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_ 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. Eale 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 Erenchman--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 book1ined 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 receded 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. _
Read next: BOOK III: CHAPTER XIX
Read previous: BOOK III: CHAPTER XVII
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