第104章 CHAPTER I(1)

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 God. He ain't much given to livin' like a pig often 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 assent. "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 butterballs."

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 dinky gardening farming," he objected, pointing to a piece of land barely the size of an acre, which they were passing.

"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 dinky gardens."

Saxon sighed. "I don't know which is the dinkier," 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."

Billy winced.

"Go on, Robinson Crusoe," he growled good naturedly. "Rub it in good an' plenty. An' the worst of it is it's correct. A hell of a free-born American I've been, adrivin' other folkses' teams for a livin', a-strikin' and a-sluggin' scabs, an' not bein' able to keep up with the installments for a few sticks of furniture. Just the same I was sorry for one thing. I hated worse in Sam Hill to see that Morris chair go back--you liked it so. We did a lot of honeymoonin' in that chair."

They were well out of San Leandro, walking through a region of tiny holdings--"farmlets," Billy called them; and Saxon got out her ukulele to cheer him with a song.

First, it was "Treat my daughter kind-i-ly," and then she swung into old-fashioned darky camp-meeting hymns, beginning with:

"Oh! de Judgmen' Day am rollin' roan', Rollin', yes, a-rollin', I hear the trumpets' awful soun', Rollin', yes, a-rollin'."

A big touring car, dashing past, threw a dusty pause in her singing, and Saxon delivered herself of her latest wisdom.

"Now, Billy, remember we're not going to take up with the first piece of land we see. We've got to go into this with our eyes open--"

"An' they ain't open yet," he agreed.

"And we've got to get them open. ''Tis them that looks that finds.' There's lots of time to learn things. We don't care if it takes months and months. We're footloose. A good start is better than a dozen bad ones. We've got to talk and find out. We'll talk with everybody we meet. Ask questions. Ask everybody. It's the only way to find out."

"I ain't much of a hand at askin' questions," Billy demurred.

"Then I'll ask," she cried. "We've got to win out at this game, and the way is to know. Look at all these Portuguese. Where are all the Americans? They owned the land first, after the Mexicans.

What made the Americans clear out? How do the Portuguese make it go? Don't you see, We've got to ask millions of questions."

She strummed a few chords, and then her clear sweet voice rang out gaily:

"I's g'wine back to Dixie, I's g'wine back to Dixie, I's g'wine where de orange blossoms grow, For I hear de chillun eallin', I see de sad tears fallin'--

My heart's turned back to Dixie, An' I mus'go."

She broke off to exclaim: "Oh! What a lovely place! See that arbor--just covered with grapes!"

Again and again she was attracted by the small places they passed. Now it was: "Look at the flowers!" or: "My! those vegetables!" or: "See! They've got a cow!"

Men--Americans--driving along in buggies or runabouts looked at Saxon and Billy curiously. This Saxon could brook far easier than could Billy, who would mutter and grumble deep in his throat.

Beside the road they came upon a lineman eating his lunch.

"Stop and talk," Saxon whispered.

"Aw, what's the good? He's a lineman. What'd he know about farmin'?"

"You never can tell. He's our kind. Go ahead, Billy. You just speak to him. He isn't working now anyway, and he'll be more likely to talk. See that tree in there, just inside the gate, and the way the branches are grown together. It's a curiosity. Ask him about it. That's a good way to get started."

Billy stopped, when they were alongside.

"How do you do," he said gruffly.

The lineman, a young fellow, paused in the cracking of a hard-boiled egg to stare up at the couple.

"How do you do," he said.

Billy swung his pack from his shoulders to the ground, and Saxon rested her telescope basket.