________________________________________________
_ "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 teen 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 wan 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," Glunston 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. :EIven 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.
Eastings, 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 pay nent. 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. lend
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 tomorrow, 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. _
Read next: BOOK III: CHAPTER XII
Read previous: BOOK III: CHAPTER X
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