"Well, all I got to say," he enunciated solemnly, "is that Billy"s so lucky he don"t know how lucky he is."
Not until Doctor Hentley gave the word did the splints come off Billy"s arms, and Saxon insisted upon an additional two weeks" delay so that no risk would be run. These two weeks would complete another month"s rent, and the landlord had agreed to wait payment for the last two months until Billy was on his feet again.
Salinger"s awaited the day set by Saxon for taking back their furniture.
Also, they had returned to Billy seventy-five dollars.
"The rest you"ve paid will be rent," the collector told Saxon. "And the furniture"s second hand now, too. The deal will be a loss to Salinger"s"
and they didn"t have to do it, either; you know that. So just remember they"ve been pretty square with you, and if you start over again don"t forget them."
Out of this sum, and out of what was realized from Saxon"s pretties, they were able to pay all their small bills and yet have a few dollars remaining in pocket.
"I hate owin" things worse "n poison," Billy said to Saxon. "An" now we don"t owe a soul in this world except the landlord an" Doc Hentley."
"And neither of them can afford to wait longer than they have to," she said.
"And they won"t," Billy answered quietly.
She smiled her approval, for she shared with Billy his horror of debt, just as both shared it with that early tide of pioneers with a Puritan ethic, which had settled the West.
Saxon timed her opportunity when Billy was out of the house to pack the chest of drawers which had crossed the Atlantic by sailing ship and the Plains by ox team. She kissed the bullet hole in it, made in the fight at Little Meadow, as she kissed her father"s sword, the while she visioned him, as she always did, astride his roan warhorse. With the old religious awe, she pored over her mother"s poems in the sc.r.a.p-book, and clasped her mother"s red satin Spanish girdle about her in a farewell embrace. She unpacked the sc.r.a.p-book in order to gaze a last time at the wood engraving of the Vikings, sword in hand, leaping upon the English sands. Again she identified Billy as one of the Vikings, and pondered for a s.p.a.ce on the strange wanderings of the seed from which she sprang.
Always had her race been land-hungry, and she took delight in believing she had bred true; for had not she, despite her life pa.s.sed in a city, found this same land-hunger in her? And was she not going forth to satisfy that hunger, just as her people of old time had done, as her father and mother before her? She remembered her mother"s tale of how the promised land looked to them as their battered wagons and weary oxen dropped down through the early winter snows of the Sierras to the vast and flowering sun-land of California: In fancy, herself a child of nine, she looked down from the snowy heights as her mother must have looked down. She recalled and repeated aloud one of her mother"s stanzas:
""Sweet as a wind-lute"s airy strains Your gentle muse has learned to sing And California"s boundless plains Prolong the soft notes echoing.""
She sighed happily and dried her eyes. Perhaps the hard times were past. Perhaps they had const.i.tuted HER Plains, and she and Billy had won safely across and were even then climbing the Sierras ere they dropped down into the pleasant valley land.
Salinger"s wagon was at the house, taking out the furniture, the morning they left. The landlord, standing at the gate, received the keys, shook hands with them, and wished them luck. "You"re goin" at it right," he congratulated them. "Sure an" wasn"t it under me roll of blankets I tramped into Oakland meself forty year ago! Buy land, like me, when it"s cheap. It"ll keep you from the poorhouse in your old age. There"s plenty of new towns springin" up. Get in on the ground floor. The work of your hands"ll keep you in food an" under a roof, an" the land "ll make you well to do. An" you know me address. When you can spare send me along that small bit of rent. An" good luck. An" don"t mind what people think.
"Tis them that looks that finds."
Curious neighbors peeped from behind the blinds as Billy and Saxon strode up the street, while the children gazed at them in gaping astonishment. On Billy"s back, inside a painted canvas tarpaulin, was slung the roll of bedding. Inside the roll were changes of underclothing and odds and ends of necessaries. Outside, from the lashings, depended a frying pan and cooking pail. In his hand he carried the coffee pot.
Saxon carried a small telescope basket protected by black oilcloth, and across her back was the tiny ukulele case.
"We must look like holy frights," Billy grumbled, shrinking from every gaze that was bent upon him.
"It"d be all right, if we were going camping," Saxon consoled. "Only we"re not."
"But they don"t know that," she continued. "It"s only you know that, and what you think they"re thinking isn"t what they"re thinking at all. Most probably they think we"re going camping. And the best of it is we are going camping. We are! We are!"
At this Billy cheered up, though he muttered his firm intention to knock the block off of any guy that got fresh. He stole a glance at Saxon. Her cheeks were red, her eyes glowing.
"Say," he said suddenly. "I seen an opera once, where fellows wandered over the country with guitars slung on their backs just like you with that strummy-strum. You made me think of them. They was always singin"
songs."
"That"s what I brought it along for," Saxon answered.
"And when we go down country roads we"ll sing as we go along, and we"ll sing by the campfires, too. We"re going camping, that"s all. Taking a vacation and seeing the country. So why shouldn"t we have a good time?
Why, we don"t even know where we"re going to sleep to-night, or any night. Think of the fun!"
"It"s a sporting proposition all right, all right," Billy considered.
"But, just the same, let"s turn off an" go around the block. There"s some fellows I know, standin" up there on the next corner, an" I don"t want to knock THEIR blocks off."
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
The car ran as far as Hayward"s, but at Saxon"s suggestion they got off at San Leandro.
"It doesn"t matter where we start walking," she said, "for start to walk somewhere we must. And as we"re looking for land and finding out about land, the quicker we begin to investigate the better. Besides, we want to know all about all kinds of land, close to the big cities as well as back in the mountains."
"Gee!--this must be the Porchugeeze headquarters," was Billy"s reiterated comment, as they walked through San Leandro.
"It looks as though they"d crowd our kind out," Saxon adjudged.
"Some tall crowdin", I guess," Billy grumbled. "It looks like the free-born American ain"t got no room left in his own land."
"Then it"s his own fault," Saxon said, with vague asperity, resenting conditions she was just beginning to grasp.
"Oh, I don"t know about that. I reckon the American could do what the Porchugeeze do if he wanted to. Only he don"t want to, thank G.o.d. He ain"t much given to livin" like a pig offen leavin"s."
"Not in the country, maybe," Saxon controverted. "But I"ve seen an awful lot of Americans living like pigs in the cities."
Billy grunted unwilling a.s.sent. "I guess they quit the farms an" go to the city for something better, an" get it in the neck."
"Look at all the children!" Saxon cried. "School"s letting out. And nearly all are Portuguese, Billy, NOT Porchugeeze. Mercedes taught me the right way."
"They never wore glad rags like them in the old country," Billy sneered.
"They had to come over here to get decent clothes and decent grub.
They"re as fat as b.u.t.terb.a.l.l.s."
Saxon nodded affirmation, and a great light seemed suddenly to kindle in her understanding.
"That"s the very point, Billy. They"re doing it--doing it farming, too.
Strikes don"t bother THEM."
"You don"t call that d.i.n.ky gardening farming," he objected, pointing to a piece of land barely the size of an acre, which they were pa.s.sing.
"Oh, your ideas are still big," she laughed. "You"re like Uncle Will, who owned thousands of acres and wanted to own a million, and who wound up as night watchman. That"s what was the trouble with all us Americans.
Everything large scale. Anything less than one hundred and sixty acres was small scale."
"Just the same," Billy held stubbornly, "large scale"s a whole lot better"n small scale like all these d.i.n.ky gardens."
Saxon sighed. "I don"t know which is the d.i.n.kier," she observed finally, "--owning a few little acres and the team you"re driving, or not owning any acres and driving a team somebody else owns for wages."