They were awakened by Possum, who was indignantly reproaching a tree squirrel for not coming down to be killed. The squirrel chattered garrulous remarks that drove Possum into a mad attempt to climb the tree. Billy and Saxon giggled and hugged each other at the terrier's frenzy.
"If this is goin' to be our place, they'll be no shootin' of tree squirrels," Billy said.
Saxon pressed his hand and sat up. From beneath the bench came the cry of a meadow lark.
"There isn't anything left to be desired," she sighed happily.
"Except the deed," Billy corrected.
After a hasty breakfast, they started to explore, running the irregular boundaries of the place and repeatedly crossing it from rail fence to creek and back again. Seven springs they found along the foot of the bench on the edge of the meadow.
"There's your water supply," Billy said. "Drain the meadow, work the soil up, and with fertilizer and all that water you can grow crops the year round. There must be five acres of it, an' I wouldn't trade it for Mrs. Mortimer's."
They were standing in the old orchard, on the bench where they had counted twenty-seven trees, neglected but of generous girth.
"And on top the bench, back of the house, we can grow berries."
Saxon paused, considering a new thought "If only Mrs. Mortimer would come up and advise us!--Do you think she would, Billy?"
"Sure she would. It ain't more 'n four hours' run from San Jose.
But first we'll get our hooks into the place. Then you can write to her."
Sonoma Creek gave the long boundary to the little farm, two sides were worm fenced, and the fourth side was Wild Water.
"Why, we'll have that beautiful man and woman for neighbors,"
Saxon recollected. "Wild Water will be the dividing line between their place and ours."
"It ain't ours yet," Billy commented. "Let's go and call on 'em.
They'll be able to tell us all about it."
"It's just as good as," she replied. "The big thing has been the finding. And whoever owns it doesn't care much for it. It hasn't been lived in for a long time. And --Oh, Billy--are you satisfied!"
"With every bit of it," he answered frankly, "as far as it goes.
But the trouble is, it don't go far enough."
The disappointment in her face spurred him to renunciation of his particular dream.
"We'll buy it--that's settled," he said. "But outside the meadow, they's so much woods that they's little pasture--not more 'n enough for a couple of horses an' a cow. But I don't care. We can't have everything, an' what they is is almighty good."
"Let us call it a starter," she consoled. "Later on we can add to it--maybe the land alongside that runs up the Wild Water to the three knolls we saw yesterday "
"Where I seen my horses pasturin'," he remembered, with a flash of eye. "Why not? So much has come true since we hit the road, maybe that'll come true, too.
"We'll work for it, Billy."
"We'll work like hell for it," he said grimly.
They passed through the rustic gate and along a path that wound through wild woods. There was no sign of the house until they came abruptly upon it, bowered among the trees. It was eight-sided, and so justly proportioned that its two stories made no show of height. The house belonged there. It might have sprung from the soil just as the trees had. There were no formal grounds. The wild grew to the doors. The low porch of the main entrance was raised only a step from the ground. "Trillium Covert," they read, in quaint carved letters under the eave of the porch.
"Come right upstairs, you dears," a voice called from above, in response to Saxon's knock.
Stepping back and looking up, she beheld the little lady smiling down from a sleeping-porch. Clad in a rosy-tissued and flowing house gown, she again reminded Saxon of a flower.
"Just push the front door open and find your way," was the direction.
Saxon led, with Billy at her heels. They came into a room bright with windows, where a big log smoldered in a rough-stone fireplace. On the stone slab above stood a huge Mexican jar, filled with autumn branches and trailing fluffy smoke-vine. The walls were finished in warm natural woods, stained but without polish. The air was aromatic with clean wood odors. A walnut organ loomed in a shallow corner of the room. All corners were shallow in this octagonal dwelling. In another corner were many rows of books. Through the windows, across a low couch indubitably made for use, could be seen a restful picture of autumn trees and yellow grasses, threaded by wellworn paths that ran here and there over the tiny estate. A delightful little stairway wound past more windows to the upper story. Here the little lady greeted them and led them into what Saxon knew at once was her room. The two octagonal sides of the house which showed in this wide room were given wholly to windows. Under the long sill, to the floor, were shelves of books. Books lay here and there, in the disorder of use, on work table, couch and desk.
On a sill by an open window, a jar of autumn leaves breathed the charm of the sweet brown wife, who seated herself in a tiny rattan chair, enameled a cheery red, such as children delight to rock in.
"A queer house," Mrs. Hale laughed girlishly and contentedly.
"But we love it. Edmund made it with his own hands even to the plumbing, though he did have a terrible time with that before he succeeded."
"How about that hardwood floor downstairs?--an' the fireplace?"
Billy inquired.
"All, all," she replied proudly. "And half the furniture. That cedar desk there, the table--with his own hands."
"They are such gentle hands," Saxon was moved to say.
Mrs. Hale looked at her quickly, her vivid face alive with a grateful light.
"They are gentle, the gentlest hands I have ever known, " she said softly. "And you are a dear to have noticed it, for you only saw them yesterday in passing."
"I couldn't help it," Saxon said simply.
Her gaze slipped past Mrs. Hale, attracted by the wall beyond, which was done in a bewitching honeycomb pattern dotted with golden bees. The walls were hung with a few, a very few, framed pictures.
