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 w
as 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,
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.
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.'