cy Mulrady
thought of sinking an artesian well on the sunny slope beside his
house; not, however, without serious consultation and much objection
from his Spanish patron. With great austerity Don Ramon pointed out
that this trifling with the entrails of the earth was not only an
indignity to Nature almost equal to shaft-sinking and tunneling, but
was a disturbance of vested interests. "I and my fathers, San Diego
rest them!" said Don Ramon, crossing himself, "were content with wells
and cisterns, filled by Heaven at its appointed seasons; the cattle,
dumb brutes though they were, knew where to find water when they wanted
it. But thou sayest truly," he added, with a sigh, "that was before
streams and rain were choked with hellish engines, and poisoned with
their spume. Go on, friend Mulrady, dig and bore if thou wilt, but in
a seemly fashion, and not with impious earthquakes of devilish
gunpowder."

With this concession Alvin Mulrady began to sink his first artesian
shaft. Being debarred the auxiliaries of steam and gunpowder, the work
went on slowly. The market garden did not suffer meantime, as Mulrady
had employed two Chinamen to take charge of the ruder tillage, while he
superintended the engineering work of the well. This trifling incident
marked an epoch in the social condition of the family. Mrs. Mulrady at
once assumed a conscious importance among her neighbors. She spoke of
her husband's "men"; she alluded to the well as "the works"; she
checked the easy frontier familiarity of her customers with pretty Mary
Mulrady, her seventeen-year-old daughter. Simple Alvin Mulrady looked
with astonishment at this sudden development of the germ planted in all
feminine nature to expand in the slightest sunshine of prosperity.
"Look yer, Malviny; ain't ye rather puttin' on airs with the boys that
want to be civil to Mamie? Like as not one of 'em may be makin' up to
her already." "You don't mean to say, Alvin Mulrady," responded Mrs.
Mulrady, with sudden severity, "that you ever thought of givin' your
daughter to a common miner, or that I'm goin' to allow her to marry out
of our own set?" "Our own set!" echoed Mulrady feebly, blinking at her
in astonishment, and then glancing hurriedly across at his
freckle-faced son and the two Chinamen at work in the cabbages. "Oh,
you know what I mean," said Mrs. Mulrady sharply; "the set that we move
in. The Alvarados and their friends! Doesn't the old Don come here
every d