y your market. And you, my boy, as soon as
the first rains come will have your hands full and your horses weary
draining that meadow. We'll work those plans out to-morrow Also, there
is the matter of berries on the bench here--and trellised table
grapes, the choicest. They bring the fancy prices. There will be
blackberries--Burbank's, he lives at Santa Rosa--Loganberries, Mammoth
berries. But don't fool with strawberries. That's a whole occupation in
itself. They're not vines, you know. I've examined the orchard. It's a
good foundation. We'll settle the pruning and grafts later."

"But Billy wanted three acres of the meadow," Saxon explained at the
first chance.

"What for?"

"To grow hay and other kinds of food for the horses he's going to
raise."

"Buy it out of a portion of the profits from those three acres," Mrs.
Mortimer decided on the instant.

Billy swallowed, and again achieved renunciation.

"All right," he said, with a brave show of cheerfulness. "Let her go. Us
for the greens."

During the several days of Mrs. Mortimer's visit, Billy let the two
women settle things for themselves. Oakland had entered upon a boom, and
from the West Oakland stables had come an urgent letter for more horses.
So Billy was out, early and late, scouring the surrounding country for
young work animals. In this way, at the start, he learned his valley
thoroughly. There was also a clearing out at the West Oakland stables of
mares whose feet had been knocked out on the hard city pave meets, and
he was offered first choice at bargain prices. They were good animals.
He knew what they were because he knew them of old time. The soft earth
of the country, with a preliminary rest in pasture with their shoes
pulled off, would put them in shape. They would never do again on
hard-paved streets, but there were years of farm work in them. And
then there was the breeding. But he could not undertake to buy them. He
fought out the battle in secret and said nothing to Saxon.

At night, he would sit in the kitchen and smoke, listening to all that
the two women had done and planned in the day. The right kind of horses
was hard to buy, and, as he put it, it was like pulling a tooth to get a
farmer to part with one, despite the fact that he had been authorized to
increase the buying sum by as much as fifty dollars. Despite the coming
of the automobile, the price of heavy draught animals continued to rise.
From as early as Billy could remember,