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CHAPTER III
It is forty miles from Oakland to San Jose, and Saxon and
Billy accomplished it in three easy days. No more obliging and
angrily garrulous linemen were encountered, and few were the
opportunities for conversation with chance wayfarers. Numb ers of tramps, carrying rolls of blankets, were met, traveling
both north and south on the county road; and from talks with
them Saxon quickly learned that they knew little or nothing
about farming. They were mostly old men, feeble or besotted, and all they knew was work – where jobs might be good,
where jobs had been good; but the places they mentioned were
always a long way off. One thing she did glean from them, and
that was that the district she and Billy were passing through
was “small-farmer” country in which labor was rarely hired,
and that when it was it generally was Portuguese.
The farmers themselves were unfriendly. They drove by
Billy and Saxon, often with empty wagons, but never invited
them to ride. When chance offered and Saxon did ask questions, they looked her over curiously, or suspiciously, and gave
ambiguous and facetious answers.
“They ain’t Americans, damn them,” Billy fretted. “Why, in
the old days everybody was friendly to everybody.”
But Saxon remembered her last talk with her brother.
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JACK LONDON
“It’s the spirit of the times, Billy. The spirit has changed.
Besides, these people are too near. Wait till we get farther away
from the cities, then we’ll fi nd them more friendly.”
“A measly lot these ones are,” he sneered.
“Maybe they’ve a right to be,” she laughed. “For all you
know, more than one of the scabs you’ve slugged were sons of
theirs.”
“If I could only hope so,” Billy said fervently. “But I don’t
care if I owned ten thousand acres, any man hikin’ with his
blankets might be just as good a man as me, an’ maybe better,
for all I’d know. I’d give ‘m the benefi t of the doubt, anyway.”
Billy asked for work, at fi rst, indiscriminately, later, only at
the larger farms. The unvarying reply was that there was no
work. A few said there would be plowing after the fi rst rains.
Here and there, in a small way, dry plowing was going on. But
in the main the farmers were waiting.
“But do you know how to plow?” Saxon asked Billy.
“No; but I guess it ain’t much of a trick to turn. Besides,
next man I see plowing I’m goin’ to get a lesson from.”
In the mid-afternoon of the second day his opportunity came. He climbed on top of the fence of a small fi eld and
watched an old man plow round and round it.
“Aw, shucks, just as easy as easy,” Billy commented scornfully. “If an old codger like that can handle one plow, I can
handle two.”
“Go on and try it,” Saxon urged.
“What’s the good?”
“Cold feet,” she jeered, but with a smiling face. “All you
have to do is ask him. All he can do is say no. And what if he
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THE VALLEY OF THE MOON
does? You faced the Chicago Terror twenty rounds without
fl inching.”
“Aw, but it’s different,” he demurred, then dropped to the
ground inside the fence. “Two to one the old geezer turns me
down.”
“No, he won’t. Just tell him you want to learn, and ask him
if he’ll let you drive around a few times. Tell him it won’t cost
him anything.”
“Huh! If he gets chesty I’ll take his blamed plow away from
him.”
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 fi re 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 fl ew 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.
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JACK LONDON
Billy persisted till the fi eld was fi nished, and the old man
invited him and Saxon to stop for the night. There was a disused outbuilding where they would fi nd 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 suffi ciently, 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 shield. Farm and farmer were old-fashioned. 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 weedgrown. 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 fi rst thing. An’ them horses.
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THE VALLEY OF THE MOON
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 brass 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’ fi gure 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 spacious ranges
for his horses, mumbled unenthusiastic assent.
“And the vegetables! Look at them! And the fl owers 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 fl owers that take up the ground that
good vegetables might be growin’ on?”
395
JACK LONDON
“And that’s what I’m going to fi nd 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, fl owerbordered 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, effi ciency, and
intensive cultivation with a vengeance – even her untrained
eye could see that. The woman stood up and turned from her
fl owers, and Saxon saw that she was middle-aged, slender, and
simply but nicely dressed. She wore glasses, 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. Evidently the woman had seen her put it down.
“We’re not peddling,” she explained quickly.
“Oh, I am sorry for the mistake.”
This time the woman’s smile was even pleasanter, and she
waited for Saxon to state her errand.
Nothing loath, Saxon took it at a plunge.
“We’re looking for land. We want to be farmers, you know,
and before we get the land we want to fi nd out what kind of
land we want. And seeing your pretty place has just fi lled me up
with questions. You see, we don’t know anything about farming.
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THE VALLEY OF THE MOON
We’ve lived in the city all our life, and now we’ve given it up and
are going to live in the country and be happy.”
She paused. The woman’s face seemed to grow quizzical,
though the pleasantness did not abate.
“But how do you know you will be happy in the country?”
she asked.
“I don’t know. All I do know is that poor people can’t be
happy in the city where they have labor troubles all the time. If
they can’t be happy in the country, then there’s no happiness
anywhere, and that doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
“It is sound reasoning, my dear, as far as it goes. But you
must remember that there are many poor people in the country and many unhappy people.”
“You look neither poor nor unhappy,” Saxon challenged.
“You ARE a dear.”
Saxon saw the pleased fl ush in the other’s face, which lingered as she went on.
“But still, I may be peculiarly qualifi ed to live and succeed
in the country. As you say yourself, you’ve spent your life in
the city. You don’t know the fi rst thing about the country. It
might even break your heart.”
Saxon’s mind went back to the terrible months in the Pine
street cottage.
“I know already that the city will break my heart. Maybe
the country will, too, but just the same it’s my only chance,
don’t you see. It’s that or nothing. Besides, our folks before us
were all of the country. It seems the more natural way. And
better, here I am, which proves that ‘way down inside I must
397
JACK LONDON
want the country, must, as you call it, be peculiarly qualifi ed
for the country, or else I wouldn’t be here.”
The other nodded approval, and looked at her with growing interest.
“That young man – ” she began.
“Is my husband. He was a teamster until the big strike
came. My name is Roberts, Saxon Roberts, and my husband is
William Roberts.”
“And I am Mrs. Mortimer,” the other said, with a bow of
acknowledgment. “I am a widow. And now, if you will ask your
husband in, I shall try to answer some of your many questions.
Tell him to put the bundles inside the gate.. .. And now what
are all the questions you are fi lled with?”
“Oh, all kinds. How does it pay? How did you manage it
all? How much did the land cost? Did you build that beautiful
house? How much do you pay the men? How did you learn all
the different kinds of things, and which grew best and which
paid best? What is the best way to sell them? How do you sell
them?” Saxon paused and laughed. “Oh, I haven’t begun yet.
Why do you have fl owers on the borders everywhere? I looked
over the Portuguese farms around San Leandro, but they never mixed fl owers and vegetables.”
Mrs. Mortimer held up her hand. “Let me answer the last
fi rst. It is the key to almost everything.”
But Billy arrived, and the explanation was deferred until
after his introduction.
“The fl owers caught your eyes, didn’t they, my dear?” Mrs.
Mortimer resumed. “And brought you in through my gate and
right up to me. And that’s the very reason they were planted
398
THE VALLEY OF THE MOON
with the vegetables – to catch eyes. You can’t imagine how
many eyes they have caught, nor how many owners of eyes they
have lured inside my gate. This is a good road, and is a very popular short country drive for townsfolk. Oh, no; I’ve never had
any luck with automobiles. They can’t see anything for dust. But
I began when nearly everybody still used carriages. The townswomen would drive by. My fl owers, and then my place, would
catch their eyes. They would tell their drivers to stop. And –
well, somehow, I managed to be in the front within speaking
distance. Usually I succeeded in inviting them in to see my
fl owers... and vegetables, of course. Everything was sweet, clean,
pretty. It all appealed. And – ” Mrs. Mortimer shrugged her
shoulders. “It is well known that the stomach sees through the
eyes. The thought of vegetables growing among fl owers pleased
their fancy. They wanted my vegetables. They must have them.
And they did, at double the market price, which they were
only too glad to pay. You see, I became the fashion, or a fad, in
a small way. Nobody lost. The vegetables were certainly good,
as good as any on the market and often fresher. And, besides,
my customers killed two birds with one stone; for they were
pleased with themselves for philanthropic reasons. Not only
did they obtain the fi nest and freshest possible vegetables, but
at the same time they were happy with the knowledge that they
were helping a deserving widow-woman. Yes, and it gave a certain tone to their establishments to be able to say they bought
Mrs. Mortimer’s vegetables. But that’s too big a side to go into.
In short, my little place became a show place – anywhere to go,
for a drive or anything, you know, when time has to be killed.
And it became noised about who I was, and who my husband
399
JACK LONDON
had been, what I had been. Some of the townsladies I had
known personally in the old days. They actually worked for my
success. And then, too, I used to serve tea. My patrons became
my guests for the time being. I still serve it, when they drive out
to show me off to their friends. So you see, the fl owers are one
of the ways I succeeded.”
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 glasses.
“Yes, and no,” Billy said stubbornly, speaking in his slow,
deliberate fashion. “If every farmer was to mix fl owers 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
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