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Valley of the Moon

“Well, then,” Mrs. Mortimer took up her tale, “in the beginning I was a greenhorn, city born and bred. All I knew of the country was that it was a place to go to for vacations, and I always went to springs and mountain and seaside resorts. I had lived among books almost all my life. I was head librarian of the Doncaster Library for years. Then I married Mr. Mortimer. He was a book man, a professor in San Miguel University. He had a long sickness, and when he died there was nothing left. Even his life insurance was eaten into before I could be free of creditors. As for myself, I was worn out, on the verge of nervous prostration, fit for nothing. I had five thousand dollars left, however, and, without going into the details, I decided to go farming. I found this place, in a delightful climate, close to San Jose—the end of the electric line is only a quarter of a mile on—and I bought it. I paid two thousand cash, and gave a mortgage for two thousand. It cost two hundred an acre, you see.” “Twenty acres!” Saxon cried. “Wasn't that pretty small?” Billy ventured. “Too large, oceans too large. I leased ten acres of it the first thing. And it's still leased after all this time. Even the ten I'd retained was much too large for a long, long time. It's only now that I'm beginning to feel a tiny mite crowded.” “And ten acres has supported you an' two hired men?” Billy demanded, amazed. Mrs. Mortimer clapped her hands delightedly. “Listen. I had been a librarian. I knew my way among books. First of all I'd read everything written on the subject, and subscribed to some of the best farm magazines and papers. And you ask if my ten acres have supported me and two hired men. Let me tell you. I have four hired men. The ten acres certainly must support them, as it supports Hannah—she's a Swedish widow who runs the house and who is a perfect Trojan during the jam and jelly season—and Hannah's daughter, who goes to school and lends a hand, and my nephew whom I have taken to raise and educate. Also, the ten acres have come pretty close to paying for the whole twenty, as well as for this house, and all the outbuildings, and all the pedigreed stock.” Saxon remembered what the young lineman had said about the Portuguese. “The ten acres didn't do a bit of it,” she cried. “It was your head that did it all, and you know it.” “And that's the point, my dear. It shows the right kind of person can succeed in the country. Remember, the soil is generous. But it must be treated generously, and that is something the old style American farmer can't get into his head. So it IS head that counts. Even when his starving acres have convinced him of the need for fertilizing, he can't see the difference between cheap fertilizer and good fertilizer.” “And that's something I want to know about,” Saxon exclaimed. “And I'll tell you all I know, but, first, you must be very tired. I noticed you were limping. Let me take you in—never mind your bundles; I'll send Chang for them.” To Saxon, with her innate love of beauty and charm in all personal things, the interior of the bungalow was a revelation. Never before had she been inside a middle class home, and what she saw not only far exceeded anything she had imagined, but was vastly different from her imaginings. Mrs. Mortimer noted her sparkling glances which took in everything, and went out of her way to show Saxon around, doing it under the guise of gleeful boastings, stating the costs of the different materials, explaining how she had done things with her own hands, such as staining the doors, weathering the bookcases, and putting together the big Mission Morris chair. Billy stepped gingerly behind, and though it never entered his mind to ape to the manner born, he succeeded in escaping conspicuous awkwardness, even at the table where he and Saxon had the unique experience of being waited on in a private house by a servant. “If you'd only come along next year,” Mrs. Mortimer mourned; “then I should have had the spare room I had planned—” “That's all right,” Billy spoke up; “thank you just the same. But we'll catch the electric cars into San Jose an' get a room.” Mrs. Mortimer was still disturbed at her inability to put them up for the night, and Saxon changed the conversation by pleading to be told more. “You remember, I told you I'd paid only two thousand down on the land,” Mrs. Mortimer complied. “That left me three thousand to experiment with. Of course, all my friends and relatives prophesied failure. And, of course, I made my mistakes, plenty of them, but I was saved from still more by the thorough study I had made and continued to make.” She indicated shelves of farm books and files of farm magazines that lined the walls. “And I continued to study. I was resolved to be up to date, and I sent for all the experiment station reports. I went almost entirely on the basis that whatever the old type farmer did was wrong, and, do you know, in doing that I was not so far wrong myself. It's almost unthinkable, the stupidity of the old-fashioned farmers. Oh, I consulted with them, talked things over with them, challenged their stereotyped ways, demanded demonstration of their dogmatic and prejudiced beliefs, and quite succeeded in convincing the last of them that I was a fool and doomed to come to grief.” “But you didn't! You didn't!” Mrs. Mortimer smiled gratefully. “Sometimes, even now, I'm amazed that I didn't. But I came of a hard-headed stock which had been away from the soil long enough to gain a new perspective. When a thing satisfied my judgment, I did it forthwith and downright, no matter how extravagant it seemed. Take the old orchard. Worthless! Worse than worthless! Old Calkins nearly died of heart disease when he saw the devastation I had wreaked upon it. And look at it now. There was an old rattletrap ruin where the bungalow now stands. I put up with it, but I immediately pulled down the cow barn, the pigsties, the chicken houses, everything—made a clean sweep. They shook their heads and groaned when they saw such wanton waste by a widow struggling to make a living. But worse was to come. They were paralyzed when I told them the price of the three beautiful O.I.C.'s—pigs, you know, Chesters—which I bought, sixty dollars for the three, and only just weaned. Then I hustled the nondescript chickens to market, replacing them with the White Leghorns. The two scrub cows that came with the place I sold to the butcher for thirty dollars each, paying two hundred and fifty for two blue-blooded Jersey heifers... and coined money on the exchange, while Calkins and the rest went right on with their scrubs that couldn't give enough milk to pay for their board.” Billy nodded approval. “Remember what I told you about horses,” he reiterated to Saxon; and, assisted by his hostess, he gave a very creditable disquisition on horseflesh and its management from a business point of view. When he went out to smoke Mrs. Mortimer led Saxon into talking about herself and Billy, and betrayed not the slightest shock when she learned of his prizefighting and scab-slugging proclivities. “He's a splendid young man, and good,” she assured Saxon. “His face shows that. And, best of all, he loves you and is proud of you. You can't imagine how I have enjoyed watching the way he looks at you, especially when you are talking. He respects your judgment. Why, he must, for here he is with you on this pilgrimage which is wholly your idea.” Mrs. Mortimer sighed. “You are very fortunate, dear child, very fortunate. And you don't yet know what a man's brain is. Wait till he is quite fired with enthusiasm for your project. You will be astounded by the way he takes hold. You will have to exert yourself to keep up with him. In the meantime, you must lead. Remember, he is city bred. It will be a struggle to wean him from the only life he's known.” “Oh, but he's disgusted with the city, too—” Saxon began. “But not as you are. Love is not the whole of man, as it is of woman. The city hurt you more than it hurt him. It was you who lost the dear little babe. His interest, his connection, was no more than casual and incidental compared with the depth and vividness of yours.” Mrs. Mortimer turned her head to Billy, who was just entering. “Have you got the hang of what was bothering you?” she asked. “Pretty close to it,” he answered, taking the indicated big Morris chair. “It's this—” “One moment,” Mrs. Mortimer checked him. “That is a beautiful, big, strong chair, and so are you, at any rate big and strong, and your little wife is very weary—no, no; sit down, it's your strength she needs. Yes, I insist. Open your arms.” And to him she led Saxon, and into his arms placed her. “Now, sir—and you look delicious, the pair of you—register your objections to my way of earning a living.” “It ain't your way,” Billy repudiated quickly. “Your way's all right. It's great. What I'm trying to get at is that your way don't fit us. We couldn't make a go of it your way. Why you had pull—well-to-do acquaintances, people that knew you'd been a librarian an' your husband a professor. An' you had....” Here he floundered a moment, seeking definiteness for the idea he still vaguely grasped. “Well, you had a way we couldn't have. You were educated, an'... an'—I don't know, I guess you knew society ways an' business ways we couldn't know.” “But, my dear boy, you could learn what was necessary,” she contended. Billy shook his head. “No. You don't quite get me. Let's take it this way. Just suppose it's me, with jam an' jelly, a-wadin' into that swell restaurant like you did to talk with the top guy. Why, I'd be outa place the moment I stepped into his office. Worse'n that, I'd feel outa place. That'd make me have a chip on my shoulder an' lookin' for trouble, which is a poor way to do business. Then, too, I'd be thinkin' he was thinkin' I was a whole lot of a husky to be peddlin' jam. What'd happen, I'd be chesty at the drop of the hat. I'd be thinkin' he was thinkin' I was standin' on my foot, an' I'd beat him to it in tellin' him he was standin' on HIS foot. Don't you see? It's because I was raised that way. It'd be take it or leave it with me, an' no jam sold.” “What you say is true,” Mrs. Mortimer took up brightly. “But there is your wife. Just look at her. She'd make an impression on any business man. He'd be only too willing to listen to her.” Billy stiffened, a forbidding expression springing into his eyes. “What have I done now?” their hostess laughed. “I ain't got around yet to tradin' on my wife's looks,” he rumbled gruffly. “Right you are. The only trouble is that you, both of you, are fifty years behind the times. You're old American. How you ever got here in the thick of modern conditions is a miracle. You're Rip Van Winkles. Who ever heard, in these degenerate times, of a young man and woman of the city putting their blankets on their backs and starting out in search of land? Why, it's the old Argonaut spirit. You're as like as peas in a pod to those who yoked their oxen and held west to the lands beyond the sunset. I'll wager your fathers and mothers, or grandfathers and grandmothers, were that very stock.” Saxon's eyes were glistening, and Billy's were friendly once more. Both nodded their heads. “I'm of the old stock myself,” Mrs. Mortimer went on proudly. “My grandmother was one of the survivors of the Donner Party. My grandfather, Jason Whitney, came around the Horn and took part in the raising of the Bear Flag at Sonoma. He was at Monterey when John Marshall discovered gold in Sutter's mill-race. One of the streets in San Francisco is named after him.” “I know it,” Billy put in. “Whitney Street. It's near Russian Hill. Saxon's mother walked across the Plains.” “And Billy's grandfather and grandmother were massacred by the Indians,” Saxon contributed. “His father was a little baby boy, and lived with the Indians, until captured by the whites. He didn't even know his name and was adopted by a Mr. Roberts.” “Why, you two dear children, we're almost like relatives,” Mrs. Mortimer beamed. “It's a breath of old times, alas! all forgotten in these fly-away days. I am especially interested, because I've catalogued and read everything covering those times. You—” she indicated Billy, “you are historical, or at least your father is. I remember about him. The whole thing is in Bancroft's History. It was the Modoc Indians. There were eighteen wagons. Your father was the only survivor, a mere baby at the time, with no knowledge of what happened. He was adopted by the leader of the whites.” “That's right,” said Billy. “It was the Modocs. His train must have ben bound for Oregon. It was all wiped out. I wonder if you know anything about Saxon's mother. She used to write poetry in the early days.” “Was any of it printed?” “Yes,” Saxon answered. “In the old San Jose papers.” “And do you know any of it?” “Yes, there's one beginning: “'Sweet as the wind-lute's airy strains Your gentle muse has learned to sing, And California's boundless plains Prolong the soft notes echoing.'” “It sounds familiar,” Mrs. Mortimer said, pondering. “And there was another I remember that began: “'I've stolen away from the crowd in the groves, Where the nude statues stand, and the leaves point and shiver,'— “And it run on like that. I don't understand it all. It was written to my father—” “A love poem!” Mrs. Mortimer broke in. “I remember it. Wait a minute.... Da-da-dah, da-da-dah, da-da-dah, da-da—STANDS— “'In the spray of a fountain, whose seed-amethysts Tremble lightly a moment on bosom and hands, Then drip in their basin from bosom and wrists.' “I've never forgotten the drip of the seed-amethysts, though I don't remember your mother's name.” “It was Daisy—” Saxon began. “No; Dayelle,” Mrs. Mortimer corrected with quickening recollection. “Oh, but nobody called her that.” “But she signed it that way. What is the rest?” “Daisy Wiley Brown.” Mrs. Mortimer went to the bookshelves and quickly returned with a large, soberly-bound volume. “It's 'The Story of the Files,'” she explained. “Among other things, all the good fugitive verse was gathered here from the old newspaper files.” Her eyes running down the index suddenly stopped. “I was right. Dayelle Wiley Brown. There it is. Ten of her poems, too: 'The Viking's Quest'; 'Days of Gold'; 'Constancy'; 'The Caballero'; 'Graves at Little Meadow'—” “We fought off the Indians there,” Saxon interrupted in her excitement. “And mother, who was only a little girl, went out and got water for the wounded. And the Indians wouldn't shoot at her. Everybody said it was a miracle.” She sprang out of Billy's arms, reaching for the book and crying: “Oh, let me see it! Let me see it! It's all new to me. I don't know these poems. Can I copy them? I'll learn them by heart. Just to think, my mother's!” Mrs. Mortimer's glasses required repolishing; and for half an hour she and Billy remained silent while Saxon devoured her mother's lines. At the end, staring at the book which she had closed on her finger, she could only repeat in wondering awe: “And I never knew, I never knew.” But during that half hour Mrs. Mortimer's mind had not been idle. A little later, she broached her plan. She believed in intensive dairying as well as intensive farming, and intended, as soon as the lease expired, to establish a Jersey dairy on the other ten acres. This, like everything she had done, would be model, and it meant that she would require more help. Billy and Saxon were just the two. By next summer she could have them installed in the cottage she intended building. In the meantime she could arrange, one way and another, to get work for Billy through the winter. She would guarantee this work, and she knew a small house they could rent just at the end of the car-line. Under her supervision Billy could take charge from the very beginning of the building. In this way they would be earning money, preparing themselves for independent farming life, and have opportunity to look about them. But her persuasions were in vain. In the end Saxon succinctly epitomized their point of view. “We can't stop at the first place, even if it is as beautiful and kind as yours and as nice as this valley is. We don't even know what we want. We've got to go farther, and see all kinds of places and all kinds of ways, in order to find out. We're not in a hurry to make up our minds. We want to make, oh, so very sure! And besides....” She hesitated. “Besides, we don't like altogether flat land. Billy wants some hills in his. And so do I.” When they were ready to leave Mrs. Mortimer offered to present Saxon with “The Story of the Files”; but Saxon shook her head and got some money from Billy. “It says it costs two dollars,” she said. “Will you buy me one, and keep it till we get settled? Then I'll write, and you can send it to me.” “Oh, you Americans,” Mrs. Mortimer chided, accepting the money. “But you must promise to write from time to time before you're settled.” She saw them to the county road. “You are brave young things,” she said at parting. “I only wish I were going with you, my pack upon my back. You're perfectly glorious, the pair of you. If ever I can do anything for you, just let me know. You're bound to succeed, and I want a hand in it myself. Let me know how that government land turns out, though I warn you I haven't much faith in its feasibility. It's sure to be too far away from markets.” She shook hands with Billy. Saxon she caught into her arms and kissed. “Be brave,” she said, with low earnestness, in Saxon's ear. “You'll win. You are starting with the right ideas. And you were right not to accept my proposition. But remember, it, or better, will always be open to you. You're young yet, both of you. Don't be in a hurry. Any time you stop anywhere for a while, let me know, and I'll mail you heaps of agricultural reports and farm publications. Good-bye. Heaps and heaps and heaps of luck.” <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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