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 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.
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.
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 pave meets, 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."
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