by Jack London
oaks, more fairy circles of redwoods, and, still beside the
singing stream, they passed a gate by the roadside. Before it
stood a rural mail box, on which was lettered "Edmund Hale."
Standing under the rustic arch, leaning upon the gate, a man and
woman composed a pieture so arresting and beautiful that Saxon
caught her breath. They were side by side, the delicate hand of
the woman curled in the hand of the man, which looked as if made
to confer benedictions. His face bore out this impression--a
beautiful-browed countenance, with large, benevolent gray eyes
under a wealth of white hair that shone like spun glass. He was
fair and large; the little woman beside him was daintily wrought.
She was saffron-brown, as a woman of the white race can well be,
with smiling eyes of bluest blue. In quaint sage-green draperies,
she seemed a flower, with her small vivid face irresistibly
reminding Saxon of a springtime wake-robin.
Perhaps the picture made by Saxon and Billy was equally arresting
and beautiful, as they drove down through the golden end of day.
The two couples had eyes only for each other. The little woman
beamed joyously. The man's face glowed into the benediction that
had trembled there. To Saxon, like the field up the mountain,
like the mountain itself, it seemed that she had always known
this adorable pair. She knew that she loved them.
"How d'ye do," said Billy.
"You blessed children," said the man. "I wonder if you know how
dear you look sitting there."
That was all. The wagon had passed by, rustling down the road,
which was carpeted with fallen leaves of maple, oak, and alder.
Then they came to the meeting of the two creeks.
"Oh, what a place for a home," Saxon cried, pointing across Wild
Water. "See, Billy, on that bench there above the meadow."
"It's a rich bottom, Saxon; and so is the bench rich. Look at the
big trees on it. An' they's sure to be springs."
"Drive over," she said.
Forsaking the main road, they crossed Wild Water on a narrow
bridge and continued along an ancient, rutted road that ran
beside an equally ancient worm-fence of split redwood rails. They
came to a gate, open and off its hinges, through which the road
led out on the bench.
"This is it--I know it," Saxon said with conviction. "Drive in,
Billy."
A small, whitewashed farmhouse with broken windows showed through
the trees.
"Talk about your madronos--"
Billy pointed to the father of all madronos, six feet in diameter
at its base, sturdy and sound, which stood before the house.
They spoke in low tones as they passed around the house under
great oak trees and came to a stop before a small barn. They did
not wait to unharness. Tying the horses, they started to explore.
The pitch from the bench to the meadow was steep yet thickly
wooded with oaks and manzanita. As they crashed through the
underbrush they startled a score of quail into flight.
"How about game?" Saxon queried.
Billy grinned, and fell to examining a spring which bubbled a
clear stream into the meadow. Here the ground was sunbaked and
wide open in a multitude of cracks.
Disappointment leaped into Saxon's face, but Billy, crumbling a
clod between his fingers, had not made up his mind.
"It's rich," he pronounced; "--the cream of the soil that's been
washin' down from the hills for ten thousan' years. But--"
He broke off, stared all about, studying the configuration of the
meadow, crossed it to the redwood trees beyond, then came back.
"It's no good as it is," he said. "But it's the best ever if it's
handled right. All it needs is a little common sense an' a lot of
drainage. This meadow's a natural basin not yet filled level.
They's a sharp slope through the redwoods to the creek. Come on,
I'll show you."
They went through the redwoods and came out on Sonoma Creek. At
this spot was no singing. The stream poured into a quiet pool.
The willows on their side brushed the water. The opposite side
was a steep bank. Billy measured the height of the bank with his
eye, the depth of the water with a driftwood pole.
"Fifteen feet," he announced. "That allows all kinds of
high-divin' from the bank. An' it's a hundred yards of a swim up
an' down."
They followed down the pool. It emptied in a riffle, across
exposed bedrock, into another pool. As they looked, a trout
flashed into the air and back, leaving a widening ripple on the
quiet surface.
"I guess we won't winter in Carmel," Billy said. "This place was
specially manufactured for us. In the morning I'll find out who
owns it."
Half an hour later, feeding the horses, he called Saxon's
attention to a locomotive whistle.
"You've got your railroad," he said. "That's a train pulling into
Glen Ellen, an' it's only a mile from here."
Saxon was dozing off to sleep under the blankets when Billy
aroused her.
"Suppose the guy that owns it won't sell?"
"There isn't the slightest doubt," Saxon answered with unruffled
certainty. "This is our place. I know it."
CHAPTER XVIII
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. Hale 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 di
dn'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