The Valley of the Moon Part 58

Billy nodded approval.

"Remember what I told you about horses," he reiterated to Saxon; and, a.s.sisted 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 a.s.sured 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 ma.s.sacred 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 s.h.i.+ver,'--

"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 n.o.body 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!"