The Valley of the Moon Jack London

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