by Jack London
rent each--that's three dollars a day they'll bring me six days a
week. I don't feed 'em, shoe 'm, or nothin', an' I keep an eye on
'm to see they're treated right. Three bucks a day, eh! Well, I
guess that'll keep a couple of dollar-an '-a-half men goin' for
Saxon, unless she works 'em Sundays. Huh! The Valley of the Moon!
Why, we'll be wearin' diamonds before long. Gosh! A fellow could
live in the city a thousan' years an' not get such chances. It
beats China lottery."
He stood up.
"I 'm goin' out to water Hazel an' Hattie, feed 'm, an' bed 'm
down. I'll eat soon as I come back."
The two women were regarding each other with shining eyes, each
on the verge of speech when Billy returned to the door and stuck
his head in.
"They's one thing maybe you ain't got," he said. "I pull down
them three dollars every day; but the six mares is mine, too. I
own 'm. They're mine. Are you on?"
CHAPTER XX
"I'm not done with you children," had been Mrs. Mortimer's
parting words; and several times that winter she ran up to
advise, and to teach Saxon how to calculate her crops for the
small immediate market, for the increasing spring market, and for
the height of summer, at which time she would be able to sell all
she could possibly grow and then not supply the demand. In the
meantime, Hazel and Hattie were used every odd moment in hauling
manure from Glen Ellen, whose barnyards had never known such a
thorough cleaning. Also there were loads of commercial fertilizer
from the railroad station, bought under Mrs. Mortimer's
instructions.
The convicts paroled were Chinese. Both had served long in
prison, and were old men; but the day's work they were habitually
capable of won Mrs. Mortimer's approval. Gow Yum, twenty years
before, had had charge of the vegetable garden of one of the
great Menlo Park estates. His disaster had come in the form of a
fight over a game of fan tan in the Chinese quarter at Redwood
City. His companion, Chan Chi, had been a hatchet-man of note, in
the old fighting days of the San Francisco tongs. But a quarter
of century of discipline in the prison vegetable gardens had
cooled his blood and turned his hand from hatchet to hoe. These
two assistants had arrived in Glen Ellen like precious goods in
bond and been receipted for by the local deputy sheriff, who, in
addition, reported on them to the prison authorities each month.
Saxon, too, made out a monthly report and sent it in.
As for the danger of their cutting her throat, she quickly got
over the idea of it. The mailed hand of the State hovered over
them. The taking of a single drink of liquor would provoke that
hand to close down and jerk them back to prison-cells. Nor had
they freedom of movement. When old Gow Yum needed to go to San
Francisco to sign certain papers before the Chinese Consul,
permission had first to be obtained from San Quentin. Then, too,
neither man was nasty tempered. Saxon had been apprehensive of
the task of bossing two desperate convicts; but when they came
she found it a pleasure to work with them. She could tell them
what to do, but it was they who knew how do. Prom them she
learned all the ten thousand tricks and quirks of artful
gardening, and she was not long in realizing how helpless she
would have been had she depended on local labor.
Still further, she had no fear, because she was not alone. She
had been using her head. It was quickly apparent to her that she
could not adequately oversee the outside work and at the same
time do the house work. She wrote to Ukiah to the energetic widow
who had lived in the adjoining house and taken in washing. She
had promptly closed with Saxon's offer. Mrs. Paul was forty,
short in stature, and weighed two hundred pounds, but never
wearied on her feet. Also she was devoid of fear, and, according
to Billy, could settle the hash of both Chinese with one of her
mighty arms. Mrs. Paul arrived with her son, a country lad of
sixteen who knew horses and could milk Hilda, the pretty Jersey
which had successfully passed Edmund's expert eye. Though Mrs.
Paul ably handled the house, there was one thing Saxon insisted
on doing--namely, washing her own pretty flimsies.
"When I 'm no longer able to do that," she told Billy, "you can
take a spade to that clump of redwoods beside Wild Water and dig
a hole. It will be time to bury me."
It was early in the days of Madrono Ranch, at the time of Mrs.
Mortimer's second visit, that Billy drove in with a load of pipe;
and house, chicken yards, and barn were piped from the
second-hand tank he installed below the house-spring.
"Huh! I guess I can use my head," he said. "I watched a woman
over on the other side of the valley, packin' water two hundred
feet from the spring to the house; an' I did some figurin'. I put
it at three trips a day and on wash days a whole lot more; an'
you can't guess what I made out she traveled a year packin'
water. One hundred an' twenty-two miles. D'ye get that? One
hundred and twenty-two miles! I asked her how long she'd been
there. Thirty-one years. Multiply it for yourself. Three
thousan', seven hundred an' eighty-two miles--all for the sake of
two hundred feet of pipe. Wouldn't that jar you?"
"Oh, I ain't done yet. They's a bath-tub an' stationary tubs
a-comin' soon as I can see my way. An', say, Saxon, you know that
little clear flat just where Wild Water runs into Sonoma. They's
all of an acre of it. An' it's mine! Got that? An' no walkin' on
the grass for you. It'll be my grass. I 'm goin' up stream a ways
an' put in a ram. I got a big second-hand one staked out that I
can get for ten dollars, an' it'll pump more water'n I need. An'
you'll see alfalfa growin' that'll make your mouth water. I gotta
have another horse to travel around on. You're usin' Hazel an'
Hattie too much to give me a chance; an' I'll never see 'm as
soon as you start deliverin' vegetables. I guess that alfalfa'll
help some to keep another horse goin'."
But Billy was destined for a time to forget his alfalfa in the
excitement of bigger ventures. First, came trouble. The several
hundred dollars he had arrived with in Sonoma Valley, and all his
own commissions since earned, had gone into improvements and
living. The eighteen dollars a week rental for his six horses at
Lawndale went to pay wages. And he was unable to buy the needed
saddle-horse for his horse-buying expeditions. This, however, he
had got around by again using his head and killing two birds with
one stone. He began breaking colts to drive, and in the driving
drove them wherever he sought horses.
So far all was well. But a new administration in San Francisco,
pledged to economy, had stopped all street work. This meant the
shutting down of the Lawndale quarry, which was one of the
sources of supply for paving blocks. The six horses would not
only be back on his hands, but he would have to feed th
em. How
Mrs. Paul, Gow Yum, and Chan Chi were to be paid was beyond him.
"I guess we've bit off more'n we could chew," he admitted to
Saxon.
That night he was late in coming home, but brought with him a
radiant face. Saxon was no less radiant.
"It's all right," she greeted him, coming out to the barn where
he was unhitching a tired but fractious colt. "I've talked with
all three. They see the situation, and are perfectly willing to
let their wages stand a while. By another week I start Hazel and
Hattie delivering vegetables. Then the money will pour in from
the hotels and my books won't look so lopsided. And--oh,
Billy--you'd never guess. Old Gow Yum has a bank account. He came
to me afterward--I guess he was thinking it over--and offered to
lend me four hundred dollars. What do you think of that?"
"That I ain't goin' to be too proud to borrow it off 'm, if he IS
a Chink. He's a white one, an' maybe I'll need it. Because, you
see--well, you can't guess what I've been up to since I seen you
this mornin'. I've been so busy I ain't had a bite to eat."
"Using your head?" She laughed.
"You can call it that," he joined in her laughter. "I've been
spendin' money like water."
"But you haven't got any to spend," she objected.
"I've got credit in this valley, I'll let you know," he replied.
"An' I sure strained it some this afternoon. Now guess."
"A saddle-horse?"
He roared with laughter, startling the colt, which tried to bolt
and lifted him half off the ground by his grip on its frightened
nose and neck.
"Oh, I mean real guessin'," he urged, when the animal had dropped
back to earth and stood regarding him with trembling suspicion.
"Two saddle-horses?"
"Aw, you ain't got imagination. I'll tell you. You know
Thiercroft. I bought his big wagon from 'm for sixty dollars. I
bought a wagon from the Kenwood blacksmith--so-so, but it'll
do--for forty-five dollars. An' I bought Ping's wagon--a
peach--for sixty-five dollars. I could a-got it for fifty if he
hadn't seen I wanted it bad."
"But the money?" Saxon questioned faintly. "You hadn't a hundred
dollars left."
"Didn't I tell you I had credit? Well, I have. I stood 'm off for
them wagons. I ain't spent a cent of cash money to-day except for
a couple of long-distance switches. Then I bought three sets of
work-harness--they're chain harness an' second-hand--for twenty
dollars a set. I bought 'm from the fellow that's doin' the
haulin' for the quarry. He don't need 'm any more. An' I rented
four wagons from 'm, an' four span of horses, too, at half a
dollar a day for each horse, an' half a dollar a day for each
wagon--that's six dollars a day rent I gotta pay 'm. The three
sets of spare harness is for my six horses. Then . . . lemme
see . . . yep, I rented two barns in Glen Ellen, an' I ordered
fifty tons of hay an' a carload of bran an' barley from the
store in Glenwood--you see, I gotta feed all them fourteen
horses, an' shoe 'm, an' everything.
"Oh, sure Pete, I've went some. I hired seven men to go drivin'
for me at two dollars a day, an'--ouch! Jehosaphat! What you
doin'!"
"No," Saxon said gravely, having pinched him, "you're not
dreaming." She felt his pulse and forehead. "Not a sign of
fever." She sniffed his breath. "And you've not been drinking. Go
on, tell me the rest of this . . . whatever it is."
"Ain't you satisfied?"
"No. I want more. I want all."
"All right. But I just want you to know, first, that the boss I
used to work for in Oakland ain't got nothin' on me. I 'm some
man of affairs, if anybody should ride up on a vegetable wagon
an' ask you. Now, I 'm goin' to tell you, though I can't see why
the Glen Ellen folks didn't beat me to it. I guess they was
asleep. Nobody'd a-overlooked a thing like it in the city. You
see, it was like this: you know that fancy brickyard they're
gettin' ready to start for makin' extra special fire brick for
inside walls? Well, here was I worryin' about the six horses
comin' back on my hands, earnin' me nothin' an' eatin' me into
the poorhouse. I had to get 'm work somehow, an' I remembered the
brickyard. I drove the colt down an' talked with that Jap chemist
who's been doin' the experimentin'. Gee! They was foremen lookin'
over the ground an' everything gettin' ready to hum. I looked
over the lay an' studied it. Then I drove up to where they're
openin' the clay pit--you know, that fine, white chalky stuff we
saw 'em borin' out just outside the hundred an' forty acres with
the three knolls. It's a down-hill haul, a mile, an' two horses
can do it easy. In fact, their hardest job'll be haulin' the
empty wagons up to the pit. Then I tied the colt an' went to
figurin'.
"The Jap professor'd told me the manager an' the other big guns
of the company was comin' up on the mornin' train. I wasn't
shoutin' things out to anybody, but I just made myself into a
committee of welcome; an', when the train pulled in, there I was,
extendin' the glad hand of the burg--likewise the glad hand of a
guy you used to know in Oakland once, a third-rate dub
prizefighter by the name of--lemme see--yep, I got it right--Big
Bill Roberts was the name he used to sport, but now he's known as
William Roberts, E. S. Q.
"Well, as I was sayin', I gave 'm the glad hand, an' trailed
along with 'em to the brickyard, an' from the talk I could see
things was doin'. Then I watched my chance an' sprung my
proposition. I was scared stiff all the time for maybe the
teamin' was already arranged. But I knew it wasn't when they
asked for my figures. I had 'm by heart, an' I rattled 'm off,
and the top-guy took 'm down in his note-book.
"'We're goin' into this big, an' at once,' he says, lookin' at me
sharp. 'What kind of an outfit you got, Mr. Roberts?'"
"Me!--with only Hazel an' Hattie, an' them too small for heavy
teamin'.
"'I can slap fourteen horses an' seven wagons onto the job at the
jump,' says I. 'An' if you want more, I'll get 'm, that's all.'
"'Give us fifteen minutes to consider, Mr. Roberts,' he says.
"'Sure,' says I, important as all hell--ahem--me!--'but a couple
of other things first. I want a two year contract, an' them
figures all depends on one thing. Otherwise they don't go.'
"'What's that,' he says.
"'The dump,' says I. 'Here we are on the ground, an' I might as
well show you.'
"An' I did. I showed 'm where I'd lose out if they stuck to their
plan, on account of the dip down an' pull up to the dump. 'All
you gotta do,' I says, 'is to build the bunkers fifty feet over,
throw the road around the rim of the hill, an' make about seventy
or eighty feet of elevated bridge.'
"Say, Saxon, that kind of talk got 'em. It was straight. Only
they'd been thinkin' about bricks, while I was only thinkin' of
teamin'.
"I guess they was all o
f half an hour considerin', an' I was
almost as miserable waitin' as when I waited for you to say yes
after I asked you. I went over the figures, calculatin' what I
could throw off if I had to. You see, I'd given it to 'em
stiff--regular city prices; an' I was prepared to trim down. Then
they come back.
"'Prices oughta be lower in the country,' says the top-guy.
"'Nope,' I says. 'This is a wine-grape valley. It don't raise
enough hay an' feed for its own animals. It has to be shipped in
from the San Joaquin Valley. Why, I can buy hay an' feed cheaper
in San Francisco, laid down, than I can here an' haul it myself.'
"An' that struck 'm hard. It was true, an' they knew it.
But--say! If they'd asked about wages for drivers, an' about
horse-shoein' prices, I'd a-had to come down; because, you see,
they ain't no teamsters' union in the country, an' no
horseshoers' union, an' rent is low, an' them two items come a
whole lot cheaper. Huh! This afternoon I got a word bargain with
the blacksmith across from the post office; an' he takes my whole
bunch an' throws off twenty-five cents on each shoein', though
it's on the Q. T. But they didn't think to ask, bein' too full of
bricks."
Billy felt in his breast pocket, drew out a legal-looking
document, and handed it to Saxon.
"There it is," he said, "the contract, full of all the
agreements, prices, an' penalties. I saw Mr. Hale down town an'
showed it to 'm. He says it's O.K. An' say, then I lit out. All
over town, Kenwood, Lawndale, everywhere, everybody, everything.
The quarry teamin' finishes Friday of this week. An' I take the
whole outfit an' start Wednesday of next week haulin' lumber for
the buildin's, an' bricks for the kilns, an' all the rest. An'
when they're ready for the clay I 'm the boy that'll give it to
them.
"But I ain't told you the best yet. I couldn't get the switch
right away from Kenwood to Lawndale, and while I waited I went
over my figures again. You couldn't guess it in a million years.
I'd made a mistake in addition somewhere, an' soaked 'm ten per
cent. more'n I'd expected. Talk about findin' money! Any time you
want them couple of extra men to help out with the vegetables,
say the word. Though we're goin' to have to pinch the next couple
of months. An' go ahead an' borrow that four hundred from Gow
Yum. An' tell him you'll pay eight per cent. interest, an' that
we won't want it more 'n three or four months."
When Billy got away from Saxon's arms, he started leading the
colt up and down to cool it off. He stopped so abruptly that his
back collided with the colt's nose, and there was a lively minute
of rearing and plunging. Saxon waited, for she knew a fresh idea
had struck Billy.
"Say," he said, "do you know anything about bank accounts and
drawin' checks?"
CHAPTER XXI
It was on a bright June morning that Billy told Saxon to put on
her riding clothes to try out a saddle-horse.
"Not until after ten o'clock," she said "By that time I'll have
the wagon off on a second trip."
Despite the extent of the business she had developed, her
executive ability and system gave her much spare time. She could
call on the Hales, which was ever a delight, especially now that
the Hastings were back and that Clara was often at her aunt's. In
this congenial atmosphere Saxon Burgeoned. She had begun to read--to
read with understanding; and she had time for her books, for
work on her pretties, and for Billy, whom she accompanied on many
expeditions.
Billy was even busier than she, his work being more scattered and
diverse. And, as well, he kept his eye on the home barn and
horses which Saxon used. In truth he had become a man of affairs,
though Mrs. Mortimer had gone over his accounts, with an eagle
eye on the expense column, discovering several minor leaks, and
finally, aided by Saxon, bullied him into keeping books. Each