Part 57 (1/2)

Saxon was glowing with appreciation, but Mrs. Mortimer, glancing at Billy, noted not entire approval. His blue eyes were clouded.

”Well, out with it,” she encouraged. ”What are you thinking?”

To Saxon's surprise, he answered directly, and to her double surprise, his criticism was of a nature which had never entered her head.

”It's just a trick,” Billy expounded. ”That's what I was gettin' at--”

”But a paying trick,” Mrs. Mortimer interrupted, her eyes dancing and vivacious behind the gla.s.ses.

”Yes, and no,” Billy said stubbornly, speaking in his slow, deliberate fas.h.i.+on. ”If every farmer was to mix flowers an' vegetables, then every farmer would get double the market price, an' then there wouldn't be any double market price. Everything'd be as it was before.”

”You are opposing a theory to a fact,” Mrs. Mortimer stated. ”The fact is that all the farmers do not do it. The fact is that I do receive double the price. You can't get away from that.”

Billy was unconvinced, though unable to reply.

”Just the same,” he muttered, with a slow shake of the head, ”I don't get the hang of it. There's something wrong so far as we're concerned--my wife an' me, I mean. Maybe I'll get hold of it after a while.”

”And in the meantime, we'll look around,” Mrs. Mortimer invited. ”I want to show you everything, and tell you how I make it go. Afterward, we'll sit down, and I'll tell you about the beginning. You see--” she bent her gaze on Saxon--”I want you thoroughly to understand that you can succeed in the country if you go about it right. I didn't know a thing about it when I began, and I didn't have a fine big man like yours. I was all alone. But I'll tell you about that.”

For the next hour, among vegetables, berry-bushes and fruit trees, Saxon stored her brain with a huge ma.s.s of information to be digested at her leisure. Billy, too, was interested, but he left the talking to Saxon, himself rarely asking a question. At the rear of the bungalow, where everything was as clean and orderly as the front, they were shown through the chicken yard. Here, in different runs, were kept several hundred small and snow-white hens.

”White Leghorns,” said Mrs. Mortimer. ”You have no idea what they netted me this year. I never keep a hen a moment past the prime of her laying period--”

”Just what I was tellin' you, Saxon, about horses,” Billy broke in.

”And by the simplest method of hatching them at the right time, which not one farmer in ten thousand ever dreams of doing, I have them laying in the winter when most hens stop laying and when eggs are highest.

Another thing: I have my special customers. They pay me ten cents a dozen more than the market price, because my specialty is one-day eggs.”

Here she chanced to glance at Billy, and guessed that he was still wrestling with his problem.

”Same old thing?” she queried.

He nodded. ”Same old thing. If every farmer delivered day-old eggs, there wouldn't be no ten cents higher 'n the top price. They'd be no better off than they was before.”

”But the eggs would be one-day eggs, all the eggs would be one-day eggs, you mustn't forget that,” Mrs. Mortimer pointed out.

”But that don't b.u.t.ter no toast for my wife an' me,” he objected. ”An'

that's what I've been tryin' to get the hang of, an' now I got it. You talk about theory an' fact. Ten cents higher than top price is a theory to Saxon an' me. The fact is, we ain't got no eggs, no chickens, an' no land for the chickens to run an' lay eggs on.”

Their hostess nodded sympathetically.

”An' there's something else about this outfit of yourn that I don't get the hang of,” he pursued. ”I can't just put my finger on it, but it's there all right.”

They were shown over the cattery, the piggery, the milkers, and the kennelry, as Mrs. Mortimer called her live stock departments. None was large. All were moneymakers, she a.s.sured them, and rattled off her profits glibly. She took their breaths away by the prices given and received for pedigreed Persians, pedigreed Ohio Improved Chesters, pedigreed Scotch collies, and pedigreed Jerseys. For the milk of the last she also had a special private market, receiving five cents more a quart than was fetched by the best dairy milk. Billy was quick to point out the difference between the look of her orchard and the look of the orchard they had inspected the previous afternoon, and Mrs. Mortimer showed him scores of other differences, many of which he was compelled to accept on faith.

Then she told them of another industry, her home-made jams and jellies, always contracted for in advance, and at prices dizzyingly beyond the regular market. They sat in comfortable rattan chairs on the veranda, while she told the story of how she had drummed up the jam and jelly trade, dealing only with the one best restaurant and one best club in San Jose. To the proprietor and the steward she had gone with her samples, in long discussions beaten down their opposition, overcome their reluctance, and persuaded the proprietor, in particular, to make a ”special” of her wares, to boom them quietly with his patrons, and, above all, to charge stiffly for dishes and courses in which they appeared.

Throughout the recital Billy's eyes were moody with dissatisfaction.

Mrs. Mortimer saw, and waited.