The Valley of the Moon Jack London

by Jack London

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 takin' 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, be 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