Part 56 (1/2)

From the top of the fence, but too far away to hear, Saxon watched the colloquy. After several minutes, the lines were transferred to Billy's neck, the handles to his hands. Then the team started, and the old man, delivering a rapid fire of instructions, walked alongside of Billy. When a few turns had been made, the farmer crossed the plowed strip to Saxon, and joined her on the rail.

”He's plowed before, a little mite, ain't he?”

Saxon shook her head.

”Never in his life. But he knows how to drive horses.”

”He showed he wasn't all greenhorn, an' he learns pretty quick.” Here the farmer chuckled and cut himself a chew from a plug of tobacco. ”I reckon he won't tire me out a-settin' here.”

The unplowed area grew smaller and smaller, but Billy evinced no intention of quitting, and his audience on the fence was deep in conversation. Saxon's questions flew fast and furious, and she was not long in concluding that the old man bore a striking resemblance to the description the lineman had given of his father.

Billy persisted till the field was finished, and the old man invited him and Saxon to stop for the night. There was a disused outbuilding where they would find a small cook stove, he said, and also he would give them fresh milk. Further, if Saxon wanted to test HER desire for farming, she could try her hand on the cow.

The milking lesson did not prove as successful as Billy's plowing; but when he had mocked sufficiently, Saxon challenged him to try, and he failed as grievously as she. Saxon had eyes and questions for everything, and it did not take her long to realize that she was looking upon the other side of the farming s.h.i.+eld. Farm and farmer were old-fas.h.i.+oned. There was no intensive cultivation. There was too much land too little farmed. Everything was slipshod. House and barn and outbuildings were fast falling into ruin. The front yard was weed-grown.

There was no vegetable garden. The small orchard was old, sickly, and neglected. The trees were twisted, spindling, and overgrown with a gray moss. The sons and daughters were away in the cities, Saxon found out.

One daughter had married a doctor, the other was a teacher in the state normal school; one son was a locomotive engineer, the second was an architect, and the third was a police court reporter in San Francisco.

On occasion, the father said, they helped out the old folks.

”What do you think?” Saxon asked Billy as he smoked his after-supper cigarette.

His shoulders went up in a comprehensive shrug.

”Huh! That's easy. The old geezer's like his orchard--covered with moss.

It's plain as the nose on your face, after San Leandro, that he don't know the first thing. An' them horses. It'd be a charity to him, an' a savin' of money for him, to take 'em out an' shoot 'em both. You bet you don't see the Porchugeeze with horses like them. An' it ain't a case of bein' proud, or puttin' on side, to have good horses. It's bra.s.s tacks an' business. It pays. That's the game. Old horses eat more 'n young ones to keep in condition an' they can't do the same amount of work. But you bet it costs just as much to shoe them. An' his is scrub on top of it. Every minute he has them horses he's losin' money. You oughta see the way they work an' figure horses in the city.”

They slept soundly, and, after an early breakfast, prepared to start.

”I'd like to give you a couple of days' work,” the old man regretted, at parting, ”but I can't see it. The ranch just about keeps me and the old woman, now that the children are gone. An' then it don't always. Seems times have been bad for a long spell now. Ain't never been the same since Grover Cleveland.”

Early in the afternoon, on the outskirts of San Jose, Saxon called a halt.

”I'm going right in there and talk,” she declared, ”unless they set the dogs on me. That's the prettiest place yet, isn't it?”

Billy, who was always visioning hills and s.p.a.cious ranges for his horses, mumbled unenthusiastic a.s.sent.

”And the vegetables! Look at them! And the flowers growing along the borders! That beats tomato plants in wrapping paper.”

”Don't see the sense of it,” Billy objected. ”Where's the money come in from flowers that take up the ground that good vegetables might be growin' on?”

”And that's what I'm going to find out.” She pointed to a woman, stooped to the ground and working with a trowel; in front of the tiny bungalow.

”I don't know what she's like, but at the worst she can only be mean.

See! She's looking at us now. Drop your load alongside of mine, and come on in.”

Billy slung the blankets from his shoulder to the ground, but elected to wait. As Saxon went up the narrow, flower-bordered walk, she noted two men at work among the vegetables--one an old Chinese, the other old and of some dark-eyed foreign breed. Here were neatness, efficiency, and intensive cultivation with a vengeance--even her untrained eye could see that. The woman stood up and turned from her flowers, and Saxon saw that she was middle-aged, slender, and simply but nicely dressed. She wore gla.s.ses, and Saxon's reading of her face was that it was kind but nervous looking.

”I don't want anything to-day,” she said, before Saxon could speak, administering the rebuff with a pleasant smile.

Saxon groaned inwardly over the black-covered telescope basket.