ated. "Richer in hell, but
looks too much like hard work. It'll do for those that's stuck on hard
work--God knows, they's nothin' here to induce a fellow to knock off
ever for a bit of play. No fishin', no huntin', nothin' but work. I'd
work myself, if I had to live here."

North they drove, through days of heat and dust, across the California
plains, and everywhere was manifest the "new" farming--great irrigation
ditches, dug and being dug, the land threaded by power-lines from the
mountains, and many new farmhouses on small holdings newly fenced. The
bonanza farms were being broken up. However, many of the great estates
remained, five to ten thousand acres in extent, running from the
Sacramento bank to the horizon dancing in the heat waves, and studded
with great valley oaks.

"It takes rich soil to make trees like those," a ten-acre farmer told
them.

They had driven off the road a hundred feet to his tiny barn in order to
water Hazel and Hattie. A sturdy young orchard covered most of his ten
acres, though a goodly portion was devoted to whitewashed henhouses and
wired runways wherein hundreds of chickens were to be seen. He had just
begun work on a small frame dwelling.

"I took a vacation when I bought," he explained, "and planted the trees.
Then I went back to work an' stayed with it till the place was cleared.
Now I 'm here for keeps, an' soon as the house is finished I'll send
for the wife. She's not very well, and it will do her good. We've been
planning and working for years to get away from the city." He stopped in
order to give a happy sigh. "And now we're free."

The water in the trough was warm from the sun.

"Hold on," the man said. "Don't let them drink that. I'll give it to
them cool."

Stepping into a small shed, he turned an electric switch, and a motor
the size of a fruit box hummed into action. A five-inch stream of
sparkling water splashed into the shallow main ditch of his irrigation
system and flowed away across the orchard through many laterals.

"Isn' tit beautiful, eh?--beautiful! beautiful!" the man chanted in an
ecstasy. "It's bud and fruit. It's blood and life. Look at it! It makes
a gold mine laughable, and a saloon a nightmare. I know. I... I used to
be a barkeeper. In fact, I've been a barkeeper most of my life. That's
how I paid for this place. And I've hated the business all the time. I
was a farm boy, and all my life I've been wanting to get back to it. And
here I am at last