legs flying past, I merely stuck my stick in between. I didn’t
know I was going to do it. I just did it. Timothy McManus was no more
surprised than I was.”

“Did they catch you?” Billy asked.

“Do I look as if they did? I was never so scared in my life. Timothy
McManus himself couldn’t have caught me that day. But what happened
afterward? I heard they had a fearful roughhouse, but I couldn’t stop to
see.”

It was not until a quarter of an hour had passed, during which Billy
described the fight, that introductions took place. Mark Hall was their
visitor’s name, and he lived in a bungalow among the Carmel pines.

“But how did you ever find your way to Bierce’s Cove?” he was curious to
know. “Nobody ever dreams of it from the road.”

“So that’s its name?” Saxon said.

“It’s the name we gave it. One of our crowd camped here one summer,
and we named it after him. I’ll take a cup of that coffee, if you don’t
mind.”--This to Saxon. “And then I’ll show your husband around. We’re
pretty proud of this cove. Nobody ever comes here but ourselves.”

“You didn’t get all that muscle from bein’ chased by McManus,” Billy
observed over the coffee.

“Massage under tension,” was the cryptic reply.

“Yes,” Billy said, pondering vacantly. “Do you eat it with a spoon?”

Hall laughed.

“I’ll show you. Take any muscle you want, tense it, then manipulate it
with your fingers, so, and so.”

“An’ that done all that?” Billy asked skeptically.

“All that!” the other scorned proudly. “For one muscle you see, there’s
five tucked away but under command. Touch your finger to any part of me
and see.”

Billy complied, touching the right breast.

“You know something about anatomy, picking a muscleless spot,” scolded
Hall.

Billy grinned triumphantly, then, to his amazement, saw a muscle grow up
under his finger. He prodded it, and found it hard and honest.

“Massage under tension!” Hall exulted. “Go on--anywhere you want.”

And anywhere and everywhere Billy touched, muscles large and small rose
up, quivered, and sank down, till the whole body was a ripple of willed
quick.

“Never saw anything like it,” Billy marveled at the end; “an’ I’ve seen
some few good men stripped in my time. Why, you’re all living silk.”

“Massage under tension did it, my friend. The doctors gave me up. My
friends called me the sick rat, and the mangy poet, and all that. Then
I quit the city, came down to Carmel, and went in for the open air--and
massage under tension.”

“Jim Hazard didn’t get his muscles that way,” Billy challenged.

“Certainly not, the lucky skunk; he was born with them. Mine’s made.
That’s the difference. I’m a work of art. He’s a cave bear. Come along.
I’ll show you around now. You’d better get your clothes off. Keep on
only your shoes and pants, unless you’ve got a pair of trunks.”

“My mother was a poet,” Saxon said, while Billy was getting himself
ready in the thicket. She had noted Hall’s reference to himself.

He seemed incurious, and she ventured further.

“Some of it was printed.”

“What was her name?” he asked idly.

“Dayelle Wiley Brown. She wrote: ‘The Viking’s Quest’; ‘Days of Gold’;
‘Constancy’; ‘The Caballero’; ‘Graves at Little Meadow’; and a lot more.
Ten of them are in ‘The Story of the Files.’”

“I’ve the book at home,” he remarked, for the first time showing real
interest. “She was a pioneer, of course--before my time. I’ll look her
up when I get back to the house. My people were pioneers. They came by
Panama, in the Fifties, from Long Island. My father was a doctor, but
he went into business in San Francisco and robbed his fellow men out of
enough to keep me and the rest of a large family going ever since.--Say,
where are you and your husband bound?”

When Saxon had told him of their attempt to get away from Oakland and of
their quest for land, he sympathized with the first and shook his head
over the second.

“It’s beautiful down beyond the Sur,” he told her. “I’ve been all over
those redwood canyons, and the place is alive with game. The government
land is there, too. But you’d be foolish to settle. It’s too remote. And
it isn’t good farming land, except in patches in the canyons. I know
a Mexican there who is wild to sell his five hundred acres for fifteen
hundred dollars. Three dollars an acre! And what does that mean? That
it isn’t worth more. That it isn’t worth so much; because he can find no
takers. Land, you know, is worth what they buy and sell it for.”

Billy, emerging from the thicket, only in shoes and in pants rolled to
the knees, put an end to the conversation; and Saxon watched the two
men, physically so dissimilar, climb the rocks and start out the south
side of the cove. At first her eyes followed them lazily, but soon she
grew interested and worried. Hall was leading Billy up what seemed a
perpendicular wall in order to gain the backbone of the rock. Billy
went slowly, displaying extreme caution; but twice she saw him slip, the
weather-eaten stone crumbling away in his hand and rattling beneath him
into the cove. When Hall reached the top, a hundred feet above the sea,
she saw him stand upright and sway easily on the knife-edge which
she knew fell away as abruptly on the other side. Billy, once on top,
contented himself with crouching on hands and knees. The leader went
on, upright, walking as easily as on a level floor. Billy abandoned the
hands and knees position, but crouched closely and often helped himself
with his hands.

The knife-edge backbone was deeply serrated, and into one of the notches
both men disappeared. Saxon could not keep down her anxiety, and climbed
out on the north side of the cove, which was less rugged and far less
difficult to travel. Even so, the unaccustomed height, the crumbling
surface, and the fierce buffets of the wind tried her nerve. Soon she
was opposite the men. They had leaped a narrow chasm and were scaling
another tooth. Already Billy was going more nimbly, but his leader often
paused and waited for him. The way grew severer, and several times the
clefts they essayed extended down to the ocean level and spouted spray
from the growling breakers that burst through. At other times, standing
erect, they would fall forward across deep and narrow clefts until their
palms met the opposing side; then, clinging with their fingers, their
bodies would be drawn across and up.

Near the end, Hall and Billy went out of sight over the south side
of the backbone, and when Saxon saw them again they were rounding the
extreme point of rock and coming back on the cove side. Here the way
seemed barred. A wide fissure, with hopelessly vertical sides, yawned
skywards from a foam-white vortex where the mad waters shot their level
a dozen feet upward and dropped it as abruptly to the black depths of
battered rock and writhing weed.

Clinging precariously, the men descended their side till the spray was
flying about them. Here they paused. Saxon could see Hall pointing down
across the fissure and imagined he was showing some curious thing to
Billy. She was not prepared for what followed. The surf-level sucked and
sank away, and across and down Hall jumped to a narrow foothold where
the wash had roared yards deep the moment before. Without pause, as
the returning sea rushed up, he was around the sharp corner and clawing
upward hand and foot to escape being caught. Billy was now left alone.
He could not even see Hall, much less be further advised by him, and so
tensely did Saxon watch, that the pain in her finger-tips, crushed
to the rock by which she held, warned her to relax. Billy waited his
chance, twice made tentative preparations to leap and sank back, then
leaped across and down to the momentarily exposed foothold, doubled the
corner, and as he clawed up to join Hall was washed to the waist but not
torn away.

Saxon did not breathe easily till they rejoined her at the fire. One
glance at Billy told her that he was exceedingly disgusted with himself.

“You’ll do, for a beginner,” Hall cried, slapping him jovially on the
bare shoulder. “That climb is a stunt of mine. Many’s the brave lad
that’s started with me and broken down before we were half way out. I’ve
had a dozen balk at that big jump. Only the athletes make it.”

“I ain’t ashamed of admittin’ I was scairt,” Billy growled. “You’re a
regular goat, an’ you sure got my goat half a dozen times. But I’m mad
now. It’s mostly trainin’, an’ I’m goin’ to camp right here an’ train
till I can challenge you to a race out an’ around an’ back to the
beach.”

“Done,” said Hall, putting out his hand in ratification. “And some
time, when we get together in San Francisco, I’ll lead you up against
Bierce--the one this cove is named after. His favorite stunt, when
he isn’t collecting rattlesnakes, is to wait for a forty-mile-an-hour
breeze, and then get up and walk on the parapet of a skyscraper--on the
lee side, mind you, so that if he blows off there’s nothing to fetch him
up but the street. He sprang that on me once.”

“Did you do it?” Billy asked eagerly.

“I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t been on. I’d been practicing it secretly
for a week. And I got twenty dollars out of him on the bet.”

The tide was now low enough for mussel gathering and Saxon accompanied
the men out the north wall. Hall had several sacks to fill. A rig was
coming for him in the afternoon, he explained, to cart the mussels back
to Carmel. When the sacks were full they ventured further among the
rock crevices and were rewarded with three abalones, among the shells
of which Saxon found one coveted blister-pearl. Hall initiated them into
the mysteries of pounding and preparing the abalone meat for cooking.

By this time it seemed to Saxon that they had known him a long time. It
reminded her of the old times when Bert had been with them, singing his
songs or ranting about the last of the Mohicans.

“Now, listen; I’m going to teach you something,” Hall commanded, a large
round rock poised in his hand above the abalone meat. “You must never,
never pound abalone without singing this song. Nor must you sing this
song at any other time. It would be the rankest sacrilege. Abalone
is the food of the gods. Its preparation is a religious function. Now
listen, and follow, and remember that it is a very solemn occasion.”

The stone came down with a thump on the white meat, and thereafter arose
and fell in a sort of tom-tom accompaniment to the poet’s song:

“Oh! some folks boast of quail on toast, Because they think it’s tony;
But I’m content to owe my rent And live on abalone.

“Oh! Mission Point’s a friendly joint Where every crab’s a crony, And
true and kind you’ll ever find The clinging abalone.

“He wanders free beside the sea Where ‘er the coast is stony; He flaps
his wings and madly sings--The plaintive abalone.

“Some stick to biz, some flirt with Liz Down on the sands of Coney; But
we, by hell, stay in Carmel, And whang the abalone.”

He paused with his mouth open and stone upraised. There was a rattle
of wheels and a voice calling from above where the sacks of mussels had
been carried. He brought the stone down with a final thump and stood up.

“There’s a thousand more verses like those,” he said. “Sorry I hadn’t
time to teach you them.” He held out his hand, palm downward. “And now,
children, bless you, you are now members of the clan of Abalone Eaters,
and I solemnly enjoin you, never, no matter what the circumstances,
pound abalone meat without chanting the sacred words I have revealed
unto you.”

“But we can’t remember the words from only one hearing,” Saxon
expostulated.

“That shall be attended to. Next Sunday the Tribe of Abalone Eaters will
descend upon you here in Bierce’s Cove, and you will be able to see the
rites, the writers and writeresses, down even to the Iron Man with the
basilisk eyes, vulgarly known as the King of the Sacerdotal Lizards.”

“Will Jim Hazard come?” Billy called, as Hall disappeared into the
thicket.

“He will certainly come. Is he not the Cave-Bear Pot-Walloper and
Gridironer, the most fearsome, and, next to me, the most exalted, of all
the Abalone Eaters?”

Saxon and Billy could only look at each other till they heard the wheels
rattle away.

“Well, I’ll be doggoned,” Billy let out. “He’s some boy, that. Nothing
stuck up about him. Just like Jim Hazard, comes along and makes himself
at home, you’re as good as he is an’ he’s as good as you, an’ we’re all
friends together, just like that, right off the bat.”

“He’s old stock, too,” Saxon said. “He told me while you were
undressing. His folks came by Panama before the railroad was built, and
from what he said I guess he’s got plenty of money.”

“He sure don’t act like it.”

“And isn’t he full of fun!” Saxon cried.

“A regular josher. An’ HIM!--a POET!”

“Oh, I don’t know, Billy. I’ve heard that plenty of poets are odd.”

“That’s right, come to think of it. There’s Joaquin Miller, lives out
in the hills back of Fruitvale. He’s certainly odd. It’s right near
his place where I proposed to you. Just the same I thought poets wore
whiskers and eyeglasses, an’ never tripped up foot-racers at Sunday
picnics, nor run around with as few clothes on as the law allows,
gatherin’ mussels an’ climbin’ like goats.”

That night, under the blankets, Saxon lay awake, looking at the stars,
pleasuring in the balmy thicket-scents, and listening to the dull rumble
of the outer surf and the whispering ripples on the sheltered beach a
few feet away. Billy stirred, and she knew he was not yet asleep.

“Glad you left Oakland, Billy?” she snuggled.

“Huh!” came his answer. “Is a clam happy?”



CHAPTER VIII

Every half tide Billy raced out the south wall over the dangerous course
he and Hall had traveled, and each trial found him doing it in faster
time.

“Wait till Sunday,” he said to Saxon. “I’ll give that poet a run for his
money. Why, they ain’t a place that bothers me now. I’ve got the head
confidence. I run where I went on hands an’ knees. I figured it out this
way: Suppose you had a foot to fall on each side, an’ it was soft
hay. They’d be nothing to stop you. You wouldn’t fall. You’d go like a
streak. Then it’s just the same if it’s a mile down on each side. That
ain’t your concern. Your concern is to stay on top and go like a streak.
An’, d’ye know, Saxon, when I went at it that way it never bothered me
at all. Wait till he comes with his crowd Sunday. I’m ready for him.”

“I wonder what the crowd will be like,” Saxon speculated.

“Like him, of course. Birds of a feather flock together. They won’t be
stuck up, any of them, you’ll see.”

Hall had sent out fish-lines and a swimming suit by a Mexican cowboy
bound south to his ranch, and from the latter they learned much of the
government land and how to get it. The week flew by; each day Saxon
sighed a farewell of happiness to the sun; each morning they greeted its
return with laughter of joy in that another happy day had begun. They
made no plans, but fished, gathered mussels and abalones, and climbed
among the rocks as the moment moved them. The abalone meat they pounded
religiously to a verse of doggerel improvised by Saxon. Billy prospered.
Saxon had never seen him at so keen a pitch of health. As for herself,
she scarcely needed the little hand-mirror to know that never, since
she was a young girl, had there been such color in her cheeks, such
spontaneity of vivacity.

“It’s the first time in my life I ever had real play,” Billy said. “An’
you an’ me never played at all all the time we was married. This beats
bein’ any kind of a millionaire.”

“No seven o’clock whistle,” Saxon exulted. “I’d lie abed in the mornings
on purpose, only everything is too good not to be up. And now you
just play at chopping some firewood and catching a nice big perch, Man
Friday, if you expect to get any dinner.”

Billy got up, hatchet in hand, from where he had been lying prone,
digging holes in the sand with his bare toes.

“But it ain’t goin’ to last,” he said, with a deep sigh of regret. “The
rains’ll come any time now. The good weather’s hangin’ on something
wonderful.”

On Saturday morning, returning from his run out the south wall, he
missed Saxon. After helloing for her without result, he climbed to the
road. Half a mile away, he saw her astride an unsaddled, unbridled horse
that moved unwillingly, at a slow walk, across the pasture.

“Lucky for you it was an old mare that had been used to ridin’--see them
saddle marks,” he grumbled, when she at last drew to a halt beside him
and allowed him to help her down.

“Oh, Billy,” she sparkled, “I was never on a horse before. It was
glorious! I felt so helpless, too, and so brave.”

“I’m proud of you, just the same,” he said, in more grumbling tones than
before. “‘Tain’t every married woman’d tackle a strange horse that way,
especially if she’d never ben on one. An’ I ain’t forgot that you’re
goin’ to have a saddle animal all to yourself some day--a regular Joe
dandy.”

The Abalone Eaters, in two rigs and on a number of horses, descended
in force on Bierce’s Cove. There were half a score of men and almost as
many women. All were young, between the ages of twenty-five and forty,
and all seemed good friends. Most of them were married. They arrived in
a roar of good spirits, tripping one another down the slippery trail and
engulfing Saxon and Billy in a comradeship as artless and warm as the
sunshine itself. Saxon was appropriated by the girls--she could not
realize them women; and they made much of her, praising her camping and
traveling equipment and insisting on hearing some of her tale. They were
experienced campers themselves, as she quickly discovered when she saw
the pots and pans and clothes-boilers for the mussels which they had
brought.

In the meantime Billy and the men had undressed and scattered out after
mussels and abalones. The girls lighted on Saxon’s ukulele and nothing
would do but she must play and sing. Several of them had been to
Honolulu, and knew the instrument, confirming Mercedes’ definition
of ukulele as “jumping flea.” Also, they knew Hawaiian songs she had
learned from Mercedes, and soon, to her accompaniment, all were
singing: “Aloha Oe,” “Honolulu Tomboy,” and “Sweet Lei Lehua.” Saxon
was genuinely shocked when some of them, even the more matronly, danced
hulas on the sand.

When the men returned, burdened with sacks of shellfish, Mark Hall, as
high priest, commanded the due and solemn rite of the tribe. At a wave
of his hand, the many poised stones came down in unison on the white
meat, and all voices were uplifted in the Hymn to the Abalone. Old
verses all sang, occasionally some one sang a fresh verse alone,
whereupon it was repeated in chorus. Billy betrayed Saxon by begging her
in an undertone to sing the verse she had made, and her pretty voice was
timidly raised in:

“We sit around and gaily pound, And bear no acrimony Because our
ob--ject is a gob Of sizzling abalone.”

“Great!” cried the poet, who had winced at ob--ject. “She speaks the
language of the tribe! Come on, children--now!”

And all chanted Saxon’s lines. Then Jim Hazard had a new verse, and one
of the girls, and the Iron Man with the basilisk eyes of greenish-gray,
whom Saxon recognized from Hall’s description. To her it seemed he had
the face of a priest.

“Oh! some like ham and some like lamb And some like macaroni; But bring
me in a pail of gin And a tub of abalone.

“Oh! some drink rain and some champagne Or brandy by the pony; But I
will try a little rye With a dash of abalone.

“Some live on hope and some on dope And some on alimony. But our
tom-cat, he lives on fat And tender abalone.”

A black-haired, black-eyed man with the roguish face of a satyr, who,
Saxon learned, was an artist who sold his paintings at five hundred
apiece, brought on himself universal execration and acclamation by
singing:

“The more we take, the more they make In deep sea matrimony; Race
suicide cannot betide The fertile abalone.”

And so it went, verses new and old, verses without end, all in
glorification of the succulent shellfish of Carmel. Saxon’s enjoyment
was keen, almost ecstatic, and she had difficulty in convincing herself
of the reality of it all. It seemed like some fairy tale or book story
come true. Again, it seemed more like a stage, and these the actors, she
and Billy having blundered into the scene in some incomprehensible
way. Much of wit she sensed which she did not understand. Much she did
understand. And she was aware that brains were playing as she had
never seen brains play before. The puritan streak in her training was
astonished and shocked by some of the broadness; but she refused to sit
in judgment. They SEEMED good, these light-hearted young people; they
certainly were not rough or gross as were many of the crowds she had
been with on Sunday picnics. None of the men got drunk, although there
were cocktails in vacuum bottles and red wine in a huge demijohn.

What impressed Saxon most was their excessive jollity, their childlike
joy, and the childlike things they did. This effect was heightened
by the fact that they were novelists and painters, poets and critics,
sculptors and musicians. One man, with a refined and delicate face--a
dramatic critic on a great San Francisco daily, she was told--introduced
a feat which all the men tried and failed at most ludicrously. On the
beach, at regular intervals, planks were placed as obstacles. Then the
dramatic critic, on all fours, galloped along the sand for all the
world like a horse, and for all the world like a horse taking hurdles he
jumped the planks to the end of the course.

Quoits had been brought along, and for a while these were pitched with
zest. Then jumping was started, and game slid into game. Billy took part
in everything, but did not win first place as often as he had expected.
An English writer beat him a dozen feet at tossing the caber. Jim Hazard
beat him in putting the heavy “rock.” Mark Hall out-jumped him standing
and running. But at the standing high back-jump Billy did come first.
Despite the handicap of his weight, this victory was due to his splendid
back and abdominal lifting muscles. Immediately after this, however, he
was brought to grief by Mark Hall’s sister, a strapping young amazon in
cross-saddle riding costume, who three times tumbled him ignominiously
heels over head in a bout of Indian wrestling.

“You’re easy,” jeered the Iron Man, whose name they had learned was Pete
Bideaux. “I can put you down myself, catch-as-catch-can.”

Billy accepted the challenge, and found in all truth that the other was
rightly nicknamed. In the training camps Billy had sparred and clinched
with giant champions like Jim Jeffries and Jack Johnson, and met the
weight of their strength, but never had he encountered strength like
this of the Iron Man. Do what he could, Billy was powerless, and twice
his shoulders were ground into the sand in defeat.

“You’ll get a chance back at him,” Hazard whispered to Billy, off at one
side. “I’ve brought the gloves along. Of course, you had no chance with
him at his own game. He’s wrestled in the music halls in London with
Hackenschmidt. Now you keep quiet, and we’ll lead up to it in a casual
sort of way. He doesn’t know about you.”

Soon, the Englishman who had tossed the caber was sparring with the
dramatic critic, Hazard and Hall boxed in fantastic burlesque, then,
gloves in hand, looked for the next appropriately matched couple. The
choice of Bideaux and Billy was obvious.

“He’s liable to get nasty if he’s hurt,” Hazard warned Billy, as he tied
on the gloves for him. “He’s old American French, and he’s got a devil
of a temper. But just keep your head and tap him--whatever you do, keep
tapping him.”

“Easy sparring now”; “No roughhouse, Bideaux”; “Just light tapping, you
know,” were admonitions variously addressed to the Iron Man.

“Hold on a second,” he said to Billy, dropping his hands. “When I get
rapped I do get a bit hot. But don’t mind me. I can’t help it, you know.
It’s only for the moment, and I don’t mean it.”

Saxon felt very nervous, visions of Billy’s bloody fights and all the
scabs he had slugged rising in her brain; but she had never seen her
husband box, and but few seconds were required to put her at ease. The
Iron Man had no chance. Billy was too completely the master, guarding
every blow, himself continually and almost at will tapping the other’s
face and body. There was no weight in Billy’s blows, only a light and
snappy tingle; but their incessant iteration told on the Iron Man’s
temper. In vain the onlookers warned him to go easy. His face purpled
with anger, and his blows became savage. But Billy went on, tap, tap,
tap, calmly, gently, imperturbably. The Iron Man lost control,
and rushed and plunged, delivering great swings and upper-cuts of
man-killing quality. Billy ducked, side-stepped, blocked, stalled, and
escaped all damage. In the clinches, which were unavoidable, he locked
the Iron Man’s arms, and in the clinches the Iron Man invariably laughed
and apologized, only to lose his head with the first tap the instant
they separated and be more infuriated than ever.

And when it was over and Billy’s identity had been divulged, the Iron
Man accepted the joke on himself with the best of humor. It had been a
splendid exhibition on Billy’s part. His mastery of the sport, coupled
with his self-control, had most favorably impressed the crowd, and
Saxon, very proud of her man boy, could not but see the admiration all
had for him.

Nor did she prove in any way a social failure. When the tired and
sweating players lay down in the dry sand to cool off, she was persuaded
into accompanying their nonsense songs with the ukulele. Nor was it
long, catching their spirit, ere she was singing to them and teaching
them quaint songs of early days which she had herself learned as
a little girl from Cady--Cady, the saloonkeeper, pioneer, and
ex-cavalryman, who had been a bull-whacker on the Salt Intake Trail in
the days before the railroad.

One song which became an immediate favorite was:

“Oh! times on Bitter Creek, they never can be beat, Root hog or die is
on every wagon sheet; The sand within your throat, the dust within your
eye, Bend your back and stand it--root hog or die.”

After the dozen verses of “Root Hog or Die,” Mark Hall claimed to be
especially infatuated with:

“Obadier, he dreampt a dream, Dreampt he was drivin’ a ten-mule team,
But when he woke he heaved a sigh, The lead-mule kicked e-o-wt the
swing-mule’s eye.”

It was Mark Hall who brought up the matter of Billy’s challenge to race
out the south wall of the cove, though he referred to the test as lying
somewhere in the future. Billy surprised him by saying he was ready at
any time. Forthwith the crowd clamored for the race. Hall offered to
bet on himself, but there were no takers. He offered two to one to Jim
Hazard, who shook his head and said he would accept three to one as a
sporting proposition. Billy heard and gritted his teeth.

“I’ll take you for five dollars,” he said to Hall, “but not at those
odds. I’ll back myself even.”

“It isn’t your money I want; it’s Hazard’s,” Hall demurred. “Though I’ll
give either of you three to one.”

“Even or nothing,” Billy held out obstinately.

Hall finally closed both bets--even with Billy, and three to one with
Hazard.

The path along the knife-edge was so narrow that it was impossible for
runners to pass each other, so it was arranged to time the men, Hall to
go first and Billy to follow after an interval of half a minute.

Hall toed the mark and at the word was off with the form of a sprinter.
Saxon’s heart sank. She knew Billy had never crossed the stretch of sand
at that speed. Billy darted forward thirty seconds later, and reached
the foot of the rock when Hall was half way up. When both were on top
and racing from notch to notch, the Iron Man announced that they had
scaled the wall in the same time to a second.

“My money still looks good,” Hazard remarked, “though I hope neither of
them breaks a neck. I wouldn’t take that run that way for all the gold
that would fill the cove.”

“But you’ll take bigger chances swimming in a storm on Carmel Beach,”
 his wife chided.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he retorted. “You haven’t so far to fall when
swimming.”

Billy and Hall had disappeared and were making the circle around the
end. Those on the beach were certain that the poet had gained in the
dizzy spurts of flight along the knife-edge. Even Hazard admitted it.

“What price for my money now?” he cried excitedly, dancing up and down.

Hall had reappeared, the great jump accomplished, and was running
shoreward. But there was no gap. Billy was on his heels, and on his
heels he stayed, in to shore, down the wall, and to the mark on the
beach. Billy had won by half a minute.

“Only by the watch,” he panted. “Hall was over half a minute ahead of me
out to the end. I’m not slower than I thought, but he’s faster. He’s
a wooz of a sprinter. He could beat me ten times outa ten, except for
accident. He was hung up at the jump by a big sea. That’s where I caught
‘m. I jumped right after ‘m on the same sea, then he set the pace home,
and all I had to do was take it.”

“That’s all right,” said Hall. “You did better than beat me. That’s the
first time in the history of Bierce’s Cove that two men made that jump
on the same sea. And all the risk was yours, coming last.”

“It was a fluke,” Billy insisted.

And at that point Saxon settled the dispute of modesty and raised a
general laugh by rippling chords on the ukulele and parodying an old
hymn in negro minstrel fashion:

“De Lawd move in er mischievous way His blunders to perform.”

In the afternoon Jim Hazard and Hall dived into the breakers and swam
to the outlying rocks, routing the protesting sea-lions and taking
possession of their surf-battered stronghold. Billy followed the
swimmers with his eyes, yearning after them so undisguisedly that Mrs.
Hazard said to him:

“Why don’t you stop in Carmel this winter? Jim will teach you all he
knows about the surf. And he’s wild to box with you. He works long hours
at his desk, and he really needs exercise.”


Not until sunset did the merry crowd carry their pots and pans and
trove of mussels up to the road and depart. Saxon and Billy watched them
disappear, on horses and behind horses, over the top of the first hill,
and then descended hand in hand through the thicket to the camp. Billy
threw himself on the sand and stretched out.

“I don’t know when I’ve been so tired,” he yawned. “An’ there’s one
thing sure: I never had such a day. It’s worth livin’ twenty years for
an’ then some.”

He reached out his hand to Saxon, who lay beside him.

“And, oh, I was so proud of you, Billy,” she said. “I never saw you box
before. I didn’t know it was like that. The Iron Man was at your mercy
all the time, and you kept it from being violent or terrible. Everybody
could look on and enjoy--and they did, too.”

“Huh, I want to say you was goin’ some yourself. They just took to you.
Why, honest to God, Saxon, in the singin’ you was the whole show, along
with the ukulele. All the women liked you, too, an’ that’s what counts.”

It was their first social triumph, and the taste of it was sweet:

“Mr. Hall said he’d looked up the ‘Story of the Files,’” Saxon
recounted. “And he said mother was a true poet. He said it was
astonishing the fine stock that had crossed the Plains. He told me a lot
about those times and the people I didn’t know. And he’s read all about
the fight at Little Meadow. He says he’s got it in a book at home, and
if we come back to Carmel he’ll show it to me.”

“He wants us to come back all right. D’ye know what he said to me,
Saxon? He gave me a letter to some guy that’s down on the government
land--some poet that’s holdin’ down a quarter of a section--so we’ll be
able to stop there, which’ll come in handy if the big rains catch us.
An’--Oh! that’s what I was drivin’ at. He said he had a little shack he
lived in while the house was buildin’. The Iron Man’s livin’ in it now,
but he’s goin’ away to some Catholic college to study to be a priest,
an’ Hall said the shack’d be ours as long as we wanted to use it. An’ he
said I could do what the Iron Man was doin’ to make a livin’. Hall was
kind of bashful when he was offerin’ me work. Said it’d be only odd
jobs, but that we’d make out. I could help’m plant potatoes, he said;
an’ he got half savage when he said I couldn’t chop wood. That was his
job, he said; an’ you could see he was actually jealous over it.”

“And Mrs. Hall said just about the same to me, Billy. Carmel wouldn’t be
so bad to pass the rainy season in. And then, too, you could go swimming
with Mr. Hazard.”

“Seems as if we could settle down wherever we’ve a mind to,” Billy
assented. “Carmel’s the third place now that’s offered. Well, after
this, no man need be afraid of makin’ a go in the country.”

“No good man,” Saxon corrected.

“I guess you’re right.” Billy thought for a moment. “Just the same a
dub, too, has a better chance in the country than in the city.”

“Who’d have ever thought that such fine people existed?” Saxon pondered.
“It’s just wonderful, when you come to think of it.”

“It’s only what you’d expect from a rich poet that’d trip up a
foot-racer at an Irish picnic,” Billy exposited.

“The only crowd such a guy’d run with would be like himself, or he’d
make a crowd that was. I wouldn’t wonder that he’d make this crowd. Say,
he’s got some sister, if anybody’d ride up on a sea-lion an’ ask you.
She’s got that Indian wrestlin’ down pat, an’ she’s built for it. An’
say, ain’t his wife a beaut?”

A little longer they lay in the warm sand. It was Billy who broke the
silence, and what he said seemed to proceed out of profound meditation.

“Say, Saxon, d’ye know I don’t care if I never see movie pictures
again.”



CHAPTER IX

Saxon and Billy were gone weeks on the trip south, but in the end they
came back to Carmel. They had stopped with Hafler, the poet in the
Marble House, which he had built with his own hands. This queer dwelling
was all in one room, built almost entirely of white marble. Hafler
cooked, as over a campfire, in the huge marble fireplace, which he used
in all ways as a kitchen. There were divers shelves of books, and the
massive furniture he had made from redwood, as he had made the shakes
for the roof. A blanket, stretched across a corner, gave Saxon privacy.
The poet was on the verge of departing for San Francisco and New York,
but remained a day over with them to explain the country and run over
the government land with Billy. Saxon had wanted to go along that
morning, but Hafler scornfully rejected her, telling her that her legs
were too short. That night, when the men returned, Billy was played out
to exhaustion. He frankly acknowledged that Hafler had walked him into
the ground, and that his tongue had been hanging out from the first
hour. Hafler estimated that they had covered fifty-five miles.

“But such miles!” Billy enlarged. “Half the time up or down, an’ ‘most
all the time without trails. An’ such a pace. He was dead right about
your short legs, Saxon. You wouldn’t a-lasted the first mile. An’ such
country! We ain’t seen anything like it yet.”

Hafler left the next day to catch the train at Monterey. He gave them
the freedom of the Marble House, and told them to stay the whole winter
if they wanted. Billy elected to loaf around and rest up that day.
He was stiff and sore. Moreover, he was stunned by the exhibition of
walking prowess on the part of the poet.

“Everybody can do something top-notch down in this country,” he
marveled. “Now take that Hafler. He’s a bigger man than me, an’ a
heavier. An’ weight’s against walkin’, too. But not with him. He’s done
eighty miles inside twenty-four hours, he told me, an’ once a hundred
an’ seventy in three days. Why, he made a show outa me. I felt ashamed
as a little kid.”

“Remember, Billy,” Saxon soothed him, “every man to his own game. And
down here you’re a top-notcher at your own game. There isn’t one you’re
not the master of with the gloves.”

“I guess that’s right,” he conceded. “But just the same it goes against
the grain to be walked off my legs by a poet--by a poet, mind you.”

They spent days in going over the government land, and in the end
reluctantly decided against taking it up. The redwood canyons and great
cliffs of the Santa Lucia Mountains fascinated Saxon; but she remembered
what Hafler had told her of the summer fogs which hid the sun sometimes
for a week or two at a time, and which lingered for months. Then, too,
there was no access to market. It was many miles to where the nearest
wagon road began, at Post’s, and from there on, past Point Sur to
Carmel, it was a weary and perilous way. Billy, with his teamster
judgment, admitted that for heavy hauling it was anything but a picnic.
There was the quarry of perfect marble on Hafler’s quarter section. He
had said that it would be worth a fortune if near a railroad; but, as it
was, he’d make them a present of it if they wanted it.

Billy visioned the grassy slopes pastured with his horses and cattle,
and found it hard to turn his back; but he listened with a willing ear
to Saxon’s argument in favor of a farm-home like the one they had seen
in the moving pictures in Oakland. Yes, he agreed, what they wanted was
an all-around farm, and an all-around farm they would have if they hiked
forty years to find it.

“But it must have redwoods on it,” Saxon hastened to stipulate. “I’ve
fallen in love with them. And we can get along without fog. And there
must be good wagon-roads, and a railroad not more than a thousand miles
away.”

Heavy winter rains held them prisoners for two weeks in the Marble
House. Saxon browsed among Hafler’s books, though most of them were
depressingly beyond her, while Billy hunted with Hafler’s guns. But he
was a poor shot and a worse hunter. His only success was with rabbits,
which he managed to kill on occasions when they stood still. With the
rifle he got nothing, although he fired at half a dozen different deer,
and, once, at a huge cat-creature with a long tail which he was certain
was a mountain lion. Despite the way he grumbled at himself, Saxon could
see the keen joy he was taking. This belated arousal of the hunting
instinct seemed to make almost another man of him. He was out early and
late, compassing prodigious climbs and tramps--once reaching as far as
the gold mines Tom had spoken of, and being away two days.

“Talk about pluggin’ away at a job in the city, an’ goin’ to movie’
pictures and Sunday picnics for amusement!” he would burst out. “I can’t
see what was eatin’ me that I ever put up with such truck. Here’s where
I oughta ben all the time, or some place like it.”

He was filled with this new mode of life, and was continually recalling
old hunting tales of his father and telling them to Saxon.

“Say, I don’t get stiffened any more after an all-day tramp,” he
exulted. “I’m broke in. An’ some day, if I meet up with that Hafler,
I’ll challenge’m to a tramp that’ll break his heart.”

“Foolish boy, always wanting to play everybody’s game and beat them at
it,” Saxon laughed delightedly.

“Aw, I guess you’re right,” he growled. “Hafler can always out-walk me.
He’s made that way. But some day, just the same, if I ever see ‘m again,
I’ll invite ‘m to put on the gloves.. .. though I won’t be mean enough
to make ‘m as sore as he made me.”

After they left Post’s on the way back to Carmel, the condition of the
road proved the wisdom of their rejection of the government land. They
passed a rancher’s wagon overturned, a second wagon with a broken
axle, and the stage a hundred yards down the mountainside, where it had
fallen, passengers, horses, road, and all.

“I guess they just about quit tryin’ to use this road in the winter,”
 Billy said. “It’s horse-killin’ an’ man-killin’, an’ I can just see ‘m
freightin’ that marble out over it I don’t think.”

Settling down at Carmel was an easy matter. The Iron Man had already
departed to his Catholic college, and the “shack” turned out to be a
three-roomed house comfortably furnished for housekeeping. Hall put
Billy to work on the potato patch--a matter of three acres which the
poet farmed erratically to the huge delight of his crowd. He planted at
all seasons, and it was accepted by the community that what did not rot
in the ground was evenly divided between the gophers and trespassing
cows. A plow was borrowed, a team of horses hired, and Billy took
hold. Also he built a fence around the patch, and after that was set
to staining the shingled roof of the bungalow. Hall climbed to the
ridge-pole to repeat his warning that Billy must keep away from his
wood-pile. One morning Hall came over and watched Billy chopping wood
for Saxon. The poet looked on covetously as long as he could restrain
himself.

“It’s plain you don’t know how to use an axe,” he sneered. “Here, let me
show you.”

He worked away for an hour, all the while delivering an exposition on
the art of chopping wood.

“Here,” Billy expostulated at last, taking hold of the axe. “I’ll have
to chop a cord of yours now in order to make this up to you.”

Hall surrendered the axe reluctantly.

“Don’t let me catch you around my wood-pile, that’s all,” he threatened.
“My wood-pile is my castle, and you’ve got to understand that.”

From a financial standpoint, Saxon and Billy were putting aside much
money. They paid no rent, their simple living was cheap, and Billy had
all the work he cared to accept. The various members of the crowd seemed
in a conspiracy to keep him busy. It was all odd jobs, but he preferred
it so, for it enabled him to suit his time to Jim Hazard’s. Each day
they boxed and took a long swim through the surf. When Hazard finished
his morning’s writing, he would whoop through the pines to Billy, who
dropped whatever work he was doing. After the swim, they would take a
fresh shower at Hazard’s house, rub each other down in training camp
style, and be ready for the noon meal. In the afternoon Hazard returned
to his desk, and Billy to his outdoor work, although, still later, they
often met for a few miles’ run over the hills. Training was a matter
of habit to both men. Hazard, when he had finished with seven years of
football, knowing the dire death that awaits the big-muscled athlete who
ceases training abruptly, had been compelled to keep it up. Not only was
it a necessity, but he had grown to like it. Billy also liked it, for he
took great delight in the silk of his body.

Often, in the early morning, gun in hand, he was off with Mark Hall, who
taught him to shoot and hunt. Hall had dragged a shotgun around from the
days when he wore knee pants, and his keen observing eyes and knowledge
of the habits of wild life were a revelation to Billy. This part of the
country was too settled for large game, but Billy kept Saxon supplied
with squirrels and quail, cottontails and jackrabbits, snipe and wild
ducks. And they learned to eat roasted mallard and canvasback in the
California style of sixteen minutes in a hot oven. As he became expert
with shotgun and rifle, he began to regret the deer and the mountain
lion he had missed down below the Sur; and to the requirements of the
farm he and Saxon sought he added plenty of game.

But it was not all play in Carmel. That portion of the community which
Saxon and Billy came to know, “the crowd,” was hard-working. Some worked
regularly, in the morning or late at night. Others worked spasmodically,
like the wild Irish playwright, who would shut himself up for a week at
a time, then emerge, pale and drawn, to play like a madman against the
time of his next retirement. The pale and youthful father of a family,
with the face of Shelley, who wrote vaudeville turns for a living and
blank verse tragedies and sonnet cycles for the despair of managers and
publishers, hid himself in a concrete cell with three-foot walls, so
piped, that, by turning a lever, the whole structure spouted water upon
the impending intruder. But in the main, they respected each other’s
work-time. They drifted into one another’s houses as the spirit
prompted, but if they found a man at work they went their way. This
obtained to all except Mark Hall, who did not have to work for a living;
and he climbed trees to get away from popularity and compose in peace.

The crowd was unique in its democracy and solidarity. It had little
intercourse with the sober and conventional part of Carmel. This section
constituted the aristocracy of art and letters, and was sneered at as
bourgeois. In return, it looked askance at the crowd with its rampant
bohemianism. The taboo extended to Billy and Saxon. Billy took up the
attitude of the clan and sought no work from the other camp. Nor was
work offered him.

Hall kept open house. The big living room, with its huge fireplace,
divans, shelves and tables of books and magazines, was the center of
things. Here, Billy and Saxon were expected to be, and in truth
found themselves to be, as much at home as anybody. Here, when wordy
discussions on all subjects under the sun were not being waged, Billy
played at cut-throat Pedro, horrible fives, bridge, and pinochle. Saxon,
a favorite of the young women, sewed with them, teaching them pretties
and being taught in fair measure in return.

It was Billy, before they had been in Carmel a week, who said shyly to
Saxon:

“Say, you can’t guess how I’m missin’ all your nice things. What’s
the matter with writin’ Tom to express ‘m down? When we start trampin’
again, we’ll express ‘m back.”

Saxon wrote the letter, and all that day her heart was singing. Her man
was still her lover. And there were in his eyes all the old lights which
had been blotted out during the nightmare period of the strike.

“Some pretty nifty skirts around here, but you’ve got ‘em all beat, or
I’m no judge,” he told her. And again: “Oh, I love you to death anyway.
But if them things ain’t shipped down there’ll be a funeral.”

Hall and his wife owned a pair of saddle horses which were kept at the
livery stable, and here Billy naturally gravitated. The stable operated
the stage and carried the mails between Carmel and Monterey. Also, it
rented out carriages and mountain wagons that seated nine persons.
With carriages and wagons a driver was furnished. The stable often found
itself short a driver, and Billy was quickly called upon. He became an
extra man at the stable. He received three dollars a day at such times,
and drove many parties around the Seventeen Mile Drive, up Carmel
Valley, and down the coast to the various points and beaches.

“But they’re a pretty uppish sort, most of ‘em,” he said to Saxon,
referring to the persons he drove. “Always MISTER Roberts this, an’
MISTER Roberts that--all kinds of ceremony so as to make me not forget
they consider themselves better ‘n me. You see, I ain’t exactly a
servant, an’ yet I ain’t good enough for them. I’m the driver--something
half way between a hired man and a chauffeur. Huh! When they eat they
give me my lunch off to one side, or afterward. No family party like
with Hall an’ HIS kind. An’ that crowd to-day, why, they just naturally
didn’t have no lunch for me at all. After this, always, you make me
up my own lunch. I won’t be be holdin’ to ‘em for nothin’, the damned
geezers. An’ you’d a-died to seen one of ‘em try to give me a tip. I
didn’t say nothin’. I just looked at ‘m like I didn’t see ‘m, an’ turned
away casual-like after a moment, leavin’ him as embarrassed as hell.”

Nevertheless, Billy enjoyed the driving, never more so than when he held
the reins, not of four plodding workhorses, but of four fast driving
animals, his foot on the powerful brake, and swung around curves and
along dizzy cliff-rims to a frightened chorus of women passengers. And
when it came to horse judgment and treatment of sick and injured horses
even the owner of the stable yielded place to Billy.

“I could get a regular job there any time,” he boasted quietly to Saxon.
“Why, the country’s just sproutin’ with jobs for any so-so sort of a
fellow. I bet anything, right now, if I said to the boss that I’d
take sixty dollars an’ work regular, he’d jump for me. He’s hinted as
much.--And, say! Are you onta the fact that yours truly has learnt a new
trade. Well he has. He could take a job stage-drivin’ anywheres. They
drive six on some of the stages up in Lake County. If we ever get there,
I’ll get thick with some driver, just to get the reins of six in my
hands. An’ I’ll have you on the box beside me. Some goin’ that! Some
goin’!”

Billy took little interest in the many discussions waged in Hall’s big
living room. “Wind-chewin’,” was his term for it. To him it was so much
good time wasted that might be employed at a game of Pedro, or going
swimming, or wrestling in the sand. Saxon, on the contrary, delighted
in the logomachy, though little enough she understood of it, following
mainly by feeling, and once in a while catching a high light.

But what she could never comprehend was the pessimism that so often
cropped up. The wild Irish playwright had terrible spells of depression.
Shelley, who wrote vaudeville turns in the concrete cell, was a chronic
pessimist. St. John, a young magazine writer, was an anarchic disciple
of Nietzsche. Masson, a painter, held to a doctrine of eternal
recurrence that was petrifying. And Hall, usually so merry, could
outfoot them all when he once got started on the cosmic pathos of
religion and the gibbering anthropomorphisms of those who loved not to
die. At such times Saxon was oppressed by these sad children of art. It
was inconceivable that they, of all people, should be so forlorn.

One night Hall turned suddenly upon Billy, who had been following dimly
and who only comprehended that to them everything in life was rotten and
wrong.

“Here, you pagan, you, you stolid and flesh-fettered ox, you monstrosity
of over-weening and perennial health and joy, what do you think of it?”
 Hall demanded.

“Oh, I’ve had my troubles,” Billy answered, speaking in his wonted slow
way. “I’ve had my hard times, an’ fought a losin’ strike, an’ soaked my
watch, an’ ben unable to pay my rent or buy grub, an’ slugged scabs, an’
ben slugged, and ben thrown into jail for makin’ a fool of myself. If
I get you, I’d be a whole lot better to be a swell hog fattenin’ for
market an’ nothin’ worryin’, than to be a guy sick to his stomach from
not savvyin’ how the world is made or from wonderin’ what’s the good of
anything.”

“That’s good, that prize hog,” the poet laughed. “Least irritation,
least effort--a compromise of Nirvana and life. Least irritation, least
effort, the ideal existence: a jellyfish floating in a tideless, tepid,
twilight sea.”

“But you’re missin’ all the good things,” Billy objected.

“Name them,” came the challenge.

Billy was silent a moment. To him life seemed a large and generous
thing. He felt as if his arms ached from inability to compass it all,
and he began, haltingly at first, to put his feeling into speech.

“If you’d ever stood up in the ring an’ out-gamed an’ out-fought a man
as good as yourself for twenty rounds, you’d get what I’m drivin’ at.
Jim Hazard an’ I get it when we swim out through the surf an’ laugh in
the teeth of the biggest breakers that ever pounded the beach, an’
when we come out from the shower, rubbed down and dressed, our skin an’
muscles like silk, our bodies an’ brains all a-tinglin’ like silk.. ..”

He paused and gave up from sheer inability to express ideas that were
nebulous at best and that in reality were remembered sensations.

“Silk of the body, can you beat it?” he concluded lamely, feeling that
he had failed to make his point, embarrassed by the circle of listeners.

“We know all that,” Hall retorted. “The lies of the flesh. Afterward
come rheumatism and diabetes. The wine of life is heady, but all too
quickly it turns to--”

“Uric acid,” interpolated the wild Irish playwright.

“They’s plenty more of the good things,” Billy took up with a sudden
rush of words. “Good things all the way up from juicy porterhouse and
the kind of coffee Mrs. Hall makes to....” He hesitated at what he was
about to say, then took it at a plunge. “To a woman you can love an’
that loves you. Just take a look at Saxon there with the ukulele in her
lap. There’s where I got the jellyfish in the dishwater an’ the prize
hog skinned to death.”

A shout of applause and great hand-clapping went up from the girls, and
Billy looked painfully uncomfortable.

“But suppose the silk goes out of your body till you creak like a rusty
wheelbarrow?” Hall pursued. “Suppose, just suppose, Saxon went away with
another man. What then?”

Billy considered a space.

“Then it’d be me for the dishwater an’ the jellyfish, I guess.” He
straightened up in his chair and threw back his shoulders unconsciously
as he ran a hand over his biceps and swelled it. Then he took another
look at Saxon. “But thank the Lord I still got a wallop in both my arms
an’ a wife to fill ‘em with love.”

Again the girls applauded, and Mrs. Hall cried:

“Look at Saxon! She blushing! What have you to say for yourself?”

“That no woman could be happier,” she stammered, “and no queen as proud.
And that--”

She completed the thought by strumming on the ukulele and singing:

“De Lawd move in er mischievous way His blunders to perform.”

“I give you best,” Hall grinned to Billy.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Billy disclaimed modestly. “You’ve read so much I
guess you know more about everything than I do.”

“Oh! Oh!” “Traitor!” “Taking it all back!” the girls cried variously.

Billy took heart of courage, reassured them with a slow smile, and said:

“Just the same I’d sooner be myself than have book indigestion. An’ as
for Saxon, why, one kiss of her lips is worth more’n all the libraries
in the world.”



CHAPTER X

“There must be hills and valleys, and rich land, and streams of clear water,
good wagon roads and a railroad not too far away, plenty of sunshine,
and cold enough at night to need blankets, and not only pines but plenty
of other kinds of trees, with open spaces to pasture Billy’s horses
and cattle, and deer and rabbits for him to shoot, and lots and lots
of redwood trees, and... and... well, and no fog,” Saxon concluded the
description of the farm she and Billy sought.

Mark Hall laughed delightedly.

“And nightingales roosting in all the trees,” he cried; “flowers that
neither fail nor fade, bees without stings, honey dew every morning,
showers of manna betweenwhiles, fountains of youth and quarries of
philosopher’s stones--why, I know the very place. Let me show you.”

She waited while he pored over road-maps of the state. Failing in them,
he got out a big atlas, and, though all the countries of the world were
in it, he could not find what he was after.

“Never mind,” he said. “Come over to-night and I’ll be able to show
you.”

That evening he led her out on the veranda to the telescope, and she
found herself looking through it at the full moon.

“Somewhere up there in some valley you’ll find that farm,” he teased.

Mrs. Hall looked inquiringly at them as they returned inside.

“I’ve been showing her a valley in the moon where she expects to go
farming,” he laughed.

“We started out prepared to go any distance,” Saxon said. “And if it’s
to the moon, I expect we can make it.”

“But my dear child, you can’t expect to find such a paradise on the
earth,” Hall continued. “For instance, you can’t have redwoods without
fog. They go together. The redwoods grow only in the fog belt.”

Saxon debated a while.

“Well, we could put up with a little fog,” she conceded, “--almost
anything to have redwoods. I don’t know what a quarry of philosopher’s
stones is like, but if it’s anything like Mr. Hafler’s marble quarry,
and there’s a railroad handy, I guess we could manage to worry along.
And you don’t have to go to the moon for honey dew. They scrape it off
of the leaves of the bushes up in Nevada County. I know that for a fact,
because my father told my mother about it, and she told me.”

A little later in the evening, the subject of farming having remained
uppermost, Hall swept off into a diatribe against the “gambler’s
paradise,” which was his epithet for the United States.

“When you think of the glorious chance,” he said. “A new country,
bounded by the oceans, situated just right in latitude, with the richest
land and vastest natural resources of any country in the world, settled
by immigrants who had thrown off all the leading strings of the Old
World and were in the humor for democracy. There was only one thing to
stop them from perfecting the democracy they started, and that thing was
greediness.

“They started gobbling everything in sight like a lot of swine, and
while they gobbled democracy went to smash. Gobbling became gambling. It
was a nation of tin horns. Whenever a man lost his stake, all he had
to do was to chase the frontier west a few miles and get another
stake. They moved over the face of the land like so many locusts. They
destroyed everything--the Indians, the soil, the forests, just as
they destroyed the buffalo and the passenger pigeon. Their morality in
business and politics was gambler morality. Their laws were gambling
laws--how to play the game. Everybody played. Therefore, hurrah for the
game. Nobody objected, because nobody was unable to play. As I said, the
losers chased the frontier for fresh stakes. The winner of to-day,
broke to-morrow, on the day following might be riding his luck to royal
flushes on five-card draws.

“So they gobbled and gambled from the Atlantic to the Pacific, until
they’d swined a whole continent. When they’d finished with the lands
and forests and mines, they turned back, gambling for any little
stakes they’d overlooked, gambling for franchises and monopolies, using
politics to protect their crooked deals and brace games. And democracy
gone clean to smash.

“And then was the funniest time of all. The losers couldn’t get any more
stakes, while the winners went on gambling among themselves. The losers
could only stand around with their hands in their pockets and look on.
When they got hungry, they went, hat in hand, and begged the successful
gamblers for a job. The losers went to work for the winners, and they’ve
been working for them ever since, and democracy side-tracked up Salt
Creek. You, Billy Roberts, have never had a hand in the game in your
life. That’s because your people were among the also-rans.”

“How about yourself?” Billy asked. “I ain’t seen you holdin’ any hands.”

“I don’t have to. I don’t count. I am a parasite.”

“What’s that?”

“A flea, a woodtick, anything that gets something for nothing. I batten
on the mangy hides of the workingmen. I don’t have to gamble. I don’t
have to work. My father left me enough of his winnings.--Oh, don’t preen
yourself, my boy. Your folks were just as bad as mine. But yours lost,
and mine won, and so you plow in my potato patch.”

“I don’t see it,” Billy contended stoutly. “A man with gumption can win
out to-day--”

“On government land?” Hall asked quickly.

Billy swallowed and acknowledged the stab.

“Just the same he can win out,” he reiterated.

“Surely--he can win a job from some other fellow? A young husky with a
good head like yours can win jobs anywhere. But think of the handicaps
on the fellows who lose. How many tramps have you met along the road who
could get a job driving four horses for the Carmel Livery Stable? And
some of them were as husky as you when they were young. And on top of
it all you’ve got no shout coming. It’s a mighty big come-down from
gambling for a continent to gambling for a job.”

“Just the same--” Billy recommenced.

“Oh, you’ve got it in your blood,” Hall cut him off cavalierly. “And why
not? Everybody in this country has been gambling for generations. It was
in the air when you were born. You’ve breathed it all your life. You,
who ‘ve never had a white chip in the game, still go on shouting for it
and capping for it.”

“But what are all of us losers to do?” Saxon inquired.

“Call in the police and stop the game,” Hall recommended. “It’s
crooked.”

Saxon frowned.

“Do what your forefathers didn’t do,” he amplified. “Go ahead and
perfect democracy.”

She remembered a remark of Mercedes. “A friend of mine says that
democracy is an enchantment.”

“It is--in a gambling joint. There are a million boys in our public
schools right now swallowing the gump of canal boy to President, and
millions of worthy citizens who sleep sound every night in the belief
that they have a say in running the country.”

“You talk like my brother Tom,” Saxon said, failing to comprehend. “If
we all get into politics and work hard for something better maybe we’ll
get it after a thousand years or so. But I want it now.” She clenched
her hands passionately. “I can’t wait; I want it now.”

“But that is just what I’ve been telling you, my dear girl. That’s
what’s the trouble with all the losers. They can’t wait. They want it
now--a stack of chips and a fling at the game. Well, they won’t get it
now. That’s what’s the matter with you, chasing a valley in the moon.
That’s what’s the matter with Billy, aching right now for a chance to
win ten cents from me at Pedro cussing wind-chewing under his breath.”

“Gee! you’d make a good soap-boxer,” commented Billy.

“And I’d be a soap-boxer if I didn’t have the spending of my father’s
ill-gotten gains. It’s none of my affair. Let them rot. They’d be just
as bad if they were on top. It’s all a mess--blind bats, hungry swine,
and filthy buzzards--”

Here Mrs. Hall interfered.

“Now, Mark, you stop that, or you’ll be getting the blues.”

He tossed his mop of hair and laughed with an effort.

“No I won’t,” he denied. “I’m going to get ten cents from Billy at a
game of Pedro. He won’t have a look in.”

Saxon and Billy flourished in the genial human atmosphere of Carmel.
They appreciated in their own estimation. Saxon felt that she was
something more than a laundry girl and the wife of a union teamster.
She was no longer pent in the narrow working class environment of a
Pine street neighborhood. Life had grown opulent. They fared better
physically, materially, and spiritually; and all this was reflected
in their features, in the carriage of their bodies. She knew Billy had
never been handsomer nor in more splendid bodily condition. He swore he
had a harem, and that she was his second wife--twice as beautiful as the
first one he had married. And she demurely confessed to him that Mrs.
Hall and several others of the matrons had enthusiastically admired her
form one day when in for a cold dip in Carmel river. They had got around
her, and called her Venus, and made her crouch and assume different
poses.

Billy understood the Venus reference; for a marble one, with broken
arms, stood in Hall’s living room, and the poet had told him the world
worshiped it as the perfection of female form.

“I always said you had Annette Kellerman beat a mile,” Billy said; and
so proud was his air of possession that Saxon blushed and trembled, and
hid her hot face against his breast.

The men in the crowd were open in their admiration of Saxon, in an
above-board manner. But she made no mistake. She did not lose her head.
There was no chance of that, for her love for Billy beat more strongly
than ever. Nor was she guilty of over-appraisal. She knew him for what
he was, and loved him with open eyes. He had no book learning, no art,
like the other men. His grammar was bad; she knew that, just as she knew
that he would never mend it. Yet she would not have exchanged him for
any of the others, not even for Mark Hall with the princely heart whom
she loved much in the same way that she loved his wife.

For that matter, she found in Billy a certain health and rightness, a
certain essential integrity, which she prized more highly than all
book learning and bank accounts. It was by virtue of this health, and
rightness, and integrity, that he had beaten Hall in argument the night
the poet was on the pessimistic rampage. Billy had beaten him, not with
the weapons of learning, but just by being himself and by speaking out
the truth that was in him. Best of all, he had not even known that he
had beaten, and had taken the applause as good-natured banter. But Saxon
knew, though she could scarcely tell why; and she would always remember
how the wife of Shelley had whispered to her afterward with shining
eyes: “Oh, Saxon, you must be so happy.”

Were Saxon driven to speech to attempt to express what Billy meant to
her, she would have done it with the simple word “man.” Always he was
that to her. Always in glowing splendor, that was his connotation--MAN.
Sometimes, by herself, she would all but weep with joy at recollection
of his way of informing some truculent male that he was standing on his
foot. “Get off your foot. You’re standin’ on it.” It was Billy! It was
magnificently Billy. And it was this Billy who loved her. She knew it.
She knew it by the pulse that only a woman knows how to gauge. He loved
her less wildly, it was true; but more fondly, more maturely. It was
the love that lasted--if only they did not go back to the city where the
beautiful things of the spirit perished and the beast bared its fangs.

In the early spring, Mark Hall and his wife went to New York, the two
Japanese servants of the bungalow were dismissed, and Saxon and Billy
were installed as caretakers. Jim Hazard, too, departed on his yearly
visit to Paris; and though Billy missed him, he continued his long swims
out through the breakers. Hall’s two saddle horses had been left in his
charge, and Saxon made herself a pretty cross-saddle riding costume
of tawny-brown corduroy that matched the glints in her hair. Billy no
longer worked at odd jobs. As extra driver at the stable he earned more
than they spent, and, in preference to cash, he taught Saxon to ride,
and was out and away with her over the country on all-day trips. A
favorite ride was around by the coast to Monterey, where he taught her
to swim in the big Del Monte tank. They would come home in the evening
across the hills. Also, she took to following him on his early morning
hunts, and life seemed one long vacation.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said to Saxon, one day, as they drew their
horses to a halt and gazed down into Carmel Valley. “I ain’t never going
to work steady for another man for wages as long as I live.”

“Work isn’t everything,” she acknowledged.

“I should guess not. Why, look here, Saxon, what’d it mean if I worked
teamin’ in Oakland for a million dollars a day for a million years and
just had to go on stayin’ there an’ livin’ the way we used to? It’d mean
work all day, three squares, an’ movin’ pictures for recreation. Movin’
pictures! Huh! We’re livin’ movin’ pictures these days. I’d sooner have
one year like what we’re havin’ here in Carmel and then die, than a
thousan’ million years like on Pine street.”

Saxon had warned the Halls by letter that she and Billy intended
starting on their search for the valley in the moon as soon as the first
of summer arrived. Fortunately, the poet was put to no inconvenience,
for Bideaux, the Iron Man with the basilisk eyes, had abandoned his
dreams of priesthood and decided to become an actor. He arrived at
Carmel from the Catholic college in time to take charge of the bungalow.

Much to Saxon’s gratification, the crowd was loth to see them depart.
The owner of the Carmel stable offered to put Billy in charge at ninety
dollars a month. Also, he received a similar offer from the stable in
Pacific Grove.

“Whither away,” the wild Irish playwright hailed them on the station
platform at Monterey. He was just returning from New York.

“To a valley in the moon,” Saxon answered gaily.

He regarded their business-like packs.

“By George!” he cried. “I’ll do it! By George! Let me come along.” Then
his face fell. “And I’ve signed the contract,” he groaned. “Three acts!
Say, you’re lucky. And this time of year, too.”



CHAPTER XI

“We hiked into Monterey last winter, but we’re ridin’ out now, b ‘gosh!”
 Billy said as the train pulled out and they leaned back in their seats.

They had decided against retracing their steps over the ground already
traveled, and took the train to San Francisco. They had been warned by
Mark Hall of the enervation of the south, and were bound north for their
blanket climate. Their intention was to cross the Bay to Sausalito and
wander up through the coast counties. Here, Hall had told them, they
would find the true home of the redwood. But Billy, in the smoking car
for a cigarette, seated himself beside a man who was destined to deflect
them from their course. He was a keen-faced, dark-eyed man, undoubtedly
a Jew; and Billy, remembering Saxon’s admonition always to ask
questions, watched his opportunity and started a conversation. It took
but a little while to learn that Gunston was a commission merchant, and
to realize that the content of his talk was too valuable for Saxon to
lose. Promptly, when he saw that the other’s cigar was finished, Billy
invited him into the next car to meet Saxon. Billy would have been
incapable of such an act prior to his sojourn in Carmel. That much at
least he had acquired of social facility.

“He’s just ben tellin’ me about the potato kings, and I wanted him to
tell you,” Billy explained to Saxon after the introduction. “Go on and
tell her, Mr. Gunston, about that fan tan sucker that made nineteen
thousan’ last year in celery an’ asparagus.”

“I was just telling your husband about the way the Chinese make things
go up the San Joaquin river. It would be worth your while to go up there
and look around. It’s the good season now--too early for mosquitoes.
You can get off the train at Black Diamond or Antioch and travel around
among the big farming islands on the steamers and launches. The fares
are cheap, and you’ll find some of those big gasoline boats, like the
Duchess and Princess, more like big steamboats.”

“Tell her about Chow Lam,” Billy urged.

The commission merchant leaned back and laughed.

“Chow Lam, several years ago, was a broken-down fan tan player. He
hadn’t a cent, and his health was going back on him. He had worn out
his back with twenty years’ work in the gold mines, washing over the
tailings of the early miners. And whatever he’d made he’d lost at
gambling. Also, he was in debt three hundred dollars to the Six
Companies--you know, they’re Chinese affairs. And, remember, this was
only seven years ago--health breaking down, three hundred in debt, and
no trade. Chow Lam blew into Stockton and got a job on the peat lands at
day’s wages. It was a Chinese company, down on Middle River, that farmed
celery and asparagus. This was when he got onto himself and took stock
of himself. A quarter of a century in the United States, back not so
strong as it used to was, and not a penny laid by for his return to
China. He saw how the Chinese in the company had done it--saved their
wages and bought a share.

“He saved his wages for two years, and bought one share in a
thirty-share company. That was only five years ago. They leased three
hundred acres of peat land from a white man who preferred traveling
in Europe. Out of the profits of that one share in the first year, he
bought two shares in another company. And in a year more, out of the
three shares, he organized a company of his own. One year of this, with
bad luck, and he just broke even. That brings it up to three years ago.
The following year, bumper crops, he netted four thousand. The next
year it was five thousand. And last year he cleaned up nineteen thousand
dollars. Pretty good, eh, for old broken-down Chow Lam?”

“My!” was all Saxon could say.

Her eager interest, however, incited the commission merchant to go on.

“Look at Sing Kee--the Potato King of Stockton. I know him well. I’ve
had more large deals with him and made less money than with any man
I know. He was only a coolie, and he smuggled himself into the United
States twenty years ago. Started at day’s wages, then peddled vegetables
in a couple of baskets slung on a stick, and after that opened up a
store in Chinatown in San Francisco. But he had a head on him, and he
was soon onto the curves of the Chinese farmers that dealt at his store.
The store couldn’t make money fast enough to suit him. He headed up the
San Joaquin. Didn’t do much for a couple of years except keep his eyes
peeled. Then he jumped in and leased twelve hundred acres at seven
dollars an acre.”

“My God!” Billy said in an awe-struck voice. “Eight thousan’, four
hundred dollars just for rent the first year. I know five hundred acres
I can buy for three dollars an acre.”

“Will it grow potatoes?” Gunston asked.

Billy shook his head. “Nor nothin’ else, I guess.”

All three laughed heartily and the commission merchant resumed:

“That seven dollars was only for the land. Possibly you know what it
costs to plow twelve hundred acres?”

Billy nodded solemnly.

“And he got a hundred and sixty sacks to the acre that year,” Gunston
continued. “Potatoes were selling at fifty cents. My father was at the
head of our concern at the time, so I know for a fact. And Sing Kee
could have sold at fifty cents and made money. But did he? Trust a
Chinaman to know the market. They can skin the commission merchants at
it. Sing Kee held on. When ‘most everybody else had sold, potatoes began
to climb. He laughed at our buyers when we offered him sixty cents,
seventy cents, a dollar. Do you want to know what he finally did sell
for? One dollar and sixty-five a sack. Suppose they actually cost him
forty cents. A hundred and sixty times twelve hundred... let me see...
twelve times nought is nought and twelve times sixteen is a hundred and
ninety-two... a hundred and ninety-two thousand sacks at a dollar and a
quarter net... four into a hundred and ninety-two is forty-eight, plus,
is two hundred and forty--there you are, two hundred and forty thousand
dollars clear profit on that year’s deal.”

“An’ him a Chink,” Billy mourned disconsolately. He turned to Saxon.
“They ought to be some new country for us white folks to go to.
Gosh!--we’re settin’ on the stoop all right, all right.”

“But, of course, that was unusual,” Gunston hastened to qualify. “There
was a failure of potatoes in other districts, and a corner, and in some
strange way Sing Kee was dead on. He never made profits like that again.
But he goes ahead steadily. Last year he had four thousand acres in
potatoes, a thousand in asparagus, five hundred in celery and five
hundred in beans. And he’s running six hundred acres in seeds. No matter
what happens to one or two crops, he can’t lose on all of them.”

“I’ve seen twelve thousand acres of apple trees,” Saxon said. “And I’d
like to see four thousand acres in potatoes.”

“And we will,” Billy rejoined with great positiveness. “It’s us for the
San Joaquin. We don’t know what’s in our country. No wonder we’re out on
the stoop.”

“You’ll find lots of kings up there,” Gunston related. “Yep Hong
Lee--they call him ‘Big Jim,’ and Ah Pock, and Ah Whang, and--then
there’s Shima, the Japanese potato king. He’s worth several millions.
Lives like a prince.”

“Why don’t Americans succeed like that?” asked Saxon.

“Because they won’t, I guess. There’s nothing to stop them except
themselves. I’ll tell you one thing, though--give me the Chinese to deal
with. He’s honest. His word is as good as his bond. If he says he’ll
do a thing, he’ll do it. And, anyway, the white man doesn’t know how
to farm. Even the up-to-date white farmer is content with one crop at a
time and rotation of crops. Mr. John Chinaman goes him one better, and
grows two crops at one time on the same soil. I’ve seen it--radishes and
carrots, two crops, sown at one time.”

“Which don’t stand to reason,” Billy objected. “They’d be only a half
crop of each.”

“Another guess coming,” Gunston jeered. “Carrots have to be thinned when
they’re so far along. So do radishes. But carrots grow slow. Radishes
grow fast. The slow-going carrots serve the purpose of thinning the
radishes. And when the radishes are pulled, ready for market, that thins
the carrots, which come along later. You can’t beat the Chink.”

“Don’t see why a white man can’t do what a Chink can,” protested Billy.

“That sounds all right,” Gunston replied. “The only objection is that
the white man doesn’t. The Chink is busy all the time, and he keeps
the ground just as busy. He has organization, system. Who ever heard of
white farmers keeping books? The Chink does. No guess work with him. He
knows just where he stands, to a cent, on any crop at any moment. And he
knows the market. He plays both ends. How he does it is beyond me, but
he knows the market better than we commission merchants.

“Then, again, he’s patient but not stubborn. Suppose he does make a
mistake, and gets in a crop, and then finds the market is wrong. In such
a situation the white man gets stubborn and hangs on like a bulldog. But
not the Chink. He’s going to minimize the losses of that mistake. That
land has got to work, and make money. Without a quiver or a regret, the
moment he’s learned his error, he puts his plows into that crop, turns
it under, and plants something else. He has the savve. He can look at a
sprout, just poked up out of the ground, and tell how it’s going to turn
out--whether it will head up or won’t head up; or if it’s going to head
up good, medium, or bad. That’s one end. Take the other end. He controls
his crop. He forces it or holds it back with an eye on the market. And
when the market is just right, there’s his crop, ready to deliver, timed
to the minute.”

The conversation with Gunston lasted hours, and the more he talked of
the Chinese and their farming ways the more Saxon became aware of a
growing dissatisfaction. She did not question the facts. The trouble was
that they were not alluring. Somehow, she could not find place for them
in her valley of the moon. It was not until the genial Jew left the
train that Billy gave definite statement to what was vaguely bothering
her.

“Huh! We ain’t Chinks. We’re white folks. Does a Chink ever want to ride
a horse, hell-bent for election an’ havin’ a good time of it? Did you
ever see a Chink go swimmin’ out through the breakers at Carmel?--or
boxin’, wrestlin’, runnin’ an’ jumpin’ for the sport of it? Did you ever
see a Chink take a shotgun on his arm, tramp six miles, an’ come back
happy with one measly rabbit? What does a Chink do? Work his damned head
off. That’s all he’s good for. To hell with work, if that’s the whole
of the game--an’ I’ve done my share of work, an’ I can work alongside of
any of ‘em. But what’s the good? If they’s one thing I’ve learned solid
since you an’ me hit the road, Saxon, it is that work’s the least part
of life. God!--if it was all of life I couldn’t cut my throat quick
enough to get away from it. I want shotguns an’ rifles, an’ a horse
between my legs. I don’t want to be so tired all the time I can’t love
my wife. Who wants to be rich an’ clear two hundred an’ forty thousand
on a potato deal! Look at Rockefeller. Has to live on milk. I want
porterhouse and a stomach that can bite sole-leather. An’ I want you,
an’ plenty of time along with you, an’ fun for both of us. What’s the
good of life if they ain’t no fun?”

“Oh, Billy!” Saxon cried. “It’s just what I’ve been trying to get
straightened out in my head. It’s been worrying me for ever so long. I
was afraid there was something wrong with me--that I wasn’t made for
the country after all. All the time I didn’t envy the San Leandro
Portuguese. I didn’t want to be one, nor a Pajaro Valley Dalmatian, nor
even a Mrs. Mortimer. And you didn’t either. What we want is a valley
of the moon, with not too much work, and all the fun we want. And we’ll
just keep on looking until we find it. And if we don’t find it, we’ll
go on having the fun just as we have ever since we left Oakland. And,
Billy... we’re never, never going to work our damned heads off, are we?”

“Not on your life,” Billy growled in fierce affirmation.

They walked into Black Diamond with their packs on their backs. It was a
scattered village of shabby little cottages, with a main street that
was a wallow of black mud from the last late spring rain. The sidewalks
bumped up and down in uneven steps and landings. Everything seemed
un-American. The names on the strange dingy shops were unspeakably
foreign. The one dingy hotel was run by a Greek. Greeks were
everywhere--swarthy men in sea-boots and tam-o’-shanters, hatless
women in bright colors, hordes of sturdy children, and all speaking in
outlandish voices, crying shrilly and vivaciously with the volubility of
the Mediterranean.

“Huh!--this ain’t the United States,” Billy muttered. Down on the water
front they found a fish cannery and an asparagus cannery in the height
of the busy season, where they looked in vain among the toilers for
familiar American faces. Billy picked out the bookkeepers and foremen
for Americans. All the rest were Greeks, Italians, and Chinese.

At the steamboat wharf, they watched the bright-painted Greek boats
arriving, discharging their loads of glorious salmon, and departing. New
York Cut-Off, as the slough was called, curved to the west and north and
flowed into a vast body of water which was the united Sacramento and San
Joaquin rivers.

Beyond the steamboat wharf, the fishing wharves dwindled to stages for
the drying of nets; and here, away from the noise and clatter of the
alien town, Saxon and Billy took off their packs and rested. The tall,
rustling tules grew out of the deep water close to the dilapidated
boat-landing where they sat. Opposite the town lay a long flat island,
on which a row of ragged poplars leaned against the sky.

“Just like in that Dutch windmill picture Mark Hall has,” Saxon said.

Billy pointed out the mouth of the slough and across the broad reach
of water to a cluster of tiny white buildings, behind which, like a
glimmering mirage, rolled the low Montezuma Hills.

“Those houses is Collinsville,” he informed her. “The Sacramento river
comes in there, and you go up it to Rio Vista an’ Isleton, and Walnut
Grove, and all those places Mr. Gunston was tellin’ us about. It’s
all islands and sloughs, connectin’ clear across an’ back to the San
Joaquin.”

“Isn’t the sun good,” Saxon yawned. “And how quiet it is here, so short
a distance away from those strange foreigners. And to think! in the
cities, right now, men are beating and killing each other for jobs.”

Now and again an overland passenger train rushed by in the distance,
echoing along the background of foothills of Mt. Diablo, which bulked,
twin-peaked, greencrinkled, against the sky. Then the slumbrous quiet
would fall, to be broken by the far call of a foreign tongue or by a
gasoline fishing boat chugging in through the mouth of the slough.

Not a hundred feet away, anchored close in the tules, lay a beautiful
white yacht. Despite its tininess, it looked broad and comfortable.
Smoke was rising for’ard from its stovepipe. On its stern, in gold
letters, they read Roamer. On top of the cabin, basking in the sunshine,
lay a man and woman, the latter with a pink scarf around her head. The
man was reading aloud from a book, while she sewed. Beside them sprawled
a fox terrier.

“Gosh! they don’t have to stick around cities to be happy,” Billy
commented.

A Japanese came on deck from the cabin, sat down for’ard, and began
picking a chicken. The feathers floated away in a long line toward the
mouth of the slough.

“Oh! Look!” Saxon pointed in her excitement. “He’s fishing! And the line
is fast to his toe!”

The man had dropped the book face-downward on the cabin and reached for
the line, while the woman looked up from her sewing, and the terrier
began to bark. In came the line, hand under hand, and at the end a
big catfish. When this was removed, and the line rebaited and dropped
overboard, the man took a turn around his toe and went on reading.

A Japanese came down on the landing-stage beside Saxon and Billy, and
hailed the yacht. He carried parcels of meat and vegetables; one coat
pocket bulged with letters, the other with morning papers. In response
to his hail, the Japanese on the yacht stood up with the part-plucked
chicken. The man said something to him, put aside the book, got into the
white skiff lying astern, and rowed to the landing. As he came alongside
the stage, he pulled in his oars, caught hold, and said good morning
genially.

“Why, I know you,” Saxon said impulsively, to Billy’s amazement. “You
are.. ..”

Here she broke off in confusion.

“Go on,” the man said, smiling reassurance.

“You are Jack Hastings, I ‘m sure of it. I used to see your photograph
in the papers all the time you were war correspondent in the
Japanese-Russian War. You’ve written lots of books, though I’ve never
read them.”

 “Right you are,” he ratified. “And what’s your name?”

Saxon introduced herself and Billy, and, when she noted the writer’s
observant eye on their packs, she sketched the pilgrimage they were
on. The farm in the valley of the moon evidently caught his fancy, and,
though the Japanese and his parcels were safely in the skiff, Hastings
still lingered. When Saxon spoke of Carmel, he seemed to know everybody
in Hall’s crowd, and when he heard they were intending to go to Rio
Vista, his invitation was immediate.

“Why, we’re going that way ourselves, inside an hour, as soon as slack
water comes,” he exclaimed. “It’s just the thing. Come on on board.
We’ll be there by four this afternoon if there’s any wind at all. Come
on. My wife’s on board, and Mrs. Hall is one of her best chums. We’ve
been away to South America--just got back; or you’d have seen us in
Carmel. Hal wrote to us about the pair of you.”

It was the second time in her life that Saxon had been in a small boat,
and the Roamer was the first yacht she had ever been on board. The
writer’s wife, whom he called Clara, welcomed them heartily, and Saxon
lost no time in falling in love with her and in being fallen in love
with in return. So strikingly did they resemble each other, that
Hastings was not many minutes in calling attention to it. He made them
stand side by side, studied their eyes and mouths and ears, compared
their hands, their hair, their ankles, and swore that his fondest
dream was shattered--namely, that when Clara had been made the mold was
broken.

On Clara’s suggestion that it might have been pretty much the same mold,
they compared histories. Both were of the pioneer stock. Clara’s mother,
like Saxon’s, had crossed the Plains with ox-teams, and, like Saxon’s,
had wintered in Salt Intake City--in fact, had, with her sisters, opened
the first Gentile school in that Mormon stronghold. And, if Saxon’s
father had helped raise the Bear Flag rebellion at Sonoma, it was at
Sonoma that Clara’s father had mustered in for the War of the Rebellion
and ridden as far east with his troop as Salt Lake City, of which
place he had been provost marshal when the Mormon trouble flared up.
To complete it all, Clara fetched from the cabin an ukulele of boa wood
that was the twin to Saxon’s, and together they sang “Honolulu Tomboy.”

Hastings decided to eat dinner--he called the midday meal by its
old-fashioned name--before sailing; and down below Saxon was surprised
and delighted by the measure of comfort in so tiny a cabin. There was
just room for Billy to stand upright. A centerboard-case divided the
room in half longitudinally, and to this was attached the hinged
table from which they ate. Low bunks that ran the full cabin length,
upholstered in cheerful green, served as seats. A curtain, easily
attached by hooks between the centerboard-case and the roof, at night
screened Mrs. Hastings’ sleeping quarters. On the opposite side the two
Japanese bunked, while for’ard, under the deck, was the galley. So
small was it that there was just room beside it for the cook, who was
compelled by the low deck to squat on his hands. The other Japanese, who
had brought the parcels on board, waited on the table.

“They are looking for a ranch in the valley of the moon,” Hastings
concluded his explanation of the pilgrimage to Clara.

“Oh!--don’t you know--” she cried; but was silenced by her husband.

“Hush,” he said peremptorily, then turned to their guests. “Listen.
There’s something in that valley of the moon idea, but I won’t tell you
what. It is a secret. Now we’ve a ranch in Sonoma Valley about eight
miles from the very town of Sonoma where you two girls’ fathers took up
soldiering; and if you ever come to our ranch you’ll learn the secret.
Oh, believe me, it’s connected with your valley of the moon.--Isn’t it,
Mate?”

This last was the mutual name he and Clara had for each other.

She smiled and laughed and nodded her head.

“You might find our valley the very one you are looking for,” she said.

But Hastings shook his head at her to check further speech. She turned
to the fox terrier and made it speak for a piece of meat.

“Her name’s Peggy,” she told Saxon. “We had two Irish terriers down in
the South Seas, brother and sister, but they died. We called them Peggy
and Possum. So she’s named after the original Peggy.”

Billy was impressed by the ease with which the Roamer was operated.
While they lingered at table, at a word from Hastings the two Japanese
had gone on deck. Billy could hear them throwing down the halyards,
casting off gaskets, and heaving the anchor short on the tiny winch. In
several minutes one called down that everything was ready, and all went
on deck. Hoisting mainsail and jigger was a matter of minutes. Then
the cook and cabin-boy broke out anchor, and, while one hove it up, the
other hoisted the jib. Hastings, at the wheel, trimmed the sheet. The
Roamer paid off, filled her sails, slightly heeling, and slid across the
smooth water and out the mouth of New York Slough. The Japanese coiled
the halyards and went below for their own dinner.

“The flood is just beginning to make,” said Hastings, pointing to a
striped spar-buoy that was slightly tipping up-stream on the edge of the
channel.

The tiny white houses of Collinsville, which they were nearing,
disappeared behind a low island, though the Montezuma Hills, with their
long, low, restful lines, slumbered on the horizon apparently as far
away as ever.

As the Roamer passed the mouth of Montezuma Slough and entered the
Sacramento, they came upon Collinsville close at hand. Saxon clapped her
hands.

“It’s like a lot of toy houses,” she said, “cut out of cardboard. And
those hilly fields are just painted up behind.”

They passed many arks and houseboats of fishermen moored among the
tules, and the women and children, like the men in the boats, were
dark-skinned, black-eyed, foreign. As they proceeded up the river, they
began to encounter dredges at work, biting out mouthfuls of the sandy
river bottom and heaping it on top of the huge levees. Great mats of
willow brush, hundreds of yards in length, were laid on top of the
river-slope of the levees and held in place by steel cables and
thousands of cubes of cement. The willows soon sprouted, Hastings told
them, and by the time the mats were rotted away the sand was held in
place by the roots of the trees.

“It must cost like Sam Hill,” Billy observed.

“But the land is worth it,” Hastings explained. “This island land is
the most productive in the world. This section of California is like
Holland. You wouldn’t think it, but this water we’re sailing on
is higher than the surface of the islands. They’re like leaky
boats--calking, patching, pumping, night and day and all the time. But
it pays. It pays.”

Except for the dredgers, the fresh-piled sand, the dense willow
thickets, and always Mt. Diablo to the south, nothing was to be seen.
Occasionally a river steamboat passed, and blue herons flew into the
trees.

“It must be very lonely,” Saxon remarked.

Hastings laughed and told her she would change her mind later. Much
he related to them of the river lands, and after a while he got on the
subject of tenant farming. Saxon had started him by speaking of the
land-hungry Anglo-Saxons.

“Land-hogs,” he snapped. “That’s our record in this country. As one old
Reuben told a professor of an agricultural experiment station: ‘They
ain’t no sense in tryin’ to teach me farmin’. I know all about it. Ain’t
I worked out three farms?’ It was his kind that destroyed New England.
Back there great sections are relapsing to wilderness. In one state,
at least, the deer have increased until they are a nuisance. There are
abandoned farms by the tens of thousands. I’ve gone over the lists of
them--farms in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut.
Offered for sale on easy payment. The prices asked wouldn’t pay for the
improvements, while the land, of course, is thrown in for nothing.

“And the same thing is going on, in one way or another, the same
land-robbing and hogging, over the rest of the country--down in Texas,
in Missouri, and Kansas, out here in California. Take tenant farming.
I know a ranch in my county where the land was worth a hundred and
twenty-five an acre. And it gave its return at that valuation. When the
old man died, the son leased it to a Portuguese and went to live in the
city. In five years the Portuguese skimmed the cream and dried up the
udder. The second lease, with another Portuguese for three years, gave
one-quarter the former return. No third Portuguese appeared to offer
to lease it. There wasn’t anything left. That ranch was worth fifty
thousand when the old man died. In the end the son got eleven thousand
for it. Why, I’ve seen land that paid twelve per cent., that, after the
skimming of a five-years’ lease, paid only one and a quarter per cent.”

“It’s the same in our valley,” Mrs. Hastings supplemented. “All the old
farms are dropping into ruin. Take the Ebell Place, Mate.” Her husband
nodded emphatic indorsement. “When we used to know it, it was a perfect
paradise of a farm. There were dams and lakes, beautiful meadows, lush
hayfields, red hills of grape-lands, hundreds of acres of good pasture,
heavenly groves of pines and oaks, a stone winery, stone barns,
grounds--oh, I couldn’t describe it in hours. When Mrs. Bell died, the
family scattered, and the leasing began. It’s a ruin to-day. The trees
have been cut and sold for firewood. There’s only a little bit of the
vineyard that isn’t abandoned--just enough to make wine for the present
Italian lessees, who are running a poverty-stricken milk ranch on the
leavings of the soil. I rode over it last year, and cried. The beautiful
orchard is a horror. The grounds have gone back to the wild. Just
because they didn’t keep the gutters cleaned out, the rain trickled down
and dry-rotted the timbers, and the big stone barn is caved in. The same
with part of the winery--the other part is used for stabling the cows.
And the house!--words can’t describe!”

“It’s become a profession,” Hastings went on. “The ‘movers.’ They lease,
clean out and gut a place in several years, and then move on. They’re
not like the foreigners, the Chinese, and Japanese, and the rest. In the
main they’re a lazy, vagabond, poor-white sort, who do nothing else but
skin the soil and move, skin the soil and move. Now take the Portuguese
and Italians in our country. They are different. They arrive in the
country without a penny and work for others of their countrymen until
they’ve learned the language and their way about. Now they’re not
movers. What they are after is land of their own, which they will love
and care for and conserve. But, in the meantime, how to get it? Saving
wages is slow. There is a quicker way. They lease. In three years they
can gut enough out of somebody else’s land to set themselves up for
life. It is sacrilege, a veritable rape of the land; but what of it?
It’s the way of the United States.”

He turned suddenly on Billy.

“Look here, Roberts. You and your wife are looking for your bit of land.
You want it bad. Now take my advice. It’s cold, hard advice. Become a
tenant farmer. Lease some place, where the old folks have died and the
country isn’t good enough for the sons and daughters. Then gut it. Wring
the last dollar out of the soil, repair nothing, and in three years
you’ll have your own place paid for. Then turn over a new leaf, and love
your soil. Nourish it. Every dollar you feed it will return you two.
And have nothing scrub about the place. If it’s a horse, a cow, a pig,
a chicken, or a blackberry vine, see that it’s thoroughbred.”

“But it’s wicked!” Saxon wrung out. “It’s wicked advice.”

“We live in a wicked age,” Hastings countered, smiling grimly. “This
wholesale land-skinning is the national crime of the United States
to-day. Nor would I give your husband such advice if I weren’t
absolutely certain that the land he skins would be skinned by some
Portuguese or Italian if he refused. As fast as they arrive and settle
down, they send for their sisters and their cousins and their aunts. If
you were thirsty, if a warehouse were burning and beautiful Rhine wine
were running to waste, would you stay your hand from scooping a drink?
Well, the national warehouse is afire in many places, and no end of
the good things are running to waste. Help yourself. If you don’t, the
immigrants will.”

“Oh, you don’t know him,” Mrs. Hastings hurried to explain. “He spends
all his time on the ranch in conserving the soil. There are over a
thousand acres of woods alone, and, though he thins and forests like
a surgeon, he won’t let a tree be chopped without his permission. He’s
even planted a hundred thousand trees. He’s always draining and ditching
to stop erosion, and experimenting with pasture grasses. And every
little while he buys some exhausted adjoining ranch and starts building
up the soil.”

“Wherefore I know what I ‘m talking about,” Hastings broke in. “And my
advice holds. I love the soil, yet to-morrow, things being as they
are and if I were poor, I’d gut five hundred acres in order to buy
twenty-five for myself. When you get into Sonoma Valley, look me up,
and I’ll put you onto the whole game, and both ends of it. I’ll show you
construction as well as destruction. When you find a farm doomed to be
gutted anyway, why jump in and do it yourself.”

“Yes, and he mortgaged himself to the eyes,” laughed Mrs. Hastings,
“to keep five hundred acres of woods out of the hands of the charcoal
burners.”

Ahead, on the left bank of the Sacramento, just at the fading end of
the Montezuma Hills, Rio Vista appeared. The Roamer slipped through the
smooth water, past steamboat wharves, landing stages, and warehouses.
The two Japanese went for’ard on deck. At command of Hastings, the jib
ran down, and he shot the Roomer into the wind, losing way, until he
called, “Let go the hook!” The anchor went down, and the yacht swung to
it, so close to shore that the skiff lay under overhanging willows.

“Farther up the river we tie to the bank,” Mrs. Hastings said, “so that
when you wake in the morning you find the branches of trees sticking
down into the cabin.”

“Ooh!” Saxon murmured, pointing to a lump on her wrist. “Look at that. A
mosquito.”

“Pretty early for them,” Hastings said. “But later on they’re terrible.
I’ve seen them so thick I couldn’t back the jib against them.”

Saxon was not nautical enough to appreciate his hyperbole, though Billy
grinned.

“There are no mosquitoes in the valley of the moon,” she said.

“No, never,” said Mrs. Hastings, whose husband began immediately to
regret the smallness of the cabin which prevented him from offering
sleeping accommodations.

An automobile bumped along on top of the levee, and the young boys and
girls in it cried, “Oh, you kid!” to Saxon and Billy, and Hastings, who
was rowing them ashore in the skiff. Hastings called, “Oh, you kid!”
 back to them; and Saxon, pleasuring in the boyishness of his sunburned
face, was reminded of the boyishness of Mark Hall and his Carmel crowd.



CHAPTER XII

Crossing the Sacramento on an old-fashioned ferry a short distance above
Rio Vista, Saxon and Billy entered the river country. From the top
of the levee she got her revelation. Beneath, lower than the river,
stretched broad, flat land, far as the eye could see. Roads ran in
every direction, and she saw countless farmhouses of which she had never
dreamed when sailing on the lonely river a few feet the other side of
the willowy fringe.

Three weeks they spent among the rich farm islands, which heaped up
levees and pumped day and night to keep afloat. It was a monotonous
land, with an unvarying richness of soil and with only one landmark--Mt.
Diablo, ever to be seen, sleeping in the midday azure, limping its
crinkled mass against the sunset sky, or forming like a dream out of the
silver dawn. Sometimes on foot, often by launch, they criss-crossed and
threaded the river region as far as the peat lands of the Middle River,
down the San Joaquin to Antioch, and up Georgiana Slough to Walnut Grove
on the Sacramento. And it proved a foreign land. The workers of the soil
teemed by thousands, yet Saxon and Billy knew what it was to go a
whole day without finding any one who spoke English. They
encountered--sometimes in whole villages--Chinese, Japanese, Italians,
Portuguese, Swiss, Hindus, Koreans, Norwegians, Danes, French,
Armenians, Slavs, almost every nationality save American. One American
they found on the lower reaches of Georgiana who eked an illicit
existence by fishing with traps. Another American, who spouted blood and
destruction on all political subjects, was an itinerant bee-farmer. At
Walnut Grove, bustling with life, the few Americans consisted of
the storekeeper, the saloonkeeper, the butcher, the keeper of the
drawbridge, and the ferryman. Yet two thriving towns were in Walnut
Grove, one Chinese, one Japanese. Most of the land was owned by
Americans, who lived away from it and were continually selling it to the
foreigners.

A riot, or a merry-making--they could not tell which--was taking place
in the Japanese town, as Saxon and Billy steamed out on the Apache,
bound for Sacramento.

“We’re settin’ on the stoop,” Billy railed. “Pretty soon they’ll crowd
us off of that.”

“There won’t be any stoop in the valley of the moon,” Saxon cheered him.

But he was inconsolable, remarking bitterly:

“An’ they ain’t one of them damn foreigners that can handle four horses
like me.

“But they can everlastingly farm,” he added.

And Saxon, looking at his moody face, was suddenly reminded of a
lithograph she had seen in her childhood. It was of a Plains Indian, in
paint and feathers, astride his horse and gazing with wondering eye at a
railroad train rushing along a fresh-made track. The Indian had passed,
she remembered, before the tide of new life that brought the railroad.
And were Billy and his kind doomed to pass, she pondered, before this
new tide of life, amazingly industrious, that was flooding in from Asia
and Europe?

At Sacramento they stopped two weeks, where Billy drove team and earned
the money to put them along on their travels. Also, life in Oakland and
Carmel, close to the salt edge of the coast, had spoiled them for the
interior. Too warm, was their verdict of Sacramento and they followed
the railroad west, through a region of swamp-land, to Davisville. Here
they were lured aside and to the north to pretty Woodland, where Billy
drove team for a fruit farm, and where Saxon wrung from him a reluctant
consent for her to work a few days in the fruit harvest. She made an
important and mystifying secret of what she intended doing with her
earnings, and Billy teased her about it until the matter passed from his
mind. Nor did she tell him of a money order inclosed with a certain blue
slip of paper in a letter to Bud Strothers.

They began to suffer from the heat. Billy declared they had strayed out
of the blanket climate.

“There are no redwoods here,” Saxon said. “We must go west toward the
coast. It is there we’ll find the valley of the moon.”

From Woodland they swung west and south along the county roads to the
fruit paradise of Vacaville. Here Billy picked fruit, then drove team;
and here Saxon received a letter and a tiny express package from Bud
Strothers. When Billy came into camp from the day’s work, she bade him
stand still and shut his eyes. For a few seconds she fumbled and did
something to the breast of his cotton work-shirt. Once, he felt a slight
prick, as of a pin point, and grunted, while she laughed and bullied him
to continue keeping his eyes shut.

“Close your eyes and give me a kiss,” she sang, “and then I’ll show you
what iss.”

She kissed him and when he looked down he saw, pinned to his shirt, the
gold medals he had pawned the day they had gone to the moving picture
show and received their inspiration to return to the land.

“You darned kid!” he exclaimed, as he caught her to him. “So that’s
what you blew your fruit money in on? An’ I never guessed!--Come here to
you.”

And thereupon she suffered the pleasant mastery of his brawn, and was
hugged and wrestled with until the coffee pot boiled over and she darted
from him to the rescue.

“I kinda always been a mite proud of ‘em,” he confessed, as he rolled
his after-supper cigarette. “They take me back to my kid days when I
amateured it to beat the band. I was some kid in them days, believe
muh.--But say, d’ye know, they’d clean slipped my recollection.
Oakland’s a thousan’ years away from you an’ me, an’ ten thousan’
miles.”

“Then this will bring you back to it,” Saxon said, opening Bud’s letter
and reading it aloud.

Bud had taken it for granted that Billy knew the wind-up of the strike;
so he devoted himself to the details as to which men had got back their
jobs, and which had been blacklisted. To his own amazement he had been
taken back, and was now driving Billy’s horses. Still more amazing was
the further information he had to impart. The old foreman of the West
Oakland stables had died, and since then two other foremen had done
nothing but make messes of everything. The point of all which was that
the Boss had spoken that day to Bud, regretting the disappearance of
Billy.

“Don’t make no mistake,” Bud wrote. “The Boss is onto all your curves.
I bet he knows every scab you slugged. Just the same he says to
me--Strothers, if you ain’t at liberty to give me his address, just
write yourself and tell him for me to come a running. I’ll give him a
hundred and twenty-five a month to take hold the stables.”

Saxon waited with well-concealed anxiety when the letter was finished.
Billy, stretched out, leaning on one elbow, blew a meditative ring of
smoke. His cheap workshirt, incongruously brilliant with the gold of
the medals that flashed in the firelight, was open in front, showing
the smooth skin and splendid swell of chest. He glanced around--at the
blankets bowered in a green screen and waiting, at the campfire and the
blackened, battered coffee pot, at the well-worn hatchet, half buried in
a tree trunk, and lastly at Saxon. His eyes embraced her; then into them
came a slow expression of inquiry. But she offered no help.

“Well,” he uttered finally, “all you gotta do is write Bud Strothers,
an’ tell ‘m not on the Boss’s ugly tintype.--An’ while you’re about it,
I’ll send ‘m the money to get my watch out. You work out the interest.
The overcoat can stay there an’ rot.”

But they did not prosper in the interior heat. They lost weight. The
resilience went out of their minds and bodies. As Billy expressed it,
their silk was frazzled. So they shouldered their packs and headed west
across the wild mountains. In the Berryessa Valley, the shimmering heat
waves made their eyes ache, and their heads; so that they traveled on in
the early morning and late afternoon. Still west they headed, over more
mountains, to beautiful Napa Valley. The next valley beyond was Sonoma,
where Hastings had invited them to his ranch. And here they would have
gone, had not Billy chanced upon a newspaper item which told of the
writer’s departure to cover some revolution that was breaking out
somewhere in Mexico.

“We’ll see ‘m later on,” Billy said, as they turned northwest, through
the vineyards and orchards of Napa Valley. “We’re like that millionaire
Bert used to sing about, except it’s time that we’ve got to burn. Any
direction is as good as any other, only west is best.”

Three times in the Napa Valley Billy refused work. Past St. Helena,
Saxon hailed with joy the unmistakable redwoods they could see growing
up the small canyons that penetrated the western wall of the valley.
At Calistoga, at the end of the railroad, they saw the six-horse stages
leaving for Middletown and Lower Lake. They debated their route. That
way led to Lake County and not toward the coast, so Saxon and Billy
swung west through the mountains to the valley of the Russian River,
coming out at Healdsburg. They lingered in the hop-fields on the
rich bottoms, where Billy scorned to pick hops alongside of Indians,
Japanese, and Chinese.

“I couldn’t work alongside of ‘em an hour before I’d be knockin’ their
blocks off,” he explained. “Besides, this Russian River’s some nifty.
Let’s pitch camp and go swimmin’.”

So they idled their way north up the broad, fertile valley, so happy
that they forgot that work was ever necessary, while the valley of the
moon was a golden dream, remote, but sure, some day of realization.
At Cloverdale, Billy fell into luck. A combination of sickness and
mischance found the stage stables short a driver. Each day the train
disgorged passengers for the Geysers, and Billy, as if accustomed to it
all his life, took the reins of six horses and drove a full load over
the mountains in stage time. The second trip he had Saxon beside him on
the high boxseat. By the end of two weeks the regular driver was back.
Billy declined a stable-job, took his wages, and continued north.

Saxon had adopted a fox terrier puppy and named him Possum, after the
dog Mrs. Hastings had told them about. So young was he that he quickly
became footsore, and she carried him until Billy perched him on top
of his pack and grumbled that Possum was chewing his back hair to a
frazzle.

They passed through the painted vineyards of Asti at the end of the
grape-picking, and entered Ukiah drenched to the skin by the first
winter rain.

“Say,” Billy said, “you remember the way the Roamer just skated along.
Well, this summer’s done the same thing--gone by on wheels. An’ now it’s
up to us to find some place to winter. This Ukiah looks like a pretty
good burg. We’ll get a room to-night an’ dry out. An’ to-morrow I’ll
hustle around to the stables, an’ if I locate anything we can rent a
shack an’ have all winter to think about where we’ll go next year.”



CHAPTER XIII

The winter proved much less exciting than the one spent in Carmel, and
keenly as Saxon had appreciated the Carmel folk, she now appreciated
them more keenly than ever. In Ukiah she formed nothing more than
superficial acquaintances. Here people were more like those of the
working class she had known in Oakland, or else they were merely
wealthy and herded together in automobiles. There was no democratic
artist-colony that pursued fellowship disregardful of the caste of
wealth.

Yet it was a more enjoyable winter than any she had spent in Oakland.
Billy had failed to get regular employment; so she saw much of him, and
they lived a prosperous and happy hand-to-mouth existence in the tiny
cottage they rented. As extra man at the biggest livery stable, Billy’s
spare time was so great that he drifted into horse-trading. It was
hazardous, and more than once he was broke, but the table never wanted
for the best of steak and coffee, nor did they stint themselves for
clothes.

“Them blamed farmers--I gotta pass it to ‘em,” Billy grinned one day,
when he had been particularly bested in a horse deal. “They won’t tear
under the wings, the sons of guns. In the summer they take in boarders,
an’ in the winter they make a good livin’ doin’ each other up at tradin’
horses. An’ I just want to tell YOU, Saxon, they’ve sure shown me a few.
An’ I ‘m gettin’ tough under the wings myself. I’ll never tear again
so as you can notice it. Which means one more trade learned for yours
truly. I can make a livin’ anywhere now tradin’ horses.”

Often Billy had Saxon out on spare saddle horses from the stable, and
his horse deals took them on many trips into the surrounding country.
Likewise she was with him when he was driving horses to sell on
commission; and in both their minds, independently, arose a new idea
concerning their pilgrimage. Billy was the first to broach it.

“I run into an outfit the other day, that’s stored in town,” he said,
“an’ it’s kept me thinkin’ ever since. Ain’t no use tryin’ to get you to
guess it, because you can’t. I’ll tell you--the swellest wagon-campin’
outfit anybody ever heard of. First of all, the wagon’s a peacherino.
Strong as they make ‘em. It was made to order, upon Puget Sound, an’ it
was tested out all the way down here. No load an’ no road can strain it.
The guy had consumption that had it built. A doctor an’ a cook traveled
with ‘m till he passed in his checks here in Ukiah two years ago. But
say--if you could see it. Every kind of a contrivance--a place for
everything--a regular home on wheels. Now, if we could get that, an’ a
couple of plugs, we could travel like kings, an’ laugh at the weather.”

“Oh! Billy! it’s just what I’ve been dreamin’ all winter. It would
be ideal. And... well, sometimes on the road I ‘m sure you can’t help
forgetting what a nice little wife you’ve got... and with a wagon I
could have all kinds of pretty clothes along.”

Billy’s blue eyes glowed a caress, cloudy and warm; as he said quietly:

“I’ve ben thinkin’ about that.”

“And you can carry a rifle and shotgun and fishing poles and
everything,” she rushed along. “And a good big axe, man-size, instead of
that hatchet you’re always complaining about. And Possum can lift up
his legs and rest. And--but suppose you can’t buy it? How much do they
want?”

“One hundred an’ fifty big bucks,” he answered. “But dirt cheap at that.
It’s givin’ it away. I tell you that rig wasn’t built for a cent less
than four hundred, an’ I know wagon-work in the dark. Now, if I can put
through that dicker with Caswell’s six horses--say, I just got onto that
horse-buyer to-day. If he buys ‘em, who d’ye think he’ll ship ‘em to?
To the Boss, right to the West Oakland stables. I ‘m goin’ to get you to
write to him. Travelin’, as we’re goin’ to, I can pick up bargains. An’
if the Boss’ll talk, I can make the regular horse-buyer’s commissions.
He’ll have to trust me with a lot of money, though, which most likely he
won’t, knowin’ all his scabs I beat up.”

“If he could trust you to run his stable, I guess he isn’t afraid to let
you handle his money,” Saxon said.

Billy shrugged his shoulders in modest dubiousness.

“Well, anyway, as I was sayin’ if I can sell Caswell’s six horses, why,
we can stand off this month’s bills an’ buy the wagon.”

“But horses!” Saxon queried anxiously.

“They’ll come later--if I have to take a regular job for two or three
months. The only trouble with that ‘d be that it’d run us pretty well
along into summer before we could pull out. But come on down town an’
I’ll show you the outfit right now.”

Saxon saw the wagon and was so infatuated with it that she lost a
night’s sleep from sheer insomnia of anticipation. Then Caswell’s six
horses were sold, the month’s bills held over, and the wagon became
theirs. One rainy morning, two weeks later, Billy had scarcely left the
house, to be gone on an all-day trip into the country after horses, when
he was back again.

“Come on!” he called to Saxon from the street. “Get your things on an’
come along. I want to show you something.”

He drove down town to a board stable, and took her through to a large,
roofed inclosure in the rear. There he led to her a span of sturdy
dappled chestnuts, with cream-colored manes and tails.

“Oh, the beauties! the beauties!” Saxon cried, resting her cheek against
the velvet muzzle of one, while the other roguishly nuzzled for a share.

“Ain’t they, though?” Billy reveled, leading them up and down before her
admiring gaze. “Thirteen hundred an’ fifty each, an’ they don’t look the
weight, they’re that slick put together. I couldn’t believe it myself,
till I put ‘em on the scales. Twenty-seven hundred an’ seven pounds,
the two of ‘em. An’ I tried ‘em out--that was two days ago. Good
dispositions, no faults, an’ true-pullers, automobile broke an’ all
the rest. I’d back ‘em to out-pull any team of their weight I ever
seen.--Say, how’d they look hooked up to that wagon of ourn?”

Saxon visioned the picture, and shook her head slowly in a reaction of
regret.

“Three hundred spot cash buys ‘em,” Billy went on. “An’ that’s bed-rock.
The owner wants the money so bad he’s droolin’ for it. Just gotta sell,
an’ sell quick. An’ Saxon, honest to God, that pair’d fetch five hundred
at auction down in the city. Both mares, full sisters, five an’ six
years old, registered Belgian sire, out of a heavy standard-bred mare
that I know. Three hundred takes ‘em, an’ I got the refusal for three
days.”

Saxon’s regret changed to indignation.

“Oh, why did you show them to me? We haven’t any three hundred, and you
know it. All I’ve got in the house is six dollars, and you haven’t that
much.”

“Maybe you think that’s all I brought you down town for,” he replied
enigmatically. “Well, it ain’t.”

He paused, licked his lips, and shifted his weight uneasily from one leg
to the other.

“Now you listen till I get all done before you say anything. Ready?”

She nodded.

“Won’t open your mouth?”

This time she obediently shook her head.

“Well, it’s this way,” he began haltingly. “They’s a youngster come up
from Frisco, Young Sandow they call ‘m, an’ the Pride of Telegraph Hill.
He’s the real goods of a heavyweight, an’ he was to fight Montana
Red Saturday night, only Montana Red, just in a little trainin’ bout,
snapped his forearm yesterday. The managers has kept it quiet. Now
here’s the proposition. Lots of tickets sold, an’ they’ll be a big crowd
Saturday night. At the last moment, so as not to disappoint ‘em, they’ll
spring me to take Montana’s place. I ‘m the dark horse. Nobody knows
me--not even Young Sandow. He’s come up since my time. I’ll be a rube
fighter. I can fight as Horse Roberts.

“Now, wait a minute. The winner’ll pull down three hundred big round
iron dollars. Wait, I ‘m tellin’ you! It’s a lead-pipe cinch. It’s
like robbin’ a corpse. Sandow’s got all the heart in the world--regular
knock-down-an’-drag-out-an’-hang-on fighter. I’ve followed ‘m in the
papers. But he ain’t clever. I ‘m slow, all right, all right, but I ‘m
clever, an’ I got a hay-maker in each arm. I got Sandow’s number an’ I
know it.

“Now, you got the say-so in this. If you say yes, the nags is ourn. If
you say no, then it’s all bets off, an’ everything all right, an’ I’ll
take to harness-washin’ at the stable so as to buy a couple of plugs.
Remember, they’ll only be plugs, though. But don’t look at me while
you’re makin’ up your mind. Keep your lamps on the horses.”

It was with painful indecision that she looked at the beautiful animals.

“Their names is Hazel an’ Hattie,” Billy put in a sly wedge. “If we get
‘em we could call it the ‘Double H’ outfit.”

But Saxon forgot the team and could only see Billy’s frightfully bruised
body the night he fought the Chicago Terror. She was about to speak,
when Billy, who had been hanging on her lips, broke in:

“Just hitch ‘em up to our wagon in your mind an’ look at the outfit. You
got to go some to beat it.”

“But you’re not in training, Billy,” she said suddenly and without
having intended to say it.

“Huh!” he snorted. “I’ve been in half trainin’ for the last year. My
legs is like iron. They’ll hold me up as long as I’ve got a punch left
in my arms, and I always have that. Besides, I won’t let ‘m make a long
fight. He’s a man-eater, an’ man-eaters is my meat. I eat ‘m alive. It’s
the clever boys with the stamina an’ endurance that I can’t put away.
But this young Sandow’s my meat. I’ll get ‘m maybe in the third or
fourth round--you know, time ‘m in a rush an’ hand it to ‘m just as
easy. It’s a lead-pipe cinch, I tell you. Honest to God, Saxon, it’s a
shame to take the money.”

“But I hate to think of you all battered up,” she temporized. “If I
didn’t love you so, it might be different. And then, too, you might get
hurt.”

Billy laughed in contemptuous pride of youth and brawn.

“You won’t know I’ve been in a fight, except that we’ll own Hazel
an’ Hattie there. An’ besides, Saxon, I just gotta stick my fist in
somebody’s face once in a while. You know I can go for months peaceable
an’ gentle as a lamb, an’ then my knuckles actually begin to itch to
land on something. Now, it’s a whole lot sensibler to land on Young
Sandow an’ get three hundred for it, than to land on some hayseed an’
get hauled up an’ fined before some justice of the peace. Now take
another squint at Hazel an’ Hattie. They’re regular farm furniture, good
to breed from when we get to that valley of the moon. An’ they’re heavy
enough to turn right into the plowin’, too.”


The evening of the fight at quarter past eight, Saxon parted from Billy.
At quarter past nine, with hot water, ice, and everything ready in
anticipation, she heard the gate click and Billy’s step come up the
porch. She had agreed to the fight much against her better judgment, and
had regretted her consent every minute of the hour she had just waited;
so that, as she opened the front door, she was expectant of any sort of
a terrible husband-wreck. But the Billy she saw was precisely the Billy
she had parted from.

“There was no fight?” she cried, in so evident disappointment that he
laughed.

“They was all yellin’ ‘Fake! Fake!’ when I left, an’ wantin’ their money
back.”

“Well, I’ve got YOU,” she laughed, leading him in, though secretly she
sighed farewell to Hazel and Hattie.

“I stopped by the way to get something for you that you’ve been wantin’
some time,” Billy said casually. “Shut your eyes an’ open your hand; an’
when you open your eyes you’ll find it grand,” he chanted.

Into her hand something was laid that was very heavy and very cold, and
when her eyes opened she saw it was a stack of fifteen twenty-dollar
gold pieces.

“I told you it was like takin’ money from a corpse,” he exulted, as
he emerged grinning from the whirlwind of punches, whacks, and hugs in
which she had enveloped him. “They wasn’t no fight at all. D ‘ye want
to know how long it lasted? Just twenty-seven seconds--less ‘n half
a minute. An’ how many blows struck? One. An’ it was me that done it.
Here, I’ll show you. It was just like this--a regular scream.”

Billy had taken his place in the middle of the room, slightly crouching,
chin tucked against the sheltering left shoulder, fists closed, elbows
in so as to guard left side and abdomen, and forearms close to the body.

“It’s the first round,” he pictured. “Gong’s sounded, an’ we’ve shook
hands. Of course, seein’ as it’s a long fight an’ we’ve never seen each
other in action, we ain’t in no rush. We’re just feelin’ each other out
an’ fiddlin’ around. Seventeen seconds like that. Not a blow struck.
Nothin’. An’ then it’s all off with the big Swede. It takes some time to
tell it, but it happened in a jiffy, in less’n a tenth of a second. I
wasn’t expectin’ it myself. We’re awful close together. His left glove
ain’t a foot from my jaw, an’ my left glove ain’t a foot from his. He
feints with his right, an’ I know it’s a feint, an’ just hunch up my
left shoulder a bit an’ feint with my right. That draws his guard over
just about an inch, an’ I see my openin’. My left ain’t got a foot
to travel. I don’t draw it back none. I start it from where it is,
corkscrewin’ around his right guard an’ pivotin’ at the waist to put the
weight of my shoulder into the punch. An’ it connects!--Square on the
point of the chin, sideways. He drops deado. I walk back to my corner,
an’, honest to God, Saxon, I can’t help gigglin’ a little, it was that
easy. The referee stands over ‘m an’ counts ‘m out. He never quivers.
The audience don’t know what to make of it an’ sits paralyzed. His
seconds carry ‘m to his corner an’ set ‘m on the stool. But they gotta
hold ‘m up. Five minutes afterward he opens his eyes--but he ain’t
seein’ nothing. They’re glassy. Five minutes more, an’ he stands
up. They got to help hold ‘m, his legs givin’ under ‘m like they was
sausages. An’ the seconds has to help ‘m through the ropes, an’ they
go down the aisle to his dressin’ room a-helpin’ ‘m. An’ the
crowd beginning to yell fake an’ want its money back. Twenty-seven
seconds--one punch--n’ a spankin’ pair of horses for the best wife Billy
Roberts ever had in his long experience.”

All of Saxon’s old physical worship of her husband revived and doubled
on itself many times. He was in all truth a hero, worthy to be of that
wing-helmeted company leaping from the beaked boats upon the bloody
English sands. The next morning he was awakened by her lips pressed on
his left hand.

“Hey!--what are you doin’?’” he demanded.

“Kissing Hazel and Hattie good morning,” she answered demurely. “And now
I ‘m going to kiss you good morning.. .. And just where did your punch
land? Show me.”

Billy complied, touching the point of her chin with his knuckles. With
both her hands on his arm, she shoved it back and tried to draw it
forward sharply in similitude of a punch. But Billy withstrained her.

“Wait,” he said. “You don’t want to knock your jaw off. I’ll show you. A
quarter of an inch will do.”

And at a distance of a quarter of an inch from her chin he administered
the slightest flick of a tap.

On the instant Saxon’s brain snapped with a white flash of light, while
her whole body relaxed, numb and weak, volitionless, sad her vision
reeled and blurred. The next instant she was herself again, in her eyes
terror and understanding.

“And it was at a foot that you struck him,” she murmured in a voice of
awe.

“Yes, and with the weight of my shoulders behind it,” Billy laughed.
“Oh, that’s nothing.--Here, let me show you something else.”

He searched out her solar plexus, and did no more than snap his middle
finger against it. This time she experienced a simple paralysis,
accompanied by a stoppage of breath, but with a brain and vision
that remained perfectly clear. In a moment, however, all the unwonted
sensations were gone.

“Solar Plexus,” Billy elucidated. “Imagine what it’s like when the other
fellow lifts a wallop to it all the way from his knees. That’s the punch
that won the championship of the world for Bob Fitzsimmons.”

Saxon shuddered, then resigned herself to Billy’s playful demonstration
of the weak points in the human anatomy. He pressed the tip of a finger
into the middle of her forearm, and she knew excruciating agony. On
either side of her neck, at the base, he dented gently with his thumbs,
and she felt herself quickly growing unconscious.

“That’s one of the death touches of the Japs,” he told her, and went
on, accompanying grips and holds with a running exposition. “Here’s
the toe-hold that Notch defeated Hackenschmidt with. I learned it
from Farmer Burns.--An’ here’s a half-Nelson.--An’ here’s you makin’
roughhouse at a dance, an’ I ‘m the floor manager, an’ I gotta put you
out.”

One hand grasped her wrist, the other hand passed around and under her
forearm and grasped his own wrist. And at the first hint of pressure she
felt that her arm was a pipe-stem about to break.

“That’s called the ‘come along.’--An’ here’s the strong arm. A boy
can down a man with it. An’ if you ever get into a scrap an’ the other
fellow gets your nose between his teeth--you don’t want to lose your
nose, do you? Well, this is what you do, quick as a flash.”

Involuntarily she closed her eyes as Billy’s thumb-ends pressed into
them. She could feel the fore-running ache of a dull and terrible hurt.

“If he don’t let go, you just press real hard, an’ out pop his eyes, an’
he’s blind as a bat for the rest of his life. Oh, he’ll let go all right
all right.”

He released her and lay back laughing.

“How d’ye feel?” he asked. “Those ain’t boxin’ tricks, but they’re all
in the game of a roughhouse.”

“I feel like revenge,” she said, trying to apply the “come along” to his
arm.

When she exerted the pressure she cried out with pain, for she had
succeeded only in hurting herself. Billy grinned at her futility. She
dug her thumbs into his neck in imitation of the Japanese death touch,
then gazed ruefully at the bent ends of her nails. She punched him
smartly on the point of the chin, and again cried out, this time to the
bruise of her knuckles.

“Well, this can’t hurt me,” she gritted through her teeth, as she
assailed his solar plexus with her doubled fists.

By this time he was in a roar of laughter. Under the sheaths of muscles
that were as armor, the fatal nerve center remained impervious.

“Go on, do it some more,” he urged, when she had given up, breathing
heavily. “It feels fine, like you was ticklin’ me with a feather.”

“All right, Mister Man,” she threatened balefully. “You can talk about
your grips and death touches and all the rest, but that’s all man’s
game. I know something that will beat them all, that will make a strong
man as helpless as a baby. Wait a minute till I get it. There. Shut your
eyes. Ready? I won’t be a second.”

He waited with closed eyes, and then, softly as rose petals fluttering
down, he felt her lips on his mouth.

“You win,” he said in solemn ecstasy, and passed his arms around her.



CHAPTER XIV

In the morning Billy went down town to pay for Hazel and Hattie. It was
due to Saxon’s impatient desire to see them, that he seemed to take a
remarkably long time about so simple a transaction. But she forgave him
when he arrived with the two horses hitched to the camping wagon.

“Had to borrow the harness,” he said. “Pass Possum up and climb in, an’
I’ll show you the Double H Outfit, which is some outfit, I’m tellin’
you.”

Saxon’s delight was unbounded and almost speechless as they drove out
into the country behind the dappled chestnuts with the cream-colored
tails and manes. The seat was upholstered, high-backed, and comfortable;
and Billy raved about the wonders of the efficient brake. He trotted the
team along the hard county road to show the standard-going in them, and
put them up a steep earthroad, almost hub-deep with mud, to prove that
the light Belgian sire was not wanting in their make-up.

When Saxon at last lapsed into complete silence, he studied her
anxiously, with quick sidelong glances. She sighed and asked:

“When do you think we’ll be able to start?”

“Maybe in two weeks... or, maybe in two or three months.” He sighed with
solemn deliberation. “We’re like the Irishman with the trunk an’ nothin’
to put in it. Here’s the wagon, here’s the horses, an’ nothin’ to pull.
I know a peach of a shotgun I can get, second-hand, eighteen dollars;
but look at the bills we owe. Then there’s a new ‘22 Automatic rifle I
want for you. An’ a 30-30 I’ve had my eye on for deer. An’ you want a
good jointed pole as well as me. An’ tackle costs like Sam Hill. An’
harness like I want will cost fifty bucks cold. An’ the wagon ought to
be painted. Then there’s pasture ropes, an’ nose-bags, an’ a harness
punch, an’ all such things. An’ Hazel an’ Hattie eatin’ their heads off
all the time we’re waitin’. An’ I ‘m just itchin’ to be started myself.”

He stopped abruptly and confusedly.

“Now, Billy, what have you got up your sleeve?--I can see it in your
eyes,” Saxon demanded and indicted in mixed metaphors.

“Well, Saxon, you see, it’s like this. Sandow ain’t satisfied. He’s
madder ‘n a hatter. Never got one punch at me. Never had a chance to
make a showin’, an’ he wants a return match. He’s blattin’ around town
that he can lick me with one hand tied behind ‘m, an’ all that kind of
hot air. Which ain’t the point. The point is, the fight-fans is wild
to see a return-match. They didn’t get a run for their money last time.
They’ll fill the house. The managers has seen me already. That was why
I was so long. They’s three hundred more waitin’ on the tree for me to
pick two weeks from last night if you’ll say the word. It’s just the
same as I told you before. He’s my meat. He still thinks I ‘m a rube,
an’ that it was a fluke punch.”

“But, Billy, you told me long ago that fighting took the silk out of
you. That was why you’d quit it and stayed by teaming.”

“Not this kind of fightin’,” he answered. “I got this one all doped out.
I’ll let ‘m last till about the seventh. Not that it’ll be necessary,
but just to give the audience a run for its money. Of course, I’ll get a
lump or two, an’ lose some skin. Then I’ll time ‘m to that glass jaw
of his an’ drop ‘m for the count. An’ we’ll be all packed up, an’ next
mornin’ we’ll pull out. What d’ye say? Aw, come on.”


Saturday night, two weeks later, Saxon ran to the door when the gate
clicked. Billy looked tired. His hair was wet, his nose swollen, one
cheek was puffed, there was skin missing from his ears, and both eyes
were slightly bloodshot.

“I ‘m darned if that boy didn’t fool me,” he said, as he placed the roll
of gold pieces in her hand and sat down with her on his knees. “He’s
some boy when he gets extended. Instead of stoppin’ ‘m at the seventh,
he kept me hustlin’ till the fourteenth. Then I got ‘m the way I said.
It’s too bad he’s got a glass jaw. He’s quicker’n I thought, an’ he’s
got a wallop that made me mighty respectful from the second round--an’
the prettiest little chop an’ come-again I ever saw. But that glass jaw!
He kept it in cotton wool till the fourteenth an’ then I connected.

“--An’, say. I ‘m mighty glad it did last fourteen rounds. I still got
all my silk. I could see that easy. I wasn’t breathin’ much, an’ every
round was fast. An’ my legs was like iron. I could a-fought forty
rounds. You see, I never said nothin’, but I’ve been suspicious all the
time after that beatin’ the Chicago Terror gave me.”

“Nonsense!--you would have known it long before now,” Saxon cried. “Look
at all your boxing, and wrestling, and running at Carmel.”

“Nope.” Billy shook his head with the conviction of utter knowledge.
“That’s different. It don’t take it outa you. You gotta be up against
the real thing, fightin’ for life, round after round, with a husky you
know ain’t lost a thread of his silk yet--then, if you don’t blow up, if
your legs is steady, an’ your heart ain’t burstin’, an’ you ain’t wobbly
at all, an’ no signs of queer street in your head--why, then you know
you still got all your silk. An’ I got it, I got all mine, d’ye hear me,
an’ I ain’t goin’ to risk it on no more fights. That’s straight. Easy
money’s hardest in the end. From now on it’s horsebuyin’ on commish, an’
you an’ me on the road till we find that valley of the moon.”

Next morning, early, they drove out of Ukiah. Possum sat on the seat
between them, his rosy mouth agape with excitement. They had originally
planned to cross over to the coast from Ukiah, but it was too early
in the season for the soft earth-roads to be in shape after the winter
rains; so they turned east, for Lake County, their route to extend
north through the upper Sacramento Valley and across the mountains into
Oregon. Then they would circle west to the coast, where the roads by
that time would be in condition, and come down its length to the Golden
Gate.

All the land was green and flower-sprinkled, and each tiny valley, as
they entered the hills, was a garden.

“Huh!” Billy remarked scornfully to the general landscape. “They say a
rollin’ stone gathers no moss. Just the same this looks like some outfit
we’ve gathered. Never had so much actual property in my life at one
time--an’ them was the days when I wasn’t rollin’. Hell--even the
furniture wasn’t ourn. Only the clothes we stood up in, an’ some old
socks an’ things.”

Saxon reached out and touched his hand, and he knew that it was a hand
that loved his hand.

“I’ve only one regret,” she said. “You’ve earned it all yourself. I’ve
had nothing to do with it.”

“Huh!--you’ve had everything to do with it. You’re like my second in a
fight. You keep me happy an’ in condition. A man can’t fight without
a good second to take care of him. Hell, I wouldn’t a-ben here if it
wasn’t for you. You made me pull up stakes an’ head out. Why, if it
hadn’t been for you I’d a-drunk myself dead an’ rotten by this time, or
had my neck stretched at San Quentin over hittin’ some scab too hard
or something or other. An’ look at me now. Look at that roll of
greenbacks”--he tapped his breast--“to buy the Boss some horses. Why,
we’re takin’ an unendin’ vacation, an’ makin’ a good livin’ at the same
time. An’ one more trade I got--horse-buyin’ for Oakland. If I show I’ve
got the savve, an’ I have, all the Frisco firms’ll be after me to buy
for them. An’ it’s all your fault. You’re my Tonic Kid all right, all
right, an’ if Possum wasn’t lookin’, I’d--well, who cares if he does
look?”

And Billy leaned toward her sidewise and kissed her.

The way grew hard and rocky as they began to climb, but the divide was
an easy one, and they soon dropped down the canyon of the Blue Lakes
among lush fields of golden poppies. In the bottom of the canyon lay a
wandering sheet of water of intensest blue. Ahead, the folds of hills
interlaced the distance, with a remote blue mountain rising in the
center of the picture.

They asked questions of a handsome, black-eyed man with curly gray hair,
who talked to them in a German accent, while a cheery-faced woman smiled
down at them out of a trellised high window of the Swiss cottage perched
on the bank. Billy watered the horses at a pretty hotel farther on,
where the proprietor came out and talked and told him he had built it
himself, according to the plans of the black-eyed man with the curly
gray hair, who was a San Francisco architect.

“Goin’ up, goin’ up,” Billy chortled, as they drove on through the
winding hills past another lake of intensest blue. “D’ye notice the
difference in our treatment already between ridin’ an’ walkin’ with
packs on our backs? With Hazel an’ Hattie an’ Saxon an’ Possum, an’
yours truly, an’ this high-toned wagon, folks most likely take us for
millionaires out on a lark.”

The way widened. Broad, oak-studded pastures with grazing livestock lay
on either hand. Then Clear Lake opened before them like an inland sea,
flecked with little squalls and flaws of wind from the high mountains on
the northern slopes of which still glistened white snow patches.

“I’ve heard Mrs. Hazard rave about Lake Geneva,” Saxon recalled; “but I
wonder if it is more beautiful than this.”

“That architect fellow called this the California Alps, you remember,”
 Billy confirmed. “An’ if I don’t mistake, that’s Lakeport showin’ up
ahead. An’ all wild country, an’ no railroads.”

“And no moon valleys here,” Saxon criticized. “But it is beautiful, oh,
so beautiful.”

“Hotter’n hell in the dead of summer, I’ll bet,” was Billy’s opinion.
“Nope, the country we’re lookin’ for lies nearer the coast. Just the
same it is beautiful... like a picture on the wall. What d’ye say we
stop off an’ go for a swim this afternoon?”

Ten days later they drove into Williams, in Colusa County, and for the
first time again encountered a railroad. Billy was looking for it,
for the reason that at the rear of the wagon walked two magnificent
work-horses which he had picked up for shipment to Oakland.

“Too hot,” was Saxon’s verdict, as she gazed across the shimmering level
of the vast Sacramento Valley. “No redwoods. No hills. No forests. No
manzanita. No madronos. Lonely, and sad--”

“An’ like the river islands,” Billy interpolated. “Richer ‘n hell, but
looks too much like hard work. It’ll do for those that’s stuck on hard
work--God knows, they’s nothin’ here to induce a fellow to knock off
ever for a bit of play. No fishin’, no huntin’, nothin’ but work. I’d
work myself, if I had to live here.”

North they drove, through days of heat and dust, across the California
plains, and everywhere was manifest the “new” farming--great irrigation
ditches, dug and being dug, the land threaded by power-lines from the
mountains, and many new farmhouses on small holdings newly fenced. The
bonanza farms were being broken up. However, many of the great estates
remained, five to ten thousand acres in extent, running from the
Sacramento bank to the horizon dancing in the heat waves, and studded
with great valley oaks.

“It takes rich soil to make trees like those,” a ten-acre farmer told
them.

They had driven off the road a hundred feet to his tiny barn in order to
water Hazel and Hattie. A sturdy young orchard covered most of his ten
acres, though a goodly portion was devoted to whitewashed henhouses and
wired runways wherein hundreds of chickens were to be seen. He had just
begun work on a small frame dwelling.

“I took a vacation when I bought,” he explained, “and planted the trees.
Then I went back to work an’ stayed with it till the place was cleared.
Now I ‘m here for keeps, an’ soon as the house is finished I’ll send
for the wife. She’s not very well, and it will do her good. We’ve been
planning and working for years to get away from the city.” He stopped in
order to give a happy sigh. “And now we’re free.”

The water in the trough was warm from the sun.

“Hold on,” the man said. “Don’t let them drink that. I’ll give it to
them cool.”

Stepping into a small shed, he turned an electric switch, and a motor
the size of a fruit box hummed into action. A five-inch stream of
sparkling water splashed into the shallow main ditch of his irrigation
system and flowed away across the orchard through many laterals.

“Isn’t it beautiful, eh?--beautiful! beautiful!” the man chanted in an
ecstasy. “It’s bud and fruit. It’s blood and life. Look at it! It makes
a gold mine laughable, and a saloon a nightmare. I know. I... I used to
be a barkeeper. In fact, I’ve been a barkeeper most of my life. That’s
how I paid for this place. And I’ve hated the business all the time. I
was a farm boy, and all my life I’ve been wanting to get back to it. And
here I am at last.”

He wiped his glasses the better to behold his beloved water, then seized
a hoe and strode down the main ditch to open more laterals.

“He’s the funniest barkeeper I ever seen,” Billy commented. “I took
him for a business man of some sort. Must a-ben in some kind of a quiet
hotel.”

“Don’t drive on right away,” Saxon requested. “I want to talk with him.”

He came back, polishing his glasses, his face beaming, watching the
water as if fascinated by it. It required no more exertion on Saxon’s
part to start him than had been required on his part to start the motor.

“The pioneers settled all this in the early fifties,” he said. “The
Mexicans never got this far, so it was government land. Everybody got a
hundred and sixty acres. And such acres! The stories they tell about how
much wheat they got to the acre are almost unbelievable. Then several
things happened. The sharpest and steadiest of the pioneers held what
they had and added to it from the other fellows. It takes a great many
quarter sections to make a bonanza farm. It wasn’t long before it was
‘most all bonanza farms.”

“They were the successful gamblers,” Saxon put in, remembering Mark
Hall’s words.

The man nodded appreciatively and continued.

“The old folks schemed and gathered and added the land into the big
holdings, and built the great barns and mansions, and planted the house
orchards and flower gardens. The young folks were spoiled by so much
wealth and went away to the cities to spend it. And old folks and young
united in one thing: in impoverishing the soil. Year after year they
scratched it and took out bonanza crops. They put nothing back. All they
left was plow-sole and exhausted land. Why, there’s big sections they
exhausted and left almost desert.

“The bonanza farmers are all gone now, thank the Lord, and here’s where
we small farmers come into our own. It won’t be many years before the
whole valley will be farmed in patches like mine. Look at what we’re
doing! Worked-out land that had ceased to grow wheat, and we turn the
water on, treat the soil decently, and see our orchards!

“We’ve got the water--from the mountains, and from under the ground. I
was reading an account the other day. All life depends on food. All food
depends on water. It takes a thousand pounds of water to produce one
pound of food; ten thousand pounds to produce one pound of meat. How
much water do you drink in a year? About a ton. But you eat about
two hundred pounds of vegetables and two hundred pounds of meat
a year--which means you consume one hundred tons of water in the
vegetables and one thousand tons in the meat--which means that it takes
eleven hundred and one tons of water each year to keep a small woman
like you going.”

“Gee!” was all Billy could say.

“You see how population depends upon water,” the ex-barkeeper went on.
“Well, we’ve got the water, immense subterranean supplies, and in not
many years this valley will be populated as thick as Belgium.”

Fascinated by the five-inch stream, sluiced out of the earth and back
to the earth by the droning motor, he forgot his discourse and stood and
gazed, rapt and unheeding, while his visitors drove on.

“An’ him a drink-slinger!” Billy marveled. “He can sure sling the
temperance dope if anybody should ask you.”

“It’s lovely to think about--all that water, and all the happy people
that will come here to live--”

“But it ain’t the valley of the moon!” Billy laughed.

“No,” she responded. “They don’t have to irrigate in the valley of
the moon, unless for alfalfa and such crops. What we want is the water
bubbling naturally from the ground, and crossing the farm in little
brooks, and on the boundary a fine big creek--”

“With trout in it!” Billy took her up. “An’ willows and trees of all
kinds growing along the edges, and here a riffle where you can flip
out trout, and there a deep pool where you can swim and high-dive. An’
kingfishers, an’ rabbits comin’ down to drink, an’, maybe, a deer.”

“And meadowlarks in the pasture,” Saxon added. “And mourning doves
in the trees. We must have mourning doves--and the big, gray
tree-squirrels.”

“Gee!--that valley of the moon’s goin’ to be some valley,” Billy
meditated, flicking a fly away with his whip from Hattie’s side. “Think
we’ll ever find it?”

Saxon nodded her head with great certitude.

“Just as the Jews found the promised land, and the Mormons Utah, and the
Pioneers California. You remember the last advice we got when we left
Oakland? ‘Tis them that looks that finds.’”



CHAPTER XV

Ever north, through a fat and flourishing rejuvenated land, stopping at
the towns of Willows, Red Bluff and Redding, crossing the counties of
Colusa, Glenn, Tehama, and Shasta, went the spruce wagon drawn by the
dappled chestnuts with cream-colored manes and tails. Billy picked up
only three horses for shipment, although he visited many farms; and
Saxon talked with the women while he looked over the stock with the men.
And Saxon grew the more convinced that the valley she sought lay not
there.

At Redding they crossed the Sacramento on a cable ferry, and made a
day’s scorching traverse through rolling foot-hills and flat tablelands.
The heat grew more insupportable, and the trees and shrubs were blasted
and dead. Then they came again to the Sacramento, where the great
smelters of Kennett explained the destruction of the vegetation.

They climbed out of the smelting town, where eyrie houses perched
insecurely on a precipitous landscape. It was a broad, well-engineered
road that took them up a grade miles long and plunged down into the
Canyon of the Sacramento. The road, rock-surfaced and easy-graded, hewn
out of the canyon wall, grew so narrow that Billy worried for fear of
meeting opposite-bound teams. Far below, the river frothed and flowed
over pebbly shallows, or broke tumultuously over boulders and cascades,
in its race for the great valley they had left behind.

Sometimes, on the wider stretches of road, Saxon drove and Billy walked
to lighten the load. She insisted on taking her turns at walking, and
when he breathed the panting mares on the steep, and Saxon stood by
their heads caressing them and cheering them, Billy’s joy was too deep
for any turn of speech as he gazed at his beautiful horses and his
glowing girl, trim and colorful in her golden brown corduroy, the brown
corduroy calves swelling sweetly under the abbreviated slim skirt. And
when her answering look of happiness came to him--a sudden dimness in
her straight gray eyes--he was overmastered by the knowledge that he
must say something or burst.

“O, you kid!” he cried.

And with radiant face she answered, “O, you kid!”

They camped one night in a deep dent in the canyon, where was snuggled
a box-factory village, and where a toothless ancient, gazing with faded
eyes at their traveling outfit, asked: “Be you showin’?”

They passed Castle Crags, mighty-bastioned and glowing red against the
palpitating blue sky. They caught their first glimpse of Mt. Shasta, a
rose-tinted snow-peak rising, a sunset dream, between and beyond green
interlacing walls of canyon--a landmark destined to be with them for
many days. At unexpected turns, after mounting some steep grade, Shasta
would appear again, still distant, now showing two peaks and glacial
fields of shimmering white. Miles and miles and days and days they
climbed, with Shasta ever developing new forms and phases in her summer
snows.

“A moving picture in the sky,” said Billy at last.

“Oh,--it is all so beautiful,” sighed Saxon. “But there are no
moon-valleys here.”

They encountered a plague of butterflies, and for days drove through
untold millions of the fluttering beauties that covered the road with
uniform velvet-brown. And ever the road seemed to rise under the noses
of the snorting mares, filling the air with noiseless flight, drifting
down the breeze in clouds of brown and yellow soft-flaked as snow, and
piling in mounds against the fences, ever driven to float helplessly on
the irrigation ditches along the roadside. Hazel and Hattie soon grew
used to them though Possum never ceased being made frantic.

“Huh!--who ever heard of butterfly-broke horses?” Billy chaffed. “That’s
worth fifty bucks more on their price.”

“Wait till you get across the Oregon line into the Rogue River
Valley,” they were told. “There’s God’s Paradise--climate, scenery,
and fruit-farming; fruit ranches that yield two hundred per cent. on a
valuation of five hundred dollars an acre.”

“Gee!” Billy said, when he had driven on out of hearing; “that’s too
rich for our digestion.”

And Saxon said, “I don’t know about apples in the valley of the moon,
but I do know that the yield is ten thousand per cent. of happiness on a
valuation of one Billy, one Saxon, a Hazel, a Hattie, and a Possum.”

Through Siskiyou County and across high mountains, they came to Ashland
and Medford and camped beside the wild Rogue River.

“This is wonderful and glorious,” pronounced Saxon; “but it is not the
valley of the moon.”

“Nope, it ain’t the valley of the moon,” agreed Billy, and he said it
on the evening of the day he hooked a monster steelhead, standing to his
neck in the ice-cold water of the Rogue and fighting for forty minutes,
with screaming reel, ere he drew his finny prize to the bank and with
the scalp-yell of a Comanche jumped and clutched it by the gills.

“‘Them that looks finds,’” predicted Saxon, as they drew north out of
Grant’s Pass, and held north across the mountains and fruitful Oregon
valleys.

One day, in camp by the Umpqua River, Billy bent over to begin skinning
the first deer he had ever shot. He raised his eyes to Saxon and
remarked:

“If I didn’t know California, I guess Oregon’d suit me from the ground
up.”

In the evening, replete with deer meat, resting on his elbow and smoking
his after-supper cigarette, he said:

“Maybe they ain’t no valley of the moon. An’ if they ain’t, what of it?
We could keep on this way forever. I don’t ask nothing better.”

“There is a valley of the moon,” Saxon answered soberly. “And we are
going to find it. We’ve got to. Why Billy, it would never do, never to
settle down. There would be no little Hazels and little Hatties, nor
little... Billies--”

“Nor little Saxons,” Billy interjected.

“Nor little Possums,” she hurried on, nodding her head and reaching out
a caressing hand to where the fox terrier was ecstatically gnawing
a deer-rib. A vicious snarl and a wicked snap that barely missed her
fingers were her reward.

“Possum!” she cried in sharp reproof, again extending her hand.

“Don’t,” Billy warned. “He can’t help it, and he’s likely to get you
next time.”

Even more compelling was the menacing threat that Possum growled, his
jaws close-guarding the bone, eyes blazing insanely, the hair rising
stiffly on his neck.

“It’s a good dog that sticks up for its bone,” Billy championed. “I
wouldn’t care to own one that didn’t.”

“But it’s my Possum,” Saxon protested. “And he loves me. Besides, he
must love me more than an old bone. And he must mind me.--Here, you,
Possum, give me that bone! Give me that bone, sir!”

Her hand went out gingerly, and the growl rose in volume and key till it
culminated in a snap.

“I tell you it’s instinct,” Billy repeated. “He does love you, but he
just can’t help doin’ it.”

“He’s got a right to defend his bones from strangers but not from his
mother,” Saxon argued. “I shall make him give up that bone to me.”

“Fox terriers is awful highstrung, Saxon. You’ll likely get him
hysterical.”

But she was obstinately set in her purpose. She picked up a short stick
of firewood.

“Now, sir, give me that bone.”

She threatened with the stick, and the dog’s growling became ferocious.
Again he snapped, then crouched back over his bone. Saxon raised the
stick as if to strike him, and he suddenly abandoned the bone, rolled
over on his back at her feet, four legs in the air, his ears lying
meekly back, his eyes swimming and eloquent with submission and appeal.

“My God!” Billy breathed in solemn awe. “Look at it!--presenting his
solar plexus to you, his vitals an’ his life, all defense down, as much
as sayin’: ‘Here I am. Stamp on me. Kick the life outa me.’ I love you,
I am your slave, but I just can’t help defendin’ my bone. My instinct’s
stronger’n me. Kill me, but I can’t help it.”

Saxon was melted. Tears were in her eyes as she stooped and gathered
the mite of an animal in her arms. Possum was in a frenzy of agitation,
whining, trembling, writhing, twisting, licking her face, all for
forgiveness.

“Heart of gold with a rose in his mouth,” Saxon crooned, burying her
face in the soft and quivering bundle of sensibilities. “Mother is
sorry. She’ll never bother you again that way. There, there, little
love. See? There’s your bone. Take it.”

She put him down, but he hesitated between her and the bone, patently
looking to her for surety of permission, yet continuing to tremble in
the terrible struggle between duty and desire that seemed tearing him
asunder. Not until she repeated that it was all right and nodded her
head consentingly did he go to the bone. And once, a minute later, he
raised his head with a sudden startle and gazed inquiringly at her.
She nodded and smiled, and Possum, with a happy sigh of satisfaction,
dropped his head down to the precious deer-rib.

“That Mercedes was right when she said men fought over jobs like dogs
over bones,” Billy enunciated slowly. “It’s instinct. Why, I couldn’t
no more help reaching my fist to the point of a scab’s jaw than could
Possum from snappin’ at you. They’s no explainin’ it. What a man has to
he has to. The fact that he does a thing shows he had to do it whether
he can explain it or not. You remember Hall couldn’t explain why he
stuck that stick between Timothy McManus’s legs in the foot race. What
a man has to, he has to. That’s all I know about it. I never had no
earthly reason to beat up that lodger we had, Jimmy Harmon. He was a
good guy, square an’ all right. But I just had to, with the strike goin’
to smash, an’ everything so bitter inside me that I could taste it.
I never told you, but I saw ‘m once after I got out--when my arms was
mendin’. I went down to the roundhouse an’ waited for ‘m to come in
off a run, an’ apologized to ‘m. Now why did I apologize? I don’t know,
except for the same reason I punched ‘m--I just had to.”

And so Billy expounded the why of like in terms of realism, in the camp
by the Umpqua River, while Possum expounded it, in similar terms of fang
and appetite, on the rib of deer.



CHAPTER XVI

With Possum on the seat beside her, Saxon drove into the town of
Roseburg. She drove at a walk. At the back of the wagon were tied two
heavy young work-horses. Behind, half a dozen more marched free, and
the rear was brought up by Billy, astride a ninth horse. All these he
shipped from Roseburg to the West Oakland stables.

It was in the Umpqua Valley that they heard the parable of the white
sparrow. The farmer who told it was elderly and flourishing. His farm
was a model of orderliness and system. Afterwards, Billy heard neighbors
estimate his wealth at a quarter of a million.

“You’ve heard the story of the farmer and the white sparrow’” he asked
Billy, at dinner.

“Never heard of a white sparrow even,” Billy answered.

“I must say they’re pretty rare,” the farmer owned. “But here’s the
story: Once there was a farmer who wasn’t making much of a success.
Things just didn’t seem to go right, till at last, one day, he heard
about the wonderful white sparrow. It seems that the white sparrow comes
out only just at daybreak with the first light of dawn, and that it
brings all kinds of good luck to the farmer that is fortunate enough
to catch it. Next morning our farmer was up at daybreak, and before,
looking for it. And, do you know, he sought for it continually, for
months and months, and never caught even a glimpse of it.” Their host
shook his head. “No; he never found it, but he found so many things
about the farm needing attention, and which he attended to before
breakfast, that before he knew it the farm was prospering, and it
wasn’t long before the mortgage was paid off and he was starting a bank
account.”

That afternoon, as they drove along, Billy was plunged in a deep
reverie.

“Oh, I got the point all right,” he said finally. “An’ yet I ain’t
satisfied. Of course, they wasn’t a white sparrow, but by getting up
early an’ attendin’ to things he’d been slack about before--oh, I got it
all right. An’ yet, Saxon, if that’s what a farmer’s life means, I don’t
want to find no moon valley. Life ain’t hard work. Daylight to dark,
hard at it--might just as well be in the city. What’s the difference?
Al’ the time you’ve got to yourself is for sleepin’, an’ when you’re
sleepin’ you’re not enjoyin’ yourself. An’ what’s it matter where you
sleep, you’re deado. Might as well be dead an’ done with it as work your
head off that way. I’d sooner stick to the road, an’ shoot a deer an’
catch a trout once in a while, an’ lie on my back in the shade, an’
laugh with you an’ have fun with you, an’... an’ go swimmin’. An’ I ‘m a
willin’ worker, too. But they’s all the difference in the world between
a decent amount of work an’ workin’ your head off.”

Saxon was in full accord. She looked back on her years of toil and
contrasted them with the joyous life she had lived on the road.

“We don’t want to be rich,” she said. “Let them hunt their white
sparrows in the Sacramento islands and the irrigation valleys. When we
get up early in the valley of the moon, it will be to hear the birds
sing and sing with them. And if we work hard at times, it will be only
so that we’ll have more time to play. And when you go swimming I ‘m
going with you. And we’ll play so hard that we’ll be glad to work for
relaxation.”


“I ‘m gettin’ plumb dried out,” Billy announced, mopping the sweat from
his sunburned forehead. “What d’ye say we head for the coast?”

West they turned, dropping down wild mountain gorges from the height
of land of the interior valleys. So fearful was the road, that, on one
stretch of seven miles, they passed ten broken-down automobiles. Billy
would not force the mares and promptly camped beside a brawling stream
from which he whipped two trout at a time. Here, Saxon caught her first
big trout. She had been accustomed to landing them up to nine and ten
inches, and the screech of the reel when the big one was hooked caused
her to cry out in startled surprise. Billy came up the riffle to her
and gave counsel. Several minutes later, cheeks flushed and eyes dancing
with excitement, Saxon dragged the big fellow carefully from the
water’s edge into the dry sand. Here it threw the hook out and flopped
tremendously until she fell upon it and captured it in her hands.

“Sixteen inches,” Billy said, as she held it up proudly for inspection.
“--Hey!--what are you goin’ to do?”

“Wash off the sand, of course,” was her answer.

“Better put it in the basket,” he advised, then closed his mouth and
grimly watched.

She stooped by the side of the stream and dipped in the splendid fish.
It flopped, there was a convulsive movement on her part, and it was
gone.

“Oh!” Saxon cried in chagrin.

“Them that finds should hold,” quoth Billy.

“I don’t care,” she replied. “It was a bigger one than you ever caught
anyway.”

“Oh, I ‘m not denyin’ you’re a peach at fishin’,” he drawled. “You
caught me, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know about that,” she retorted. “Maybe it was like the man
who was arrested for catching trout out of season. His defense was self
defense.”

Billy pondered, but did not see.

“The trout attacked him,” she explained.

Billy grinned. Fifteen minutes later he said:

“You sure handed me a hot one.”


The sky was overcast, and, as they drove along the bank of the Coquille
River, the fog suddenly enveloped them.

“Whoof!” Billy exhaled joyfully. “Ain’t it great! I can feel myself
moppin’ it up like a dry sponge. I never appreciated fog before.”

Saxon held out her arms to receive it, making motions as if she were
bathing in the gray mist.

“I never thought I’d grow tired of the sun,” she said; “but we’ve had
more than our share the last few weeks.”

“Ever since we hit the Sacramento Valley,” Billy affirmed. “Too much sun
ain’t good. I’ve worked that out. Sunshine is like liquor. Did you ever
notice how good you felt when the sun come out after a week of cloudy
weather. Well, that sunshine was just like a jolt of whiskey. Had the
same effect. Made you feel good all over. Now, when you’re swimmin’, an’
come out an’ lay in the sun, how good you feel. That’s because you’re
lappin’ up a sun-cocktail. But suppose you lay there in the sand a
couple of hours. You don’t feel so good. You’re so slow-movin’ it takes
you a long time to dress. You go home draggin’ your legs an’ feelin’
rotten, with all the life sapped outa you. What’s that? It’s the
katzenjammer. You’ve been soused to the ears in sunshine, like so much
whiskey, an’ now you’re payin’ for it. That’s straight. That’s why fog
in the climate is best.”

“Then we’ve been drunk for months,” Saxon said. “And now we’re going to
sober up.”

“You bet. Why, Saxon, I can do two days’ work in one in this
climate.--Look at the mares. Blame me if they ain’t perkin’ up already.”

Vainly Saxon’s eye roved the pine forest in search of her beloved
redwoods. They would find them down in California, they were told in the
town of Bandon.

“Then we’re too far north,” said Saxon. “We must go south to find our
valley of the moon.”

And south they went, along roads that steadily grew worse, through the
dairy country of Langlois and through thick pine forests to Port Orford,
where Saxon picked jeweled agates on the beach while Billy caught
enormous rockcod. No railroads had yet penetrated this wild region, and
the way south grew wilder and wilder. At Gold Beach they encountered
their old friend, the Rogue River, which they ferried across where
it entered the Pacific. Still wilder became the country, still more
terrible the road, still farther apart the isolated farms and clearings.

And here were neither Asiatics nor Europeans. The scant population
consisted of the original settlers and their descendants. More than one
old man or woman Saxon talked with, who could remember the trip across
the Plains with the plodding oxen. West they had fared until the Pacific
itself had stopped them, and here they had made their clearings, built
their rude houses, and settled. In them Farthest West had been reached.
Old customs had changed little. There were no railways. No automobile
as yet had ventured their perilous roads. Eastward, between them and the
populous interior valleys, lay the wilderness of the Coast Range--a game
paradise, Billy heard; though he declared that the very road he traveled
was game paradise enough for him. Had he not halted the horses, turned
the reins over to Saxon, and shot an eight-pronged buck from the
wagon-seat?

South of Gold Beach, climbing a narrow road through the virgin forest,
they heard from far above the jingle of bells. A hundred yards farther
on Billy found a place wide enough to turn out. Here he waited, while
the merry bells, descending the mountain, rapidly came near. They heard
the grind of brakes, the soft thud of horses’ hoofs, once a sharp cry of
the driver, and once a woman’s laughter.

“Some driver, some driver,” Billy muttered. “I take my hat off to ‘m
whoever he is, hittin’ a pace like that on a road like this.--Listen
to that! He’s got powerful brakes.--Zocie! That WAS a chuck-hole! Some
springs, Saxon, some springs!”

Where the road zigzagged above, they glimpsed through the trees four
sorrel horses trotting swiftly, and the flying wheels of a small,
tan-painted trap.

At the bend of the road the leaders appeared again, swinging wide on
the curve, the wheelers flashed into view, and the light two-seated
rig; then the whole affair straightened out and thundered down upon them
across a narrow plank-bridge. In the front seat were a man and woman; in
the rear seat a Japanese was squeezed in among suit cases, rods, guns,
saddles, and a typewriter case, while above him and all about him,
fastened most intricately, sprouted a prodigious crop of deer- and
elk-horns.

“It’s Mr. and Mrs. Hastings,” Saxon cried.

“Whoa!” Hastings yelled, putting on the brake and gathering his horses
in to a stop alongside. Greetings flew back and forth, in which the
Japanese, whom they had last seen on the Roamer at Rio Vista, gave and
received his share.

“Different from the Sacramento islands, eh?” Hastings said to Saxon.
“Nothing but old American stock in these mountains. And they haven’t
changed any. As John Fox, Jr., said, they’re our contemporary ancestors.
Our old folks were just like them.”

Mr. and Mrs. Hastings, between them, told of their long drive. They were
out two months then, and intended to continue north through Oregon and
Washington to the Canadian boundary.

“Then we’ll ship our horses and come home by train,” concluded Hastings.

“But the way you drive you oughta be a whole lot further along than
this,” Billy criticized.

“But we keep stopping off everywhere,” Mrs. Hastings explained.

“We went in to the Hoopa Reservation,” said Mr. Hastings, “and canoed
down the Trinity and Klamath Rivers to the ocean. And just now we’ve
come out from two weeks in the real wilds of Curry County.”

“You must go in,” Hastings advised. “You’ll get to Mountain Ranch
to-night. And you can turn in from there. No roads, though. You’ll have
to pack your horses. But it’s full of game. I shot five mountain lions
and two bear, to say nothing of deer. And there are small herds of elk,
too.--No; I didn’t shoot any. They’re protected. These horns I got from
the old hunters. I’ll tell you all about it.”

And while the men talked, Saxon and Mrs. Hastings were not idle.

“Found your valley of the moon yet?” the writer’s wife asked, as they
were saying good-by.

Saxon shook her head.

“You will find it if you go far enough; and be sure you go as far as
Sonoma Valley and our ranch. Then, if you haven’t found it yet, we’ll
see what we can do.”

Three weeks later, with a bigger record of mountain lions and bear
than Hastings’ to his credit, Billy emerged from Curry County and drove
across the line into California. At once Saxon found herself among the
redwoods. But they were redwoods unbelievable. Billy stopped the wagon,
got out, and paced around one.

“Forty-five feet,” he announced. “That’s fifteen in diameter. And
they’re all like it only bigger. No; there’s a runt. It’s only about
nine feet through. An’ they’re hundreds of feet tall.”

“When I die, Billy, you must bury me in a redwood grove,” Saxon adjured.

“I ain’t goin’ to let you die before I do,” he assured her. “An’ then
we’ll leave it in our wills for us both to be buried that way.”



CHAPTER XVII

South they held along the coast, hunting, fishing, swimming, and
horse-buying. Billy shipped his purchases on the coasting steamers.
Through Del Norte and Humboldt counties they went, and through Mendocino
into Sonoma--counties larger than Eastern states--threading the giant
woods, whipping innumerable trout-streams, and crossing countless rich
valleys. Ever Saxon sought the valley of the moon. Sometimes, when all
seemed fair, the lack was a railroad, sometimes madrono and manzanita
trees, and, usually, there was too much fog.

“We do want a sun-cocktail once in a while,” she told Billy.

“Yep,” was his answer. “Too much fog might make us soggy. What we’re
after is betwixt an’ between, an’ we’ll have to get back from the coast
a ways to find it.”

This was in the fall of the year, and they turned their backs on the
Pacific at old Fort Ross and entered the Russian River Valley, far
below Ukiah, by way of Cazadero and Guerneville. At Santa Rosa Billy was
delayed with the shipping of several horses, so that it was not until
afternoon that he drove south and east for Sonoma Valley.

“I guess we’ll no more than make Sonoma Valley when it’ll be time to
camp,” he said, measuring the sun with his eye. “This is called Bennett
Valley. You cross a divide from it and come out at Glen Ellen. Now this
is a mighty pretty valley, if anybody should ask you. An’ that’s some
nifty mountain over there.”

“The mountain is all right,” Saxon adjudged. “But all the rest of the
hills are too bare. And I don’t see any big trees. It takes rich soil to
make big trees.”

“Oh, I ain’t sayin’ it’s the valley of the moon by a long ways. All
the same, Saxon, that’s some mountain. Look at the timber on it. I bet
they’s deer there.”

“I wonder where we’ll spend this winter,” Saxon remarked.

“D’ye know, I’ve just been thinkin’ the same thing. Let’s winter at
Carmel. Mark Hall’s back, an’ so is Jim Hazard. What d’ye say?”

Saxon nodded.

“Only you won’t be the odd-job man this time.”

“Nope. We can make trips in good weather horse-buyin’,” Billy confirmed,
his face beaming with self-satisfaction. “An’ if that walkin’ poet of
the Marble House is around, I’ll sure get the gloves on with ‘m just in
memory of the time he walked me off my legs--”

“Oh! Oh!” Saxon cried. “Look, Billy! Look!”

Around a bend in the road came a man in a sulky, driving a heavy
stallion. The animal was a bright chestnut-sorrel, with cream-colored
mane and tail. The tail almost swept the ground, while the mane was so
thick that it crested out of the neck and flowed down, long and wavy. He
scented the mares and stopped short, head flung up and armfuls of creamy
mane tossing in the breeze. He bent his head until flaring nostrils
brushed impatient knees, and between the fine-pointed ears could be
seen a mighty and incredible curve of neck. Again he tossed his head,
fretting against the bit as the driver turned widely aside for safety
in passing. They could see the blue glaze like a sheen on the surface
of the horse’s bright, wild eyes, and Billy closed a wary thumb on his
reins and himself turned widely. He held up his hand in signal, and the
driver of the stallion stopped when well past, and over his shoulder
talked draught-horses with Billy.

Among other things, Billy learned that the stallion’s name was
Barbarossa, that the driver was the owner, and that Santa Rosa was his
headquarters.

“There are two ways to Sonoma Valley from here,” the man directed. “When
you come to the crossroads the turn to the left will take you to Glen
Ellen by Bennett Peak--that’s it there.”

Rising from rolling stubble fields, Bennett Peak towered hot in the sun,
a row of bastion hills leaning against its base. But hills and mountains
on that side showed bare and heated, though beautiful with the sunburnt
tawniness of California.

“The turn to the right will take you to Glen Ellen, too, only it’s
longer and steeper grades. But your mares don’t look as though it’d
bother them.”

“Which is the prettiest way?” Saxon asked.

“Oh, the right hand road, by all means,” said the man. “That’s Sonoma
Mountain there, and the road skirts it pretty well up, and goes through
Cooper’s Grove.”

Billy did not start immediately after they had said good-by, and he
and Saxon, heads over shoulders, watched the roused Barbarossa plunging
mutinously on toward Santa Rosa.

“Gee!” Billy said. “I’d like to be up here next spring.”

At the crossroads Billy hesitated and looked at Saxon.

“What if it is longer?” she said. “Look how beautiful it is--all covered
with green woods; and I just know those are redwoods in the canyons.
You never can tell. The valley of the moon might be right up there
somewhere. And it would never do to miss it just in order to save half
an hour.”

They took the turn to the right and began crossing a series of steep
foothills. As they approached the mountain there were signs of a greater
abundance of water. They drove beside a running stream, and, though the
vineyards on the hills were summer-dry, the farmhouses in the hollows
and on the levels were grouped about with splendid trees.

“Maybe it sounds funny,” Saxon observed; “but I ‘m beginning to love
that mountain already. It almost seems as if I’d seen it before,
somehow, it’s so all-around satisfying--oh!”

Crossing a bridge and rounding a sharp turn, they were suddenly
enveloped in a mysterious coolness and gloom. All about them arose
stately trunks of redwood. The forest floor was a rosy carpet of autumn
fronds. Occasional shafts of sunlight, penetrating the deep shade,
warmed the somberness of the grove. Alluring paths led off among the
trees and into cozy nooks made by circles of red columns growing around
the dust of vanished ancestors--witnessing the titanic dimensions of
those ancestors by the girth of the circles in which they stood.

Out of the grove they pulled to the steep divide, which was no more than
a buttress of Sonoma Mountain. The way led on through rolling uplands
and across small dips and canyons, all well wooded and a-drip with
water. In places the road was muddy from wayside springs.

“The mountain’s a sponge,” said Billy. “Here it is, the tail-end of dry
summer, an’ the ground’s just leakin’ everywhere.”

“I know I’ve never been here before,” Saxon communed aloud. “But it’s
all so familiar! So I must have dreamed it. And there’s madronos!--a
whole grove! And manzanita! Why, I feel just as if I was coming home...
Oh, Billy, if it should turn out to be our valley.”

“Plastered against the side of a mountain?” he queried, with a skeptical
laugh.

“No; I don’t mean that. I mean on the way to our valley. Because the
way--all ways--to our valley must be beautiful. And this; I’ve seen it
all before, dreamed it.”

“It’s great,” he said sympathetically. “I wouldn’t trade a square mile
of this kind of country for the whole Sacramento Valley, with the river
islands thrown in and Middle River for good measure. If they ain’t deer
up there, I miss my guess. An’ where they’s springs they’s streams, an’
streams means trout.”

They passed a large and comfortable farmhouse, surrounded by wandering
barns and cow-sheds, went on under forest arches, and emerged beside a
field with which Saxon was instantly enchanted. It flowed in a gentle
concave from the road up the mountain, its farther boundary an unbroken
line of timber. The field glowed like rough gold in the approaching
sunset, and near the middle of it stood a solitary great redwood, with
blasted top suggesting a nesting eyrie for eagles. The timber beyond
clothed the mountain in solid green to what they took to be the top.
But, as they drove on, Saxon, looking back upon what she called her
field, saw the real summit of Sonoma towering beyond, the mountain
behind her field a mere spur upon the side of the larger mass.

Ahead and toward the right, across sheer ridges of the mountains,
separated by deep green canyons and broadening lower down into rolling
orchards and vineyards, they caught their first sight of Sonoma Valley
and the wild mountains that rimmed its eastern side. To the left they
gazed across a golden land of small hills and valleys. Beyond, to the
north, they glimpsed another portion of the valley, and, still beyond,
the opposing wall of the valley--a range of mountains, the highest of
which reared its red and battered ancient crater against a rosy and
mellowing sky. From north to southeast, the mountain rim curved in the
brightness of the sun, while Saxon and Billy were already in the shadow
of evening. He looked at Saxon, noted the ravished ecstasy of her face,
and stopped the horses. All the eastern sky was blushing to rose, which
descended upon the mountains, touching them with wine and ruby. Sonoma
Valley began to fill with a purple flood, laving the mountain bases,
rising, inundating, drowning them in its purple. Saxon pointed in
silence, indicating that the purple flood was the sunset shadow of
Sonoma Mountain. Billy nodded, then chirruped to the mares, and the
descent began through a warm and colorful twilight.

On the elevated sections of the road they felt the cool, delicious
breeze from the Pacific forty miles away; while from each little dip and
hollow came warm breaths of autumn earth, spicy with sunburnt grass and
fallen leaves and passing flowers.

They came to the rim of a deep canyon that seemed to penetrate to
the heart of Sonoma Mountain. Again, with no word spoken, merely
from watching Saxon, Billy stopped the wagon. The canyon was wildly
beautiful. Tall redwoods lined its entire length. On its farther rim
stood three rugged knolls covered with dense woods of spruce and oak.
From between the knolls, a feeder to the main canyon and likewise
fringed with redwoods, emerged a smaller canyon. Billy pointed to a
stubble field that lay at the feet of the knolls.

“It’s in fields like that I’ve seen my mares a-pasturing,” he said.

They dropped down into the canyon, the road following a stream that
sang under maples and alders. The sunset fires, refracted from the
cloud-driftage of the autumn sky, bathed the canyon with crimson,
in which ruddy-limbed madronos and wine-wooded manzanitas burned and
smoldered. The air was aromatic with laurel. Wild grape vines bridged
the stream from tree to tree. Oaks of many sorts were veiled in lacy
Spanish moss. Ferns and brakes grew lush beside the stream. From
somewhere came the plaint of a mourning dove. Fifty feet above the
ground, almost over their heads, a Douglas squirrel crossed the road--a
flash of gray between two trees; and they marked the continuance of its
aerial passage by the bending of the boughs.

“I’ve got a hunch,” said Billy.

“Let me say it first,” Saxon begged.

He waited, his eyes on her face as she gazed about her in rapture.

“We’ve found our valley,” she whispered. “Was that it?”

He nodded, but checked speech at sight of a small boy driving a cow
up the road, a preposterously big shotgun in one hand, in the other as
preposterously big a jackrabbit. “How far to Glen Ellen?” Billy asked.

“Mile an’ a half,” was the answer.

“What creek is this?” inquired Saxon.

“Wild Water. It empties into Sonoma Creek half a mile down.”

“Trout?”--this from Billy.

“If you know how to catch ‘em,” grinned the boy.

“Deer up the mountain?”

“It ain’t open season,” the boy evaded.

“I guess you never shot a deer,” Billy slyly baited, and was rewarded
with:

“I got the horns to show.”

“Deer shed their horns,” Billy teased on. “Anybody can find ‘em.”

“I got the meat on mine. It ain’t dry yet--”

The boy broke off, gazing with shocked eyes into the pit Billy had dug
for him.

“It’s all right, sonny,” Billy laughed, as he drove on. “I ain’t the
game warden. I ‘m buyin’ horses.”

More leaping tree squirrels, more ruddy madronos and majestic oaks, more
fairy circles of redwoods, and, still beside the singing stream, they
passed a gate by the roadside. Before it stood a rural mail box, on
which was lettered “Edmund Hale.” Standing under the rustic arch,
leaning upon the gate, a man and woman composed a pieture so arresting
and beautiful that Saxon caught her breath. They were side by side, the
delicate hand of the woman curled in the hand of the man, which looked
as if made to confer benedictions. His face bore out this impression--a
beautiful-browed countenance, with large, benevolent gray eyes under a
wealth of white hair that shone like spun glass. He was fair and large;
the little woman beside him was daintily wrought. She was saffron-brown,
as a woman of the white race can well be, with smiling eyes of bluest
blue. In quaint sage-green draperies, she seemed a flower, with
her small vivid face irresistibly reminding Saxon of a springtime
wake-robin.

Perhaps the picture made by Saxon and Billy was equally arresting and
beautiful, as they drove down through the golden end of day. The two
couples had eyes only for each other. The little woman beamed joyously.
The man’s face glowed into the benediction that had trembled there.
To Saxon, like the field up the mountain, like the mountain itself, it
seemed that she had always known this adorable pair. She knew that she
loved them.

“How d’ye do,” said Billy.

“You blessed children,” said the man. “I wonder if you know how dear you
look sitting there.”

That was all. The wagon had passed by, rustling down the road, which was
carpeted with fallen leaves of maple, oak, and alder. Then they came to
the meeting of the two creeks.

“Oh, what a place for a home,” Saxon cried, pointing across Wild Water.
“See, Billy, on that bench there above the meadow.”

“It’s a rich bottom, Saxon; and so is the bench rich. Look at the big
trees on it. An’ they’s sure to be springs.”

“Drive over,” she said.

Forsaking the main road, they crossed Wild Water on a narrow bridge
and continued along an ancient, rutted road that ran beside an equally
ancient worm-fence of split redwood rails. They came to a gate, open and
off its hinges, through which the road led out on the bench.

“This is it--I know it,” Saxon said with conviction. “Drive in, Billy.”

A small, whitewashed farmhouse with broken windows showed through the
trees.

“Talk about your madronos--”

Billy pointed to the father of all madronos, six feet in diameter at its
base, sturdy and sound, which stood before the house.

They spoke in low tones as they passed around the house under great
oak trees and came to a stop before a small barn. They did not wait to
unharness. Tying the horses, they started to explore. The pitch from
the bench to the meadow was steep yet thickly wooded with oaks and
manzanita. As they crashed through the underbrush they startled a score
of quail into flight.

“How about game?” Saxon queried.

Billy grinned, and fell to examining a spring which bubbled a clear
stream into the meadow. Here the ground was sunbaked and wide open in a
multitude of cracks.

Disappointment leaped into Saxon’s face, but Billy, crumbling a clod
between his fingers, had not made up his mind.

“It’s rich,” he pronounced; “--the cream of the soil that’s been washin’
down from the hills for ten thousan’ years. But--”

He broke off, stared all about, studying the configuration of the
meadow, crossed it to the redwood trees beyond, then came back.

“It’s no good as it is,” he said. “But it’s the best ever if it’s
handled right. All it needs is a little common sense an’ a lot of
drainage. This meadow’s a natural basin not yet filled level. They’s a
sharp slope through the redwoods to the creek. Come on, I’ll show you.”

They went through the redwoods and came out on Sonoma Creek. At this
spot was no singing. The stream poured into a quiet pool. The willows on
their side brushed the water. The opposite side was a steep bank. Billy
measured the height of the bank with his eye, the depth of the water
with a driftwood pole.

“Fifteen feet,” he announced. “That allows all kinds of high-divin’ from
the bank. An’ it’s a hundred yards of a swim up an’ down.”

They followed down the pool. It emptied in a riffle, across exposed
bedrock, into another pool. As they looked, a trout flashed into the air
and back, leaving a widening ripple on the quiet surface.

“I guess we won’t winter in Carmel,” Billy said. “This place was
specially manufactured for us. In the morning I’ll find out who owns
it.”

Half an hour later, feeding the horses, he called Saxon’s attention to a
locomotive whistle.

“You’ve got your railroad,” he said. “That’s a train pulling into Glen
Ellen, an’ it’s only a mile from here.”

Saxon was dozing off to sleep under the blankets when Billy aroused her.

“Suppose the guy that owns it won’t sell?”

“There isn’t the slightest doubt,” Saxon answered with unruffled
certainty. “This is our place. I know it.”



CHAPTER XVIII

They were awakened by Possum, who was indignantly reproaching a tree
squirrel for not coming down to be killed. The squirrel chattered
garrulous remarks that drove Possum into a mad attempt to climb the
tree. Billy and Saxon giggled and hugged each other at the terrier’s
frenzy.

“If this is goin’ to be our place, they’ll be no shootin’ of tree
squirrels,” Billy said.

Saxon pressed his hand and sat up. From beneath the bench came the cry
of a meadow lark.

“There isn’t anything left to be desired,” she sighed happily.

“Except the deed,” Billy corrected.

After a hasty breakfast, they started to explore, running the irregular
boundaries of the place and repeatedly crossing it from rail fence to
creek and back again. Seven springs they found along the foot of the
bench on the edge of the meadow.

“There’s your water supply,” Billy said. “Drain the meadow, work the
soil up, and with fertilizer and all that water you can grow crops the
year round. There must be five acres of it, an’ I wouldn’t trade it for
Mrs. Mortimer’s.”

They were standing in the old orchard, on the bench where they had
counted twenty-seven trees, neglected but of generous girth.

“And on top the bench, back of the house, we can grow berries.” Saxon
paused, considering a new thought. “If only Mrs. Mortimer would come up
and advise us!--Do you think she would, Billy?”

“Sure she would. It ain’t more ‘n four hours’ run from San Jose. But
first we’ll get our hooks into the place. Then you can write to her.”

Sonoma Creek gave the long boundary to the little farm, two sides were
worm fenced, and the fourth side was Wild Water.

“Why, we’ll have that beautiful man and woman for neighbors,” Saxon
recollected. “Wild Water will be the dividing line between their place
and ours.”

“It ain’t ours yet,” Billy commented. “Let’s go and call on ‘em. They’ll
be able to tell us all about it.”

“It’s just as good as,” she replied. “The big thing has been the
finding. And whoever owns it doesn’t care much for it. It hasn’t been
lived in for a long time. And--Oh, Billy--are you satisfied!”

“With every bit of it,” he answered frankly, “as far as it goes. But the
trouble is, it don’t go far enough.”

The disappointment in her face spurred him to renunciation of his
particular dream.

“We’ll buy it--that’s settled,” he said. “But outside the meadow, they’s
so much woods that they’s little pasture--not more ‘n enough for a
couple of horses an’ a cow. But I don’t care. We can’t have everything,
an’ what they is is almighty good.”

“Let us call it a starter,” she consoled. “Later on we can add to
it--maybe the land alongside that runs up the Wild Water to the three
knolls we saw yesterday.”

“Where I seen my horses pasturin’,” he remembered, with a flash of eye.
“Why not? So much has come true since we hit the road, maybe that’ll
come true, too.

“We’ll work for it, Billy.”

“We’ll work like hell for it,” he said grimly.


They passed through the rustic gate and along a path that wound through
wild woods. There was no sign of the house until they came abruptly
upon it, bowered among the trees. It was eight-sided, and so justly
proportioned that its two stories made no show of height. The house
belonged there. It might have sprung from the soil just as the trees
had. There were no formal grounds. The wild grew to the doors. The
low porch of the main entrance was raised only a step from the ground.
“Trillium Covert,” they read, in quaint carved letters under the eave of
the porch.

“Come right upstairs, you dears,” a voice called from above, in response
to Saxon’s knock.

Stepping back and looking up, she beheld the little lady smiling down
from a sleeping-porch. Clad in a rosy-tissued and flowing house gown,
she again reminded Saxon of a flower.

“Just push the front door open and find your way,” was the direction.

Saxon led, with Billy at her heels. They came into a room bright with
windows, where a big log smoldered in a rough-stone fireplace. On the
stone slab above stood a huge Mexican jar, filled with autumn branches
and trailing fluffy smoke-vine. The walls were finished in warm natural
woods, stained but without polish. The air was aromatic with clean
wood odors. A walnut organ loomed in a shallow corner of the room. All
corners were shallow in this octagonal dwelling. In another corner were
many rows of books. Through the windows, across a low couch indubitably
made for use, could be seen a restful picture of autumn trees and yellow
grasses, threaded by wellworn paths that ran here and there over the
tiny estate. A delightful little stairway wound past more windows to the
upper story. Here the little lady greeted them and led them into what
Saxon knew at once was her room. The two octagonal sides of the house
which showed in this wide room were given wholly to windows. Under
the long sill, to the floor, were shelves of books. Books lay here and
there, in the disorder of use, on work table, couch and desk. On a sill
by an open window, a jar of autumn leaves breathed the charm of the
sweet brown wife, who seated herself in a tiny rattan chair, enameled a
cheery red, such as children delight to rock in.

“A queer house,” Mrs. Hale laughed girlishly and contentedly. “But we
love it. Edmund made it with his own hands even to the plumbing, though
he did have a terrible time with that before he succeeded.”

“How about that hardwood floor downstairs?--an’ the fireplace?” Billy
inquired.

“All, all,” she replied proudly. “And half the furniture. That cedar
desk there, the table--with his own hands.”

“They are such gentle hands,” Saxon was moved to say.

Mrs. Hale looked at her quickly, her vivid face alive with a grateful
light.

“They are gentle, the gentlest hands I have ever known,” she said
softly. “And you are a dear to have noticed it, for you only saw them
yesterday in passing.”

“I couldn’t help it,” Saxon said simply.

Her gaze slipped past Mrs. Hale, attracted by the wall beyond, which
was done in a bewitching honeycomb pattern dotted with golden bees. The
walls were hung with a few, a very few, framed pictures.

“They are all of people,” Saxon said, remembering the beautiful
paintings in Mark Hall’s bungalow.

“My windows frame my landscape paintings,” Mrs. Hale answered, pointing
out of doors. “Inside I want only the faces of my dear ones whom I
cannot have with me always. Some of them are dreadful rovers.”

“Oh!” Saxon was on her feet and looking at a photograph. “You know Clara
Hastings!”

“I ought to. I did everything but nurse her at my breast. She came to
me when she was a little baby. Her mother was my sister. Do you know
how greatly you resemble her? I remarked it to Edmund yesterday. He had
already seen it. It wasn’t a bit strange that his heart leaped out to
you two as you came drilling down behind those beautiful horses.”

So Mrs. Hale was Clara’s aunt--old stock that had crossed the Plains.
Saxon knew now why she had reminded her so strongly of her own mother.

The talk whipped quite away from Billy, who could only admire the
detailed work of the cedar desk while he listened. Saxon told of meeting
Clara and Jack Hastings on their yacht and on their driving trip in
Oregon. They were off again, Mrs. Hale said, having shipped their horses
home from Vancouver and taken the Canadian Pacific on their way to
England. Mrs. Hale knew Saxon’s mother or, rather, her poems; and
produced, not only “The Story of the Files,” but a ponderous scrapbook
which contained many of her mother’s poems which Saxon had never seen.
A sweet singer, Mrs. Hale said; but so many had sung in the days of gold
and been forgotten. There had been no army of magazines then, and the
poems had perished in local newspapers.

Jack Hastings had fallen in love with Clara, the talk ran on; then,
visiting at Trillium Covert, he had fallen in love with Sonoma Valley
and bought a magnificent home ranch, though little enough he saw of it,
being away over the world so much of the time. Mrs. Hale talked of her
own Journey across the Plains, a little girl, in the late Fifties, and,
like Mrs. Mortimer, knew all about the fight at Little Meadow, and the
tale of the massacre of the emigrant train of which Billy’s father had
been the sole survivor.

“And so,” Saxon concluded, an hour later, “we’ve been three years
searching for our valley of the moon, and now we’ve found it.”

“Valley of the Moon?” Mrs. Hale queried. “Then you knew about it all the
time. What kept you so long?”

“No; we didn’t know. We just started on a blind search for it. Mark Hall
called it a pilgrimage, and was always teasing us to carry long staffs.
He said when we found the spot we’d know, because then the staffs would
burst into blossom. He laughed at all the good things we wanted in our
valley, and one night he took me out and showed me the moon through
a telescope. He said that was the only place we could find such a
wonderful valley. He meant it was moonshine, but we adopted the name and
went on looking for it.”

“What a coincidence!” Mrs. Hale exclaimed. “For this is the Valley of
the Moon.”

“I know it,” Saxon said with quiet confidence. “It has everything we
wanted.”

“But you don’t understand, my dear. This is the Valley of the Moon. This
is Sonoma Valley. Sonoma is an Indian word, and means the Valley of the
Moon. That was what the Indians called it for untold ages before the
first white men came. We, who love it, still so call it.”

And then Saxon recalled the mysterious references Jack Hastings and
his wife had made to it, and the talk tripped along until Billy grew
restless. He cleared his throat significantly and interrupted.

“We want to find out about that ranch acrost the creek--who owns it, if
they’ll sell, where we’ll find ‘em, an’ such things.”

Mrs. Hale stood up.

“We’ll go and see Edmund,” she said, catching Saxon by the hand and
leading the way.

“My!” Billy ejaculated, towering above her. “I used to think Saxon was
small. But she’d make two of you.”

“And you’re pretty big,” the little woman smiled; “but Edmund is taller
than you, and broader-shouldered.”

They crossed a bright hall, and found the big beautiful husband lying
back reading in a huge Mission rocker. Beside it was another tiny
child’s chair of red-enameled rattan. Along the length of his thigh, the
head on his knee and directed toward a smoldering log in a fireplace,
clung an incredibly large striped cat. Like its master, it turned its
head to greet the newcomers. Again Saxon felt the loving benediction
that abided in his face, his eyes, his hands--toward which she
involuntarily dropped her eyes. Again she was impressed by the
gentleness of them. They were hands of love. They were the hands of a
type of man she had never dreamed existed. No one in that merry crowd of
Carmel had prefigured him. They were artists. This was the scholar,
the philosopher. In place of the passion of youth and all youth’s mad
revolt, was the benignance of wisdom. Those gentle hands had passed all
the bitter by and plucked only the sweet of life. Dearly as she loved
them, she shuddered to think what some of those Carmelites would be like
when they were as old as he--especially the dramatic critic and the Iron
Man.

“Here are the dear children, Edmund,” Mrs. Hale said. “What do you
think! They want to buy the Madrono Ranch. They’ve been three years
searching for it--I forgot to tell them we had searched ten years for
Trillium Covert. Tell them all about it. Surely Mr. Naismith is still of
a mind to sell!”

They seated themselves in simple massive chairs, and Mrs. Hale took the
tiny rattan beside the big Mission rocker, her slender hand curled like
a tendril in Edmund’s. And while Saxon listened to the talk, her eyes
took in the grave rooms lined with books. She began to realize how
a mere structure of wood and stone may express the spirit of him who
conceives and makes it. Those gentle hands had made all this--the very
furniture, she guessed as her eyes roved from desk to chair, from work
table to reading stand beside the bed in the other room, where stood a
green-shaded lamp and orderly piles of magazines and books.

As for the matter of Madrono Ranch, it was easy enough he was saying.
Naismith would sell. Had desired to sell for the past five years, ever
since he had engaged in the enterprise of bottling mineral water at the
springs lower down the valley. It was fortunate that he was the
owner, for about all the rest of the surrounding land was owned by a
Frenchman--an early settler. He would not part with a foot of it. He was
a peasant, with all the peasant’s love of the soil, which, in him, had
become an obsession, a disease. He was a land-miser. With no business
capacity, old and opinionated, he was land poor, and it was an open
question which would arrive first, his death or bankruptcy.

As for Madrono Ranch, Naismith owned it and had set the price at fifty
dollars an acre. That would be one thousand dollars, for there were
twenty acres. As a farming investment, using old-fashioned methods, it
was not worth it. As a business investment, yes; for the virtues of the
valley were on the eve of being discovered by the outside world, and
no better location for a summer home could be found. As a happiness
investment in joy of beauty and climate, it was worth a thousand times
the price asked. And he knew Naismith would allow time on most of the
amount. Edmund’s suggestion was that they take a two years’ lease, with
option to buy, the rent to apply to the purchase if they took it up.
Naismith had done that once with a Swiss, who had paid a monthly rental
of ten dollars. But the man’s wife had died, and he had gone away.

Edmund soon divined Billy’s renunciation, though not the nature of it;
and several questions brought it forth--the old pioneer dream of land
spaciousness; of cattle on a hundred hills; one hundred and sixty acres
of land the smallest thinkable division.

“But you don’t need all that land, dear lad,” Edmund said softly. “I
see you understand intensive farming. Have you thought about intensive
horse-raising?”

Billy’s jaw dropped at the smashing newness of the idea. He considered
it, but could see no similarity in the two processes. Unbelief leaped
into his eyes.

“You gotta show me!” he cried.

The elder man smiled gently.

“Let us see. In the first place, you don’t need those twenty acres
except for beauty. There are five acres in the meadow. You don’t need
more than two of them to make your living at selling vegetables. In
fact, you and your wife, working from daylight to dark, cannot properly
farm those two acres. Remains three acres. You have plenty of water for
it from the springs. Don’t be satisfied with one crop a year, like the
rest of the old-fashioned farmers in this valley. Farm it like
your vegetable plot, intensively, all the year, in crops that make
horse-feed, irrigating, fertilizing, rotating your crops. Those three
acres will feed as many horses as heaven knows how huge an area of
unseeded, uncared for, wasted pasture would feed. Think it over. I’ll
lend you books on the subject. I don’t know how large your crops will
be, nor do I know how much a horse eats; that’s your business. But I am
certain, with a hired man to take your place helping your wife on her
two acres of vegetables, that by the time you own the horses your three
acres will feed, you will have all you can attend to. Then it will be
time to get more land, for more horses, for more riches, if that way
happiness lie.”

Billy understood. In his enthusiasm he dashed out:

“You’re some farmer.”

Edmund smiled and glanced toward his wife.

“Give him your opinion of that, Annette.”

Her blue eyes twinkled as she complied.

“Why, the dear, he never farms. He has never farmed. But he knows.” She
waved her hand about the booklined walls. “He is a student of good. He
studies all good things done by good men under the sun. His pleasure is
in books and wood-working.”

“Don’t forget Dulcie,” Edmund gently protested.

“Yes, and Dulcie.” Annette laughed. “Dulcie is our cow. It is a great
question with Jack Hastings whether Edmund dotes more on Dulcie, or
Dulcie dotes more on Edmund. When he goes to San Francisco Dulcie is
miserable. So is Edmund, until he hastens back. Oh, Dulcie has given me
no few jealous pangs. But I have to confess he understands her as no one
else does.”

“That is the one practical subject I know by experience,” Edmund
confirmed. “I am an authority on Jersey cows. Call upon me any time for
counsel.”

He stood up and went toward his book-shelves; and they saw how
magnificently large a man he was. He paused a book in his hand, to
answer a question from Saxon. No; there were no mosquitoes, although,
one summer when the south wind blew for ten days--an unprecedented
thing--a few mosquitoes had been carried up from San Pablo Bay. As for
fog, it was the making of the valley. And where they were situated,
sheltered behind Sonoma Mountain, the fogs were almost invariably high
fogs. Sweeping in from the ocean forty miles away, they were deflected
by Sonoma Mountain and shunted high into the air. Another thing,
Trillium Covert and Madrono Ranch were happily situated in a narrow
thermal belt, so that in the frosty mornings of winter the temperature
was always several degrees higher than in the rest of the valley. In
fact, frost was very rare in the thermal belt, as was proved by the
successful cultivation of certain orange and lemon trees.

Edmund continued reading titles and selecting books until he had drawn
out quite a number. He opened the top one, Bolton Hall’s “Three Acres
and Liberty,” and read to them of a man who walked six hundred and fifty
miles a year in cultivating, by old-fashioned methods, twenty acres,
from which he harvested three thousand bushels of poor potatoes; and of
another man, a “new” farmer, who cultivated only five acres, walked two
hundred miles, and produced three thousand bushels of potatoes, early
and choice, which he sold at many times the price received by the first
man.

Saxon received the books from Edmund, and, as she heaped them in Billy’s
arms, read the titles. They were: Wickson’s “California Fruits,”
 Wickson’s “California Vegetables,” Brooks’ “Fertilizers,” Watson’s
“Farm Poultry,” King’s “Irrigation and Drainage,” Kropotkin’s “Fields,
Factories and Workshops,” and Farmer’s Bulletin No. 22 on “The Feeding
of Farm Animals.”

“Come for more any time you want them,” Edmund invited. “I have hundreds
of volumes on farming, and all the Agricultural Bulletins... . And you
must come and get acquainted with Dulcie your first spare time,” he
called after them out the door.



CHAPTER XIX

Mrs. Mortimer arrived with seed catalogs and farm books, to find Saxon
immersed in the farm books borrowed from Edmund. Saxon showed her
around, and she was delighted with everything, including the terms of
the lease and its option to buy.

“And now,” she said. “What is to be done? Sit down, both of you. This is
a council of war, and I am the one person in the world to tell you what
to do. I ought to be. Anybody who has reorganized and recatalogued a
great city library should be able to start you young people on in short
order. Now, where shall we begin?”

She paused for breath of consideration.

“First, Madrono Ranch is a bargain. I know soil, I know beauty, I
know climate. Madrono Ranch is a gold mine. There is a fortune in that
meadow. Tilth--I’ll tell you about that later. First, here’s the
land. Second, what are you going to do with it? Make a living? Yes.
Vegetables? Of course. What are you going to do with them after you have
grown them? Sell. Where?--Now listen. You must do as I did. Cut out the
middle man. Sell directly to the consumer. Drum up your own market.
Do you know what I saw from the car windows coming up the valley,
only several miles from here? Hotels, springs, summer resorts, winter
resorts--population, mouths, market. How is that market supplied? I
looked in vain for truck gardens.--Billy, harness up your horses and
be ready directly after dinner to take Saxon and me driving. Never mind
everything else. Let things stand. What’s the use of starting for a
place of which you haven’t the address. We’ll look for the address
this afternoon. Then we’ll know where we are--at.”--The last syllable a
smiling concession to Billy.

But Saxon did not accompany them. There was too much to be done in
cleaning the long-abandoned house and in preparing an arrangement for
Mrs. Mortimer to sleep. And it was long after supper time when Mrs.
Mortimer and Billy returned.

“You lucky, lucky children,” she began immediately. “This valley is just
waking up. Here’s your market. There isn’t a competitor in the valley.
I thought those resorts looked new--Caliente, Boyes Hot Springs, El
Verano, and all along the line. Then there are three little hotels in
Glen Ellen, right next door. Oh, I’ve talked with all the owners and
managers.”

“She’s a wooz,” Billy admired. “She’d brace up to God on a business
proposition. You oughta seen her.”

Mrs. Mortimer acknowledged the compliment and dashed on.

“And where do all the vegetables come from? Wagons drive down twelve to
fifteen miles from Santa Rosa, and up from Sonoma. Those are the nearest
truck farms, and when they fail, as they often do, I am told, to supply
the increasing needs, the managers have to express vegetables all
the way from San Francisco. I’ve introduced Billy. They’ve agreed to
patronize home industry. Besides, it is better for them. You’ll deliver
just as good vegetables just as cheap; you will make it a point to
deliver better, fresher vegetables; and don’t forget that delivery for
you will be cheaper by virtue of the shorter haul.

“No day-old egg stunt here. No jams nor jellies. But you’ve got lots of
space up on the bench here on which you can’t grow vegetables. To-morrow
morning I’ll help you lay out the chicken runs and houses. Besides,
there is the matter of capons for the San Francisco market. You’ll start
small. It will be a side line at first. I’ll tell you all about that,
too, and send you the literature. You must use your head. Let others
do the work. You must understand that thoroughly. The wages of
superintendence are always larger than the wages of the laborers. You
must keep books. You must know where you stand. You must know what pays
and what doesn’t and what pays best. Your books will tell that. I’ll
show you all in good time.”

“An’ think of it--all that on two acres!” Billy murmured.

Mrs. Mortimer looked at him sharply.

“Two acres your granny,” she said with asperity. “Five acres. And then
you won’t be able to supply your market. And you, my boy, as soon as
the first rains come will have your hands full and your horses weary
draining that meadow. We’ll work those plans out to-morrow Also, there
is the matter of berries on the bench here--and trellised table
grapes, the choicest. They bring the fancy prices. There will be
blackberries--Burbank’s, he lives at Santa Rosa--Loganberries, Mammoth
berries. But don’t fool with strawberries. That’s a whole occupation in
itself. They’re not vines, you know. I’ve examined the orchard. It’s a
good foundation. We’ll settle the pruning and grafts later.”

“But Billy wanted three acres of the meadow,” Saxon explained at the
first chance.

“What for?”

“To grow hay and other kinds of food for the horses he’s going to
raise.”

“Buy it out of a portion of the profits from those three acres,” Mrs.
Mortimer decided on the instant.

Billy swallowed, and again achieved renunciation.

“All right,” he said, with a brave show of cheerfulness. “Let her go. Us
for the greens.”

During the several days of Mrs. Mortimer’s visit, Billy let the two
women settle things for themselves. Oakland had entered upon a boom, and
from the West Oakland stables had come an urgent letter for more horses.
So Billy was out, early and late, scouring the surrounding country for
young work animals. In this way, at the start, he learned his valley
thoroughly. There was also a clearing out at the West Oakland stables of
mares whose feet had been knocked out on the hard city pavements, and
he was offered first choice at bargain prices. They were good animals.
He knew what they were because he knew them of old time. The soft earth
of the country, with a preliminary rest in pasture with their shoes
pulled off, would put them in shape. They would never do again on
hard-paved streets, but there were years of farm work in them. And
then there was the breeding. But he could not undertake to buy them. He
fought out the battle in secret and said nothing to Saxon.

At night, he would sit in the kitchen and smoke, listening to all that
the two women had done and planned in the day. The right kind of horses
was hard to buy, and, as he put it, it was like pulling a tooth to get a
farmer to part with one, despite the fact that he had been authorized to
increase the buying sum by as much as fifty dollars. Despite the coming
of the automobile, the price of heavy draught animals continued to rise.
From as early as Billy could remember, the price of the big work horses
had increased steadily. After the great earthquake, the price had
jumped; yet it had never gone back.

“Billy, you make more money as a horse-buyer than a common laborer,
don’t you?” Mrs. Mortimer asked. “Very well, then. You won’t have to
drain the meadow, or plow it, or anything. You keep right on buying
horses. Work with your head. But out of what you make you will please
pay the wages of one laborer for Saxon’s vegetables. It will be a good
investment, with quick returns.”

“Sure,” he agreed. “That’s all anybody hires any body for--to make money
outa ‘m. But how Saxon an’ one man are goin’ to work them five acres,
when Mr. Hale says two of us couldn’t do what’s needed on two acres, is
beyond me.”

“Saxon isn’t going to work,” Mrs. Mortimer retorted.

“Did you see me working at San Jose? Saxon is going to use her head.
It’s about time you woke up to that. A dollar and a half a day is what
is earned by persons who don’t use their heads. And she isn’t going to
be satisfied with a dollar and a half a day. Now listen. I had a long
talk with Mr. Hale this afternoon. He says there are practically no
efficient laborers to be hired in the valley.”

“I know that,” Billy interjected. “All the good men go to the cities.
It’s only the leavin’s that’s left. The good ones that stay behind ain’t
workin’ for wages.”

“Which is perfectly true, every word. Now listen, children. I knew about
it, and I spoke to Mr. Hale. He is prepared to make the arrangements for
you. He knows all about it himself, and is in touch with the Warden. In
short, you will parole two good-conduct prisoners from San Quentin; and
they will be gardeners. There are plenty of Chinese and Italians there,
and they are the best truck-farmers. You kill two birds with one stone.
You serve the poor convicts, and you serve yourselves.”

Saxon hesitated, shocked; while Billy gravely considered the question.

“You know John,” Mrs. Mortimer went on, “Mr. Hale’s man about the place?
How do you like him?”

“Oh, I was wishing only to-day that we could find somebody like him,”
 Saxon said eagerly. “He’s such a dear, faithful soul. Mrs. Hale told me
a lot of fine things about him.”

“There’s one thing she didn’t tell you,” smiled Mrs. Mortimer. “John is
a paroled convict. Twenty-eight years ago, in hot blood, he killed a
man in a quarrel over sixty-five cents. He’s been out of prison with
the Hales three years now. You remember Louis, the old Frenchman, on my
place? He’s another. So that’s settled. When your two come--of course
you will pay them fair wages--and we’ll make sure they’re the same
nationality, either Chinese or Italians--well, when they come, John,
with their help, and under Mr. Hale’s guidance, will knock together a
small cabin for them to live in. We’ll select the spot. Even so, when
your farm is in full swing you’ll have to have more outside help. So
keep your eyes open, Billy, while you’re gallivanting over the valley.”

The next night Billy failed to return, and at nine o’clock a Glen Ellen
boy on horseback delivered a telegram. Billy had sent it from Lake
County. He was after horses for Oakland.

Not until the third night did he arrive home, tired to exhaustion, but
with an ill concealed air of pride.

“Now what have you been doing these three days?” Mrs. Mortimer demanded.

“Usin’ my head,” he boasted quietly. “Killin’ two birds with one stone;
an’, take it from me, I killed a whole flock. Huh! I got word of it at
Lawndale, an’ I wanta tell you Hazel an’ Hattie was some tired when I
stabled ‘m at Calistoga an’ pulled out on the stage over St. Helena.
I was Johnny-on-the-spot, an’ I nailed ‘m--eight whoppers--the whole
outfit of a mountain teamster. Young animals, sound as a dollar, and
the lightest of ‘em over fifteen hundred. I shipped ‘m last night from
Calistoga. An’, well, that ain’t all.

“Before that, first day, at Lawndale, I seen the fellow with the teamin’
contract for the pavin’-stone quarry. Sell horses! He wanted to buy ‘em.
He wanted to buy ‘em bad. He’d even rent ‘em, he said.”

“And you sent him the eight you bought!” Saxon broke in.

“Guess again. I bought them eight with Oakland money, an’ they was
shipped to Oakland. But I got the Lawndale contractor on long distance,
and he agreed to pay me half a dollar a day rent for every work horse up
to half a dozen. Then I telegraphed the Boss, tellin’ him to ship me six
sore-footed mares, Bud Strothers to make the choice, an’ to charge to my
commission. Bud knows what I ‘m after. Soon as they come, off go their
shoes. Two weeks in pasture, an’ then they go to Lawndale. They can do
the work. It’s a down-hill haul to the railroad on a dirt road. Half a
dollar rent each--that’s three dollars a day they’ll bring me six days a
week. I don’t feed ‘em, shoe ‘m, or nothin’, an’ I keep an eye on ‘m to
see they’re treated right. Three bucks a day, eh! Well, I guess that’ll
keep a couple of dollar-an ‘-a-half men goin’ for Saxon, unless she
works ‘em Sundays. Huh! The Valley of the Moon! Why, we’ll be wearin’
diamonds before long. Gosh! A fellow could live in the city a thousan’
years an’ not get such chances. It beats China lottery.”

He stood up.

“I ‘m goin’ out to water Hazel an’ Hattie, feed ‘m, an’ bed ‘m down.
I’ll eat soon as I come back.”

The two women were regarding each other with shining eyes, each on the
verge of speech when Billy returned to the door and stuck his head in.

“They’s one thing maybe you ain’t got,” he said. “I pull down them three
dollars every day; but the six mares is mine, too. I own ‘m. They’re
mine. Are you on?”



CHAPTER XX

“I’m not done with you children,” had been Mrs. Mortimer’s parting
words; and several times that winter she ran up to advise, and to teach
Saxon how to calculate her crops for the small immediate market, for the
increasing spring market, and for the height of summer, at which time
she would be able to sell all she could possibly grow and then not
supply the demand. In the meantime, Hazel and Hattie were used every
odd moment in hauling manure from Glen Ellen, whose barnyards had never
known such a thorough cleaning. Also there were loads of commercial
fertilizer from the railroad station, bought under Mrs. Mortimer’s
instructions.

The convicts paroled were Chinese. Both had served long in prison, and
were old men; but the day’s work they were habitually capable of won
Mrs. Mortimer’s approval. Gow Yum, twenty years before, had had charge
of the vegetable garden of one of the great Menlo Park estates. His
disaster had come in the form of a fight over a game of fan tan in the
Chinese quarter at Redwood City. His companion, Chan Chi, had been
a hatchet-man of note, in the old fighting days of the San Francisco
tongs. But a quarter of century of discipline in the prison vegetable
gardens had cooled his blood and turned his hand from hatchet to hoe.
These two assistants had arrived in Glen Ellen like precious goods
in bond and been receipted for by the local deputy sheriff, who, in
addition, reported on them to the prison authorities each month. Saxon,
too, made out a monthly report and sent it in.

As for the danger of their cutting her throat, she quickly got over the
idea of it. The mailed hand of the State hovered over them. The taking
of a single drink of liquor would provoke that hand to close down and
jerk them back to prison-cells. Nor had they freedom of movement. When
old Gow Yum needed to go to San Francisco to sign certain papers
before the Chinese Consul, permission had first to be obtained from
San Quentin. Then, too, neither man was nasty tempered. Saxon had been
apprehensive of the task of bossing two desperate convicts; but when
they came she found it a pleasure to work with them. She could tell them
what to do, but it was they who knew how to do. From them she learned all
the ten thousand tricks and quirks of artful gardening, and she was not
long in realizing how helpless she would have been had she depended on
local labor.

Still further, she had no fear, because she was not alone. She had
been using her head. It was quickly apparent to her that she could not
adequately oversee the outside work and at the same time do the house
work. She wrote to Ukiah to the energetic widow who had lived in the
adjoining house and taken in washing. She had promptly closed with
Saxon’s offer. Mrs. Paul was forty, short in stature, and weighed two
hundred pounds, but never wearied on her feet. Also she was devoid of
fear, and, according to Billy, could settle the hash of both Chinese
with one of her mighty arms. Mrs. Paul arrived with her son, a country
lad of sixteen who knew horses and could milk Hilda, the pretty Jersey
which had successfully passed Edmund’s expert eye. Though Mrs. Paul ably
handled the house, there was one thing Saxon insisted on doing--namely,
washing her own pretty flimsies.

“When I ‘m no longer able to do that,” she told Billy, “you can take
a spade to that clump of redwoods beside Wild Water and dig a hole. It
will be time to bury me.”

It was early in the days of Madrono Ranch, at the time of Mrs.
Mortimer’s second visit, that Billy drove in with a load of pipe; and
house, chicken yards, and barn were piped from the second-hand tank he
installed below the house-spring.

“Huh! I guess I can use my head,” he said. “I watched a woman over on
the other side of the valley, packin’ water two hundred feet from the
spring to the house; an’ I did some figurin’. I put it at three trips a
day and on wash days a whole lot more; an’ you can’t guess what I made
out she traveled a year packin’ water. One hundred an’ twenty-two miles.
D’ye get that? One hundred and twenty-two miles! I asked her how long
she’d been there. Thirty-one years. Multiply it for yourself. Three
thousan’, seven hundred an’ eighty-two miles--all for the sake of two
hundred feet of pipe. Wouldn’t that jar you?”

“Oh, I ain’t done yet. They’s a bath-tub an’ stationary tubs a-comin’
soon as I can see my way. An’, say, Saxon, you know that little clear
flat just where Wild Water runs into Sonoma. They’s all of an acre of
it. An’ it’s mine! Got that? An’ no walkin’ on the grass for you. It’ll
be my grass. I ‘m goin’ up stream a ways an’ put in a ram. I got a big
second-hand one staked out that I can get for ten dollars, an’ it’ll
pump more water’n I need. An’ you’ll see alfalfa growin’ that’ll make
your mouth water. I gotta have another horse to travel around on. You’re
usin’ Hazel an’ Hattie too much to give me a chance; an’ I’ll never see
‘m as soon as you start deliverin’ vegetables. I guess that alfalfa’ll
help some to keep another horse goin’.”

But Billy was destined for a time to forget his alfalfa in the
excitement of bigger ventures. First, came trouble. The several
hundred dollars he had arrived with in Sonoma Valley, and all his own
commissions since earned, had gone into improvements and living. The
eighteen dollars a week rental for his six horses at Lawndale went to
pay wages. And he was unable to buy the needed saddle-horse for his
horse-buying expeditions. This, however, he had got around by again
using his head and killing two birds with one stone. He began breaking
colts to drive, and in the driving drove them wherever he sought horses.

So far all was well. But a new administration in San Francisco, pledged
to economy, had stopped all street work. This meant the shutting down of
the Lawndale quarry, which was one of the sources of supply for paving
blocks. The six horses would not only be back on his hands, but he would
have to feed them. How Mrs. Paul, Gow Yum, and Chan Chi were to be paid
was beyond him.

“I guess we’ve bit off more’n we could chew,” he admitted to Saxon.

That night he was late in coming home, but brought with him a radiant
face. Saxon was no less radiant.

“It’s all right,” she greeted him, coming out to the barn where he was
unhitching a tired but fractious colt. “I’ve talked with all three. They
see the situation, and are perfectly willing to let their wages stand a
while. By another week I start Hazel and Hattie delivering vegetables.
Then the money will pour in from the hotels and my books won’t look
so lopsided. And--oh, Billy--you’d never guess. Old Gow Yum has a bank
account. He came to me afterward--I guess he was thinking it over--and
offered to lend me four hundred dollars. What do you think of that?”

“That I ain’t goin’ to be too proud to borrow it off ‘m, if he IS a
Chink. He’s a white one, an’ maybe I’ll need it. Because, you see--well,
you can’t guess what I’ve been up to since I seen you this mornin’. I’ve
been so busy I ain’t had a bite to eat.”

“Using your head?” She laughed.

“You can call it that,” he joined in her laughter. “I’ve been spendin’
money like water.”

“But you haven’t got any to spend,” she objected.

“I’ve got credit in this valley, I’ll let you know,” he replied. “An’ I
sure strained it some this afternoon. Now guess.”

“A saddle-horse?”

He roared with laughter, startling the colt, which tried to bolt and
lifted him half off the ground by his grip on its frightened nose and
neck.

“Oh, I mean real guessin’,” he urged, when the animal had dropped back
to earth and stood regarding him with trembling suspicion.

“Two saddle-horses?”

“Aw, you ain’t got imagination. I’ll tell you. You know Thiercroft. I
bought his big wagon from ‘m for sixty dollars. I bought a wagon from
the Kenwood blacksmith--so-so, but it’ll do--for forty-five dollars. An’
I bought Ping’s wagon--a peach--for sixty-five dollars. I could a-got it
for fifty if he hadn’t seen I wanted it bad.”

“But the money?” Saxon questioned faintly. “You hadn’t a hundred dollars
left.”

“Didn’t I tell you I had credit? Well, I have. I stood ‘m off for them
wagons. I ain’t spent a cent of cash money to-day except for a
couple of long-distance switches. Then I bought three sets of
work-harness--they’re chain harness an’ second-hand--for twenty dollars
a set. I bought ‘m from the fellow that’s doin’ the haulin’ for the
quarry. He don’t need ‘m any more. An’ I rented four wagons from ‘m,
an’ four span of horses, too, at half a dollar a day for each horse,
an’ half a dollar a day for each wagon--that’s six dollars a day rent
I gotta pay ‘m. The three sets of spare harness is for my six horses.
Then... lemme see... yep, I rented two barns in Glen Ellen, an’ I
ordered fifty tons of hay an’ a carload of bran an’ barley from the
store in Glenwood--you see, I gotta feed all them fourteen horses, an’
shoe ‘m, an’ everything.

“Oh, sure Pete, I’ve went some. I hired seven men to go drivin’ for me
at two dollars a day, an’--ouch! Jehosaphat! What you doin’!”

“No,” Saxon said gravely, having pinched him, “you’re not dreaming.”
 She felt his pulse and forehead. “Not a sign of fever.” She sniffed
his breath. “And you’ve not been drinking. Go on, tell me the rest of
this... whatever it is.”

“Ain’t you satisfied?”

“No. I want more. I want all.”

“All right. But I just want you to know, first, that the boss I used to
work for in Oakland ain’t got nothin’ on me. I ‘m some man of affairs,
if anybody should ride up on a vegetable wagon an’ ask you. Now, I ‘m
goin’ to tell you, though I can’t see why the Glen Ellen folks didn’t
beat me to it. I guess they was asleep. Nobody’d a-overlooked a thing
like it in the city. You see, it was like this: you know that fancy
brickyard they’re gettin’ ready to start for makin’ extra special fire
brick for inside walls? Well, here was I worryin’ about the six horses
comin’ back on my hands, earnin’ me nothin’ an’ eatin’ me into the
poorhouse. I had to get ‘m work somehow, an’ I remembered the brickyard.
I drove the colt down an’ talked with that Jap chemist who’s been doin’
the experimentin’. Gee! They was foremen lookin’ over the ground an’
everything gettin’ ready to hum. I looked over the lay an’ studied it.
Then I drove up to where they’re openin’ the clay pit--you know, that
fine, white chalky stuff we saw ‘em borin’ out just outside the hundred
an’ forty acres with the three knolls. It’s a down-hill haul, a mile,
an’ two horses can do it easy. In fact, their hardest job’ll be haulin’
the empty wagons up to the pit. Then I tied the colt an’ went to
figurin’.

“The Jap professor’d told me the manager an’ the other big guns of the
company was comin’ up on the mornin’ train. I wasn’t shoutin’ things
out to anybody, but I just made myself into a committee of welcome; an’,
when the train pulled in, there I was, extendin’ the glad hand of the
burg--likewise the glad hand of a guy you used to know in Oakland once,
a third-rate dub prizefighter by the name of--lemme see--yep, I got
it right--Big Bill Roberts was the name he used to sport, but now he’s
known as William Roberts, E. S. Q.

“Well, as I was sayin’, I gave ‘m the glad hand, an’ trailed along with
‘em to the brickyard, an’ from the talk I could see things was doin’.
Then I watched my chance an’ sprung my proposition. I was scared stiff
all the time for maybe the teamin’ was already arranged. But I knew it
wasn’t when they asked for my figures. I had ‘m by heart, an’ I rattled
‘m off, and the top-guy took ‘m down in his note-book.

“‘We’re goin’ into this big, an’ at once,’ he says, lookin’ at me sharp.
‘What kind of an outfit you got, Mr. Roberts?’”

“Me!--with only Hazel an’ Hattie, an’ them too small for heavy teamin’.

“‘I can slap fourteen horses an’ seven wagons onto the job at the jump,’
says I. ‘An’ if you want more, I’ll get ‘m, that’s all.’

“‘Give us fifteen minutes to consider, Mr. Roberts,’ he says.

“‘Sure,’ says I, important as all hell--ahem--me!--‘but a couple of
other things first. I want a two year contract, an’ them figures all
depends on one thing. Otherwise they don’t go.’

“‘What’s that,’ he says.

“‘The dump,’ says I. ‘Here we are on the ground, an’ I might as well
show you.’

“An’ I did. I showed ‘m where I’d lose out if they stuck to their plan,
on account of the dip down an’ pull up to the dump. ‘All you gotta do,’
I says, ‘is to build the bunkers fifty feet over, throw the road around
the rim of the hill, an’ make about seventy or eighty feet of elevated
bridge.’

“Say, Saxon, that kind of talk got ‘em. It was straight. Only they’d
been thinkin’ about bricks, while I was only thinkin’ of teamin’.

“I guess they was all of half an hour considerin’, an’ I was almost as
miserable waitin’ as when I waited for you to say yes after I asked you.
I went over the figures, calculatin’ what I could throw off if I had
to. You see, I’d given it to ‘em stiff--regular city prices; an’ I was
prepared to trim down. Then they come back.

“‘Prices oughta be lower in the country,’ says the top-guy.

“‘Nope,’ I says. ‘This is a wine-grape valley. It don’t raise enough
hay an’ feed for its own animals. It has to be shipped in from the San
Joaquin Valley. Why, I can buy hay an’ feed cheaper in San Francisco,
laid down, than I can here an’ haul it myself.’

“An’ that struck ‘m hard. It was true, an’ they knew it. But--say! If
they’d asked about wages for drivers, an’ about horse-shoein’ prices,
I’d a-had to come down; because, you see, they ain’t no teamsters’ union
in the country, an’ no horseshoers’ union, an’ rent is low, an’ them two
items come a whole lot cheaper. Huh! This afternoon I got a word bargain
with the blacksmith across from the post office; an’ he takes my whole
bunch an’ throws off twenty-five cents on each shoein’, though it’s on
the Q. T. But they didn’t think to ask, bein’ too full of bricks.”

Billy felt in his breast pocket, drew out a legal-looking document, and
handed it to Saxon.

“There it is,” he said, “the contract, full of all the agreements,
prices, an’ penalties. I saw Mr. Hale down town an’ showed it to ‘m.
He says it’s O.K. An’ say, then I lit out. All over town, Kenwood,
Lawndale, everywhere, everybody, everything. The quarry teamin’ finishes
Friday of this week. An’ I take the whole outfit an’ start Wednesday of
next week haulin’ lumber for the buildin’s, an’ bricks for the kilns,
an’ all the rest. An’ when they’re ready for the clay I ‘m the boy
that’ll give it to them.

“But I ain’t told you the best yet. I couldn’t get the switch right
away from Kenwood to Lawndale, and while I waited I went over my figures
again. You couldn’t guess it in a million years. I’d made a mistake in
addition somewhere, an’ soaked ‘m ten per cent. more’n I’d expected.
Talk about findin’ money! Any time you want them couple of extra men to
help out with the vegetables, say the word. Though we’re goin’ to have
to pinch the next couple of months. An’ go ahead an’ borrow that four
hundred from Gow Yum. An’ tell him you’ll pay eight per cent. interest,
an’ that we won’t want it more ‘n three or four months.”

When Billy got away from Saxon’s arms, he started leading the colt up
and down to cool it off. He stopped so abruptly that his back collided
with the colt’s nose, and there was a lively minute of rearing and
plunging. Saxon waited, for she knew a fresh idea had struck Billy.

“Say,” he said, “do you know anything about bank accounts and drawin’
checks?”



CHAPTER XXI

It was on a bright June morning that Billy told Saxon to put on her
riding clothes to try out a saddle-horse.

“Not until after ten o’clock,” she said. “By that time I’ll have the
wagon off on a second trip.”

Despite the extent of the business she had developed, her executive
ability and system gave her much spare time. She could call on the
Hales, which was ever a delight, especially now that the Hastings
were back and that Clara was often at her aunt’s. In this congenial
atmosphere Saxon burgeoned. She had begun to read--to read with
understanding; and she had time for her books, for work on her pretties,
and for Billy, whom she accompanied on many expeditions.

Billy was even busier than she, his work being more scattered and
diverse. And, as well, he kept his eye on the home barn and horses
which Saxon used. In truth he had become a man of affairs, though Mrs.
Mortimer had gone over his accounts, with an eagle eye on the expense
column, discovering several minor leaks, and finally, aided by Saxon,
bullied him into keeping books. Each night, after supper, he and Saxon
posted their books. Afterward, in the big morris chair he had insisted
on buying early in the days of his brickyard contract, Saxon would creep
into his arms and strum on the ukulele; or they would talk long about
what they were doing and planning to do. Now it would be:

“I’m mixin’ up in politics, Saxon. It pays. You bet it pays. If by next
spring I ain’t got a half a dozen teams workin’ on the roads an’ pullin’
down the county money, it’s me back to Oakland an’ askin’ the Boss for a
job.”

Or, Saxon: “They’re really starting that new hotel between Caliente and
Eldridge. And there’s some talk of a big sanitarium back in the hills.”

Or, it would be: “Billy, now that you’ve piped that acre, you’ve just
got to let me have it for my vegetables. I’ll rent it from you. I’ll
take your own estimate for all the alfalfa you can raise on it, and pay
you full market price less the cost of growing it.”

“It’s all right, take it.” Billy suppressed a sigh. “Besides, I ‘m too
busy to fool with it now.”

Which prevarication was bare-faced, by virtue of his having just
installed the ram and piped the land.

“It will be the wisest, Billy,” she soothed, for she knew his dream of
land-spaciousness was stronger than ever. “You don’t want to fool with
an acre. There’s that hundred and forty. We’ll buy it yet if old Chavon
ever dies. Besides, it really belongs to Madrono Ranch. The two together
were the original quarter section.”

“I don’t wish no man’s death,” Billy grumbled. “But he ain’t gettin’
no good out of it, over-pasturin’ it with a lot of scrub animals. I’ve
sized it up every inch of it. They’s at least forty acres in the three
cleared fields, with water in the hills behind to beat the band. The
horse feed I could raise on it’d take your breath away. Then they’s at
least fifty acres I could run my brood mares on, pasture mixed up with
trees and steep places and such. The other fifty’s just thick woods, an’
pretty places, an’ wild game. An’ that old adobe barn’s all right. With
a new roof it’d shelter any amount of animals in bad weather. Look at me
now, rentin’ that measly pasture back of Ping’s just to run my restin’
animals. They could run in the hundred an’ forty if I only had it. I
wonder if Chavon would lease it.”

Or, less ambitious, Billy would say: “I gotta skin over to Petaluma
to-morrow, Saxon. They’s an auction on the Atkinson Ranch an’ maybe I
can pick up some bargains.”

“More horses!”

“Ain’t I got two teams haulin’ lumber for the new winery? An’ Barney’s
got a bad shoulder-sprain. He’ll have to lay off a long time if he’s to
get it in shape. An’ Bridget ain’t ever goin’ to do a tap of work again.
I can see that stickin’ out. I’ve doctored her an’ doctored her. She’s
fooled the vet, too. An’ some of the other horses has gotta take a rest.
That span of grays is showin’ the hard work. An’ the big roan’s goin’
loco. Everybody thought it was his teeth, but it ain’t. It’s straight
loco. It’s money in pocket to take care of your animals, an’ horses is
the delicatest things on four legs. Some time, if I can ever see my way
to it, I ‘m goin’ to ship a carload of mules from Colusa County--big,
heavy ones, you know. They’d sell like hot cakes in the valley
here--them I didn’t want for myself.”

Or, in lighter vein, Billy: “By the way, Saxon, talkin’ of accounts,
what d’you think Hazel an’ Hattie is worth?--fair market price?”

“Why?”

“I ‘m askin’ you.”

“Well, say, what you paid for them--three hundred dollars.”

“Hum.” Billy considered deeply. “They’re worth a whole lot more, but let
it go at that. An’ now, gettin’ back to accounts, suppose you write me a
check for three hundred dollars.”

“Oh! Robber!”

“You can’t show me. Why, Saxon, when I let you have grain an’ hay from
my carloads, don’t you give me a check for it? An’ you know how you’re
stuck on keepin’ your accounts down to the penny,” he teased. “If you’re
any kind of a business woman you just gotta charge your business with
them two horses. I ain’t had the use of ‘em since I don’t know when.”

“But the colts will be yours,” she argued. “Besides, I can’t afford
brood mares in my business. In almost no time, now, Hazel and Hattie
will have to be taken off from the wagon--they’re too good for it
anyway. And you keep your eyes open for a pair to take their place. I’ll
give you a check for THAT pair, but no commission.”

“All right,” Billy conceded. “Hazel an’ Hattie come back to me; but you
can pay me rent for the time you did use ‘em.”

“If you make me, I’ll charge you board,” she threatened.

“An’ if you charge me board, I’ll charge you interest for the money I’ve
stuck into this shebang.”

“You can’t,” Saxon laughed. “It’s community property.”

He grunted spasmodically, as if the breath had been knocked out of him.

“Straight on the solar plexus,” he said, “an’ me down for the count. But
say, them’s sweet words, ain’t they--community property.” He rolled them
over and off his tongue with keen relish. “An’ when we got married
the top of our ambition was a steady job an’ some rags an’ sticks
of furniture all paid up an’ half-worn out. We wouldn’t have had any
community property only for you.”

“What nonsense! What could I have done by myself? You know very well
that you earned all the money that started us here. You paid the wages
of Gow Yum and Chan Chi, and old Hughie, and Mrs. Paul, and--why, you’ve
done it all.”

She drew her two hands caressingly across his shoulders and down along
his great biceps muscles.

“That’s what did it, Billy.”

“Aw hell! It’s your head that done it. What was my muscles good for with
no head to run ‘em,--sluggin’ scabs, beatin’ up lodgers, an’ crookin’
the elbow over a bar. The only sensible thing my head ever done was when
it run me into you. Honest to God, Saxon, you’ve been the makin’ of me.”

“Aw hell, Billy,” she mimicked in the way that delighted him, “where
would I have been if you hadn’t taken me out of the laundry? I couldn’t
take myself out. I was just a helpless girl. I’d have been there yet if
it hadn’t been for you. Mrs. Mortimer had five thousand dollars; but I
had you.”

“A woman ain’t got the chance to help herself that a man has,” he
generalized. “I’ll tell you what: It took the two of us. It’s been
team-work. We’ve run in span. If we’d a-run single, you might still be
in the laundry; an’, if I was lucky, I’d be still drivin’ team by the
day an’ sportin’ around to cheap dances.”


Saxon stood under the father of all madronos, watching Hazel and Hattie
go out the gate, the full vegetable wagon behind them, when she saw
Billy ride in, leading a sorrel mare from whose silken coat the sun
flashed golden lights.

“Four-year-old, high-life, a handful, but no vicious tricks,” Billy
chanted, as he stopped beside Saxon. “Skin like tissue paper, mouth like
silk, but kill the toughest broncho ever foaled--look at them lungs an’
nostrils. They call her Ramona--some Spanish name: sired by Morellita
outa genuine Morgan stock.”

“And they will sell her?” Saxon gasped, standing with hands clasped in
inarticulate delight.

“That’s what I brought her to show you for.”

“But how much must they want for her?” was Saxon’s next question, so
impossible did it seem that such an amazement of horse-flesh could ever
be hers.

“That ain’t your business,” Billy answered brusquely. “The brickyard’s
payin’ for her, not the vegetable ranch. She’s yourn at the word. What
d’ye say?”


“I’ll tell you in a minute.”

Saxon was trying to mount, but the animal danced nervously away.

“Hold on till I tie,” Billy said. “She ain’t skirt-broke, that’s the
trouble.”

Saxon tightly gripped reins and mane, stepped with spurred foot on
Billy’s hand, and was lifted lightly into the saddle.

“She’s used to spurs,” Billy called after. “Spanish broke, so don’t
check her quick. Come in gentle. An’ talk to her. She’s high-life, you
know.”

Saxon nodded, dashed out the gate and down the road, waved a hand to
Clara Hastings as she passed the gate of Trillium Covert, and continued
up Wild Water canyon.

When she came back, Ramona in a pleasant lather, Saxon rode to the rear
of the house, past the chicken houses and the flourishing berry-rows,
to join Billy on the rim of the bench, where he sat on his horse in the
shade, smoking a cigarette. Together they looked down through an
opening among the trees to the meadow which was a meadow no longer. With
mathematical accuracy it was divided into squares, oblongs, and narrow
strips, which displayed sharply the thousand hues of green of a truck
garden. Gow Yum and Chan Chi, under enormous Chinese grass hats, were
planting green onions. Old Hughie, hoe in hand, plodded along the main
artery of running water, opening certain laterals, closing others. From
the work-shed beyond the barn the strokes of a hammer told Saxon that
Carlsen was wire-binding vegetable boxes. Mrs. Paul’s cheery soprano,
lifted in a hymn, floated through the trees, accompanied by the whirr of
an egg-beater. A sharp barking told where Possum still waged hysterical
and baffled war on the Douglass squirrels. Billy took a long draw from
his cigarette, exhaled the smoke, and continued to look down at the
meadow. Saxon divined trouble in his manner. His rein-hand was on the
pommel, and her free hand went out and softly rested on his. Billy
turned his slow gaze upon her mare’s lather, seeming not to note it, and
continued on to Saxon’s face.

“Huh!” he equivocated, as if waking up. “Them San Leandro Porchugeeze
ain’t got nothin’ on us when it comes to intensive farmin’. Look at that
water runnin’. You know, it seems so good to me that sometimes I just
wanta get down on hands an’ knees an’ lap it all up myself.”

“Oh, to have all the water you want in a climate like this!” Saxon
exclaimed.

“An’ don’t be scared of it ever goin’ back on you. If the rains fooled
you, there’s Sonoma Creek alongside. All we gotta do is install a
gasolene pump.”

“But we’ll never have to, Billy. I was talking with ‘Redwood’ Thompson.
He’s lived in the valley since Fifty-three, and he says there’s never
been a failure of crops on account of drought. We always get our rain.”

“Come on, let’s go for a ride,” he said abruptly. “You’ve got the time.”

“All right, if you’ll tell me what’s bothering you.”

He looked at her quickly.

“Nothin’,” he grunted. “Yes, there is, too. What’s the difference? You’d
know it sooner or later. You ought to see old Chavon. His face is that
long he can’t walk without bumpin’ his knee on his chin. His gold-mine’s
peterin’ out.”

“Gold mine!”

“His clay pit. It’s the same thing. He’s gettin’ twenty cents a yard for
it from the brickyard.”

“And that means the end of your teaming contract.” Saxon saw the
disaster in all its hugeness. “What about the brickyard people?”

“Worried to death, though they’ve kept secret about it. They’ve had men
out punchin’ holes all over the hills for a week, an’ that Jap chemist
settin’ up nights analyzin’ the rubbish they’ve brought in. It’s
peculiar stuff, that clay, for what they want it for, an’ you don’t find
it everywhere. Them experts that reported on Chavon’s pit made one
hell of a mistake. Maybe they was lazy with their borin’s. Anyway,
they slipped up on the amount of clay they was in it. Now don’t get to
botherin’. It’d come out somehow. You can’t do nothin’.”

“But I can,” Saxon insisted. “We won’t buy Ramona.”

“You ain’t got a thing to do with that,” he answered. “I ‘m buyin’ her,
an’ her price don’t cut any figure alongside the big game I ‘m playin’.
Of course, I can always sell my horses. But that puts a stop to their
makin’ money, an’ that brickyard contract was fat.”

“But if you get some of them in on the road work for the county?” she
suggested.

“Oh, I got that in mind. An’ I ‘m keepin’ my eyes open. They’s a chance
the quarry will start again, an’ the fellow that did that teamin’ has
gone to Puget Sound. An’ what if I have to sell out most of the horses?
Here’s you and the vegetable business. That’s solid. We just don’t go
ahead so fast for a time, that’s all. I ain’t scared of the country any
more. I sized things up as we went along. They ain’t a jerk burg we hit
all the time on the road that I couldn’t jump into an’ make a go. An’
now where d’you want to ride?”



CHAPTER XXII

They cantered out the gate, thundered across the bridge, and passed
Trillium Covert before they pulled in on the grade of Wild Water Canyon.
Saxon had chosen her field on the big spur of Sonoma Mountains as the
objective of their ride.

“Say, I bumped into something big this mornin’ when I was goin’ to fetch
Ramona,” Billy said, the clay pit trouble banished for the time. “You
know the hundred an’ forty. I passed young Chavon along the road, an’--I
don’t know why--just for ducks, I guess--I up an’ asked ‘m if he thought
the old man would lease the hundred an’ forty to me. An’ what d ‘you
think! He said the old man didn’t own it. Was just leasin’ it himself.
That’s how we was always seein’ his cattle on it. It’s a gouge into his
land, for he owns everything on three sides of it.

“Next I met Ping. He said Hilyard owned it an’ was willin’ to sell, only
Chavon didn’t have the price. Then, comin’ back, I looked in on Payne.
He’s quit blacksmithin’--his back’s hurtin’ ‘m from a kick--an’ just
startin’ in for real estate. Sure, he said, Hilyard would sell, an’ had
already listed the land with ‘m. Chavon’s over-pastured it, an’ Hilyard
won’t give ‘m another lease.”

When they had climbed out of Wild Water Canyon they turned their horses
about and halted on the rim where they could look across at the three
densely wooded knolls in the midst of the desired hundred and forty.

“We’ll get it yet,” Saxon said.

“Sure we will,” Billy agreed with careless certitude. “I’ve ben lookin’
over the big adobe barn again. Just the thing for a raft of horses, an’
a new roof’ll be cheaper ‘n I thought. Though neither Chavon or me’ll be
in the market to buy it right away, with the clay pinchin’ out.”


When they reached Saxon’s field, which they had learned was the property
of Redwood Thompson, they tied the horses and entered it on foot. The
hay, just cut, was being raked by Thompson, who hallo’d a greeting to
them. It was a cloudless, windless day, and they sought refuge from the
sun in the woods beyond. They encountered a dim trail.

“It’s a cow trail,” Billy declared. “I bet they’s a teeny pasture tucked
away somewhere in them trees. Let’s follow it.”

A quarter of an hour later, several hundred feet up the side of the
spur, they emerged on an open, grassy space of bare hillside. Most of
the hundred and forty, two miles away, lay beneath them, while they were
level with the tops of the three knolls. Billy paused to gaze upon the
much-desired land, and Saxon joined him.

“What is that?” she asked, pointing toward the knolls. “Up the little
canyon, to the left of it, there on the farthest knoll, right under that
spruce that’s leaning over.”

What Billy saw was a white scar on the canyon wall.

“It’s one on me,” he said, studying the scar. “I thought I knew every
inch of that land, but I never seen that before. Why, I was right in
there at the head of the canyon the first part of the winter. It’s awful
wild. Walls of the canyon like the sides of a steeple an’ covered with
thick woods.”

“What is it?” she asked. “A slide?”

“Must be--brought down by the heavy rains. If I don’t miss my guess--”
 Billy broke off, forgetting in the intensity with which he continued to
look.

“Hilyard’ll sell for thirty an acre,” he began again, disconnectedly.
“Good land, bad land, an’ all, just as it runs, thirty an acre. That’s
forty-two hundred. Payne’s new at real estate, an’ I’ll make ‘m split
his commission an’ get the easiest terms ever. We can re-borrow that
four hundred from Gow Yum, an’ I can borrow money on my horses an’
wagons--”

“Are you going to buy it to-day?” Saxon teased.

She scarcely touched the edge of his thought. He looked at her, as if he
had heard, then forgot her the next moment.

“Head work,” he mumbled. “Head work. If I don’t put over a hot one--”

He started back down the cow trail, recollected Saxon, and called over
his shoulder:

“Come on. Let’s hustle. I wanta ride over an’ look at that.”

So rapidly did he go down the trail and across the field, that Saxon had
no time for questions. She was almost breathless from her effort to keep
up with him.

“What is it?” she begged, as he lifted her to the saddle.

“Maybe it’s all a joke--I’ll tell you about it afterward,” he put her
off.

They galloped on the levels, trotted down the gentler slopes of road,
and not until on the steep descent of Wild Water canyon did they rein
to a walk. Billy’s preoccupation was gone, and Saxon took advantage to
broach a subject which had been on her mind for some time.

“Clara Hastings told me the other day that they’re going to have a
house party. The Hazards are to be there, and the Halls, and Roy
Blanchard....”

She looked at Billy anxiously. At the mention of Blanchard his head had
tossed up as to a bugle call. Slowly a whimsical twinkle began to glint
up through the cloudy blue of his eyes.

“It’s a long time since you told any man he was standing on his foot,”
 she ventured slyly.

Billy began to grin sheepishly.

“Aw, that’s all right,” he said in mock-lordly fashion. “Roy Blanchard
can come. I’ll let ‘m. All that was a long time ago. Besides, I ‘m too
busy to fool with such things.”

He urged his horse on at a faster walk, and as soon as the slope
lessened broke into a trot. At Trillium Covert they were galloping.

“You’ll have to stop for dinner first,” Saxon said, as they neared the
gate of Madrono Ranch.

“You stop,” he answered. “I don’t want no dinner.”

“But I want to go with you,” she pleaded. “What is it?”

“I don’t dast tell you. You go on in an’ get your dinner.”

“Not after that,” she said. “Nothing can keep me from coming along now.”

Half a mile farther on, they left the highway, passed through a patent
gate which Billy had installed, and crossed the fields on a road
which was coated thick with chalky dust. This was the road that led to
Chavon’s clay pit. The hundred and forty lay to the west. Two wagons, in
a cloud of dust, came into sight.

“Your teams, Billy,” cried Saxon. “Think of it! Just by the use of the
head, earning your money while you’re riding around with me.”

“Makes me ashamed to think how much cash money each one of them teams is
bringin’ me in every day,” he acknowledged.

They were turning off from the road toward the bars which gave entrance
to the one hundred and forty, when the driver of the foremost wagon
hallo’d and waved his hand. They drew in their horses and waited.

“The big roan’s broke loose,” the driver said, as he stopped beside them.
“Clean crazy loco--bitin’, squealin’, strikin’, kickin’. Kicked clean
out of the harness like it was paper. Bit a chunk out of Baldy the
size of a saucer, an’ wound up by breakin’ his own hind leg. Liveliest
fifteen minutes I ever seen.”

“Sure it’s broke?” Billy demanded sharply.

“Sure thing.”

“Well, after you unload, drive around by the other barn and get Ben.
He’s in the corral. Tell Matthews to be easy with ‘m. An’ get a gun.
Sammy’s got one. You’ll have to see to the big roan. I ain’t got time
now.--Why couldn’t Matthews a-come along with you for Ben? You’d save
time.”

“Oh, he’s just stickin’ around waitin’,” the driver answered. “He
reckoned I could get Ben.”

“An’ lose time, eh? Well, get a move on.”

“That’s the way of it,” Billy growled to Saxon as they rode on. “No
savve. No head. One man settin’ down an’ holdin his hands while another
team drives outa its way doin what he oughta done. That’s the trouble
with two-dollar-a-day men.”

“With two-dollar-a-day heads,” Saxon said quickly. “What kind of heads
do you expect for two dollars?”

“That’s right, too,” Billy acknowledged the hit. “If they had better
heads they’d be in the cities like all the rest of the better men.
An’ the better men are a lot of dummies, too. They don’t know the big
chances in the country, or you couldn’t hold ‘m from it.”

Billy dismounted, took the three bars down, led his horse through, then
put up the bars.

“When I get this place, there’ll be a gate here,” he announced. “Pay
for itself in no time. It’s the thousan’ an’ one little things like this
that count up big when you put ‘m together.” He sighed contentedly. “I
never used to think about such things, but when we shook Oakland I began
to wise up. It was them San Leandro Porchugeeze that gave me my first
eye-opener. I’d been asleep, before that.”

They skirted the lower of the three fields where the ripe hay stood
uncut. Billy pointed with eloquent disgust to a break in the fence,
slovenly repaired, and on to the standing grain much-trampled by cattle.

“Them’s the things,” he criticized. “Old style. An’ look how thin
that crop is, an’ the shallow plowin’. Scrub cattle, scrub seed, scrub
farmin’. Chavon’s worked it for eight years now, an’ never rested it
once, never put anything in for what he took out, except the cattle into
the stubble the minute the hay was on.”

In a pasture glade, farther on, they came upon a bunch of cattle.

“Look at that bull, Saxon. Scrub’s no name for it. They oughta be a
state law against lettin’ such animals exist. No wonder Chavon’s that
land poor he’s had to sink all his clay-pit earnin’s into taxes an’
interest. He can’t make his land pay. Take this hundred an forty.
Anybody with the savve can just rake silver dollars offen it. I’ll show
‘m.”

They passed the big adobe barn in the distance.

“A few dollars at the right time would a-saved hundreds on that roof,”
 Billy commented. “Well, anyway, I won’t be payin’ for any improvements
when I buy. An I’ll tell you another thing. This ranch is full of water,
and if Glen Ellen ever grows they’ll have to come to see me for their
water supply.”

Billy knew the ranch thoroughly, and took short-cuts through the woods
by way of cattle paths. Once, he reined in abruptly, and both stopped.
Confronting them, a dozen paces away, was a half-grown red fox. For half
a minute, with beady eyes, the wild thing studied them, with twitching
sensitive nose reading the messages of the air. Then, velvet-footed, it
leapt aside and was gone among the trees.

“The son-of-a-gun!” Billy ejaculated.

As they approached Wild Water; they rode out into a long narrow meadow.
In the middle was a pond.

“Natural reservoir, when Glen Ellen begins to buy water,” Billy said.
“See, down at the lower end there?--wouldn’t cost anything hardly
to throw a dam across. An’ I can pipe in all kinds of hill-drip. An’
water’s goin’ to be money in this valley not a thousan’ years from
now.--An’ all the ginks, an’ boobs, an’ dubs, an’ gazabos poundin’ their
ear deado an’ not seein’ it comin.--An’ surveyors workin’ up the valley
for an electric road from Sausalito with a branch up Napa Valley.”

They came to the rim of Wild Water canyon. Leaning far back in their
saddles, they slid the horses down a steep declivity, through big spruce
woods, to an ancient and all but obliterated trail.

“They cut this trail ‘way back in the Fifties,” Billy explained. “I only
found it by accident. Then I asked Poppe yesterday. He was born in the
valley. He said it was a fake minin’ rush across from Petaluma. The
gamblers got it up, an’ they must a-drawn a thousan’ suckers. You see
that flat there, an’ the old stumps. That’s where the camp was. They
set the tables up under the trees. The flat used to be bigger, but the
creek’s eaten into it. Poppe said they was a couple of killin’s an’ one
lynchin’.”

Lying low against their horses’ necks, they scrambled up a steep cattle
trail out of the canyon, and began to work across rough country toward
the knolls.

“Say, Saxon, you’re always lookin’ for something pretty. I’ll show
you what’ll make your hair stand up... soon as we get through this
manzanita.”

Never, in all their travels, had Saxon seen so lovely a vista as the one
that greeted them when they emerged. The dim trail lay like a rambling
red shadow cast on the soft forest floor by the great redwoods and
over-arching oaks. It seemed as if all local varieties of trees and
vines had conspired to weave the leafy roof--maples, big madronos and
laurels, and lofty tan-bark oaks, scaled and wrapped and interwound with
wild grape and flaming poison oak. Saxon drew Billy’s eyes to a mossy
bank of five-finger ferns. All slopes seemed to meet to form this basin
and colossal forest bower. Underfoot the floor was spongy with water. An
invisible streamlet whispered under broad-fronded brakes. On every hand
opened tiny vistas of enchantment, where young redwoods grouped
still and stately about fallen giants, shoulder-high to the horses,
moss-covered and dissolving into mold.

At last, after another quarter of an hour, they tied their horses on the
rim of the narrow canyon that penetrated the wilderness of the knolls.
Through a rift in the trees Billy pointed to the top of the leaning
spruce.

“It’s right under that,” he said. “We’ll have to follow up the bed of
the creek. They ain’t no trail, though you’ll see plenty of deer paths
crossin’ the creek. You’ll get your feet wet.”

Saxon laughed her joy and held on close to his heels, splashing through
pools, crawling hand and foot up the slippery faces of water-worn rocks,
and worming under trunks of old fallen trees.

“They ain’t no real bed-rock in the whole mountain,” Billy elucidated,
“so the stream cuts deeper’n deeper, an’ that keeps the sides cavin’ in.
They’re as steep as they can be without fallin’ down. A little farther
up, the canyon ain’t much more’n a crack in the ground--but a mighty
deep one if anybody should ask you. You can spit across it an’ break
your neck in it.”

The climbing grew more difficult, and they were finally halted, in a
narrow cleft, by a drift-jam.

“You wait here,” Billy directed, and, lying flat, squirmed on through
crashing brush.

Saxon waited till all sound had died away. She waited ten minutes
longer, then followed by the way Billy had broken. Where the bed of the
canyon became impossible, she came upon what she was sure was a deer
path that skirted the steep side and was a tunnel through the close
greenery. She caught a glimpse of the overhanging spruce, almost above
her head on the opposite side, and emerged on a pool of clear water in a
clay-like basin. This basin was of recent origin, having been formed by
a slide of earth and trees. Across the pool arose an almost sheer wall
of white. She recognized it for what it was, and looked about for Billy.
She heard him whistle, and looked up. Two hundred feet above, at the
perilous top of the white wall, he was holding on to a tree trunk. The
overhanging spruce was nearby.

“I can see the little pasture back of your field,” he called down. “No
wonder nobody ever piped this off. The only place they could see it from
is that speck of pasture. An’ you saw it first. Wait till I come down
and tell you all about it. I didn’t dast before.”

It required no shrewdness to guess the truth. Saxon knew this was the
precious clay required by the brickyard. Billy circled wide of the
slide and came down the canyon-wall, from tree to tree, as descending a
ladder.

“Ain’t it a peach?” he exulted, as he dropped beside her. “Just look at
it--hidden away under four feet of soil where nobody could see it, an’
just waitin’ for us to hit the Valley of the Moon. Then it up an’ slides
a piece of the skin off so as we can see it.”

“Is it the real clay?” Saxon asked anxiously.

“You bet your sweet life. I’ve handled too much of it not to know it
in the dark. Just rub a piece between your fingers.--Like that. Why,
I could tell by the taste of it. I’ve eaten enough of the dust of the
teams. Here’s where our fun begins. Why, you know we’ve been workin’ our
heads off since we hit this valley. Now we’re on Easy street.”

“But you don’t own it,” Saxon objected.

“Well, you won’t be a hundred years old before I do. Straight from here
I hike to Payne an’ bind the bargain--an option, you know, while title’s
searchin’ an’ I ‘m raisin’ money. We’ll borrow that four hundred back
again from Gow Yum, an’ I’ll borrow all I can get on my horses an’
wagons, an’ Hazel and Hattie, an’ everything that’s worth a cent. An’
then I get the deed with a mortgage on it to Hilyard for the balance.
An’ then--it’s takin’ candy from a baby--I’ll contract with the
brickyard for twenty cents a yard--maybe more. They’ll be crazy with joy
when they see it. Don’t need any borin’s. They’s nearly two hundred feet
of it exposed up an’ down. The whole knoll’s clay, with a skin of soil
over it.”

“But you’ll spoil all the beautiful canyon hauling out the clay,” Saxon
cried with alarm.

“Nope; only the knoll. The road’ll come in from the other side. It’ll be
only half a mile to Chavon’s pit. I’ll build the road an’ charge steeper
teamin’, or the brickyard can build it an’ I’ll team for the same rate
as before. An’ twenty cents a yard pourin’ in, all profit, from the
jump. I’ll sure have to buy more horses to do the work.”

They sat hand in hand beside the pool and talked over the details.

“Say, Saxon,” Billy said, after a pause had fallen, “sing ‘Harvest
Days,’ won’t you?”

And, when she had complied: “The first time you sung that song for me
was comin’ home from the picnic on the train--”

“The very first day we met each other,” she broke in. “What did you
think about me that day?”

“Why, what I’ve thought ever since--that you was made for me.--I thought
that right at the jump, in the first waltz. An’ what’d you think of me?

“Oh, I wondered, and before the first waltz, too, when we were
introduced and shook hands--I wondered if you were the man. Those were
the very words that flashed into my mind.--IS HE THE MAN?”

“An’ I kinda looked a little some good to you?” he queried. “_I_ thought
so, and my eyesight has always been good.”

“Say!” Billy went off at a tangent. “By next winter, with everything
hummin’ an’ shipshape, what’s the matter with us makin’ a visit to
Carmel? It’ll be slack time for you with the vegetables, an’ I’ll be
able to afford a foreman.”

Saxon’s lack of enthusiasm surprised him.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded quickly.

With downcast demurest eyes and hesitating speech, Saxon said:

“I did something yesterday without asking your advice, Billy.”

He waited.

“I wrote to Tom,” she added, with an air of timid confession.

Still he waited--for he knew not what.

“I asked him to ship up the old chest of drawers--my mother’s, you
remember--that we stored with him.”

“Huh! I don’t see anything outa the way about that,” Billy said with
relief. “We need the chest, don’t we? An’ we can afford to pay the
freight on it, can’t we?”

“You are a dear stupid man, that’s what you are. Don’t you know what is
in the chest?”

He shook his head, and what she added was so soft that it was almost a
whisper:

“The baby clothes.”

“No!” he exclaimed.

“True.”

“Sure?”

She nodded her head, her cheeks flooding with quick color.

“It’s what I wanted, Saxon, more’n anything else in the world. I’ve been
thinkin’ a whole lot about it lately, ever since we hit the valley,” he
went on, brokenly, and for the first time she saw tears unmistakable
in his eyes. “But after all I’d done, an’ the hell I’d raised, an’
everything, I... I never urged you, or said a word about it. But I
wanted it... oh, I wanted it like ... like I want you now.”

His open arms received her, and the pool in the heart of the canyon knew
a tender silence.

Saxon felt Billy’s finger laid warningly on her lips. Guided by his
hand, she turned her head back, and together they gazed far up the side
of the knoll where a doe and a spotted fawn looked down upon them from a
tiny open space between the trees.





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