ove, 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 sufficiently, 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 weed-grown.
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 first thing. An' them horses. 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 in 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' figure 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."