Bob had never known a resolution before. He thought he had, but he
knew now that all the rest compared to what he felt as he left Reedy
Jenkins' office were as dead cornstalks to iron rods.
One night nearly nine years ago, when returning through the hills with
his fiddle under his arm, he had stopped at the door of his cabin and
looked up at the stars. The boisterous fun of an hour ago had all
faded out, leaving him dissatisfied and lonesome. He was shabbily
dressed, not a dollar in his pocket--not a thing in the world his own
but that fiddle--and he knew he was no genius with that. He was not
getting on in the world; he was not making anything of himself. It was
then that the first big resolution came to him: He would quit this
fooling and go to work; he would win in this game of life. Since then
in the main he had stuck to that resolution. He had not knowingly
passed any opportunity by; certainly he had dodged nothing because it
was hard. He had won a little here, and lost there, always hoping,
always tackling the new job with new pluck. Yet these efforts had been
simple; somebody had offered him a job and he tried to make good at
it--and usually had. But to win now, and win big as he was determined
to do, he must have a job of his own; and he would have to create that
job, organize it, equip it.
"What I'll make it with--or just how--I don't know. But by all the
gods of the desert I'm going to win right here--in spite of the
thermometer, the devil, and Reedy Jenkins."
To raise cotton one must have a lease, tools, teams, provisions--all of
which costs money; and he had just $167.35. But if that girl and her
Sanskrit father could get in a cotton crop, he could. It was not too
late. Cotton might be planted in the Imperial Valley even up to the
last of May. He would get a field already prepared if he could; if
not, then he would prepare it.
And a man with a good lease and a good reputation could usually borrow
some money on which to raise a crop. Bob's mind again came back to the
Red Butte Ranch. It was so big that it almost swamped his imagination,
but if he was going to do big things he must think big. If he could
possibly sublease that ranch from Benson. But it would take $100,000
to finance a five-thousand-acre cotton crop. Then he thought of Jim
Crill, the old man of the Texas oil fields who was looking for
investments.
It was daring enough to seem almost fantastic, but Bob quickened his
step and turned toward the depot. He could yet catch the morning train
for Los Angeles.
But he passed Benson on the way. The same morning Bob called at the
Los Angeles office Benson went to Reedy Jenkins in Calexico.
The Red Butte lease had three years to run. Benson began by offering
the lease and all the equipment for $40,000. He had spent more than
$90,000 on it.
Reedy pushed back the long black lock of hair from his forehead, shook
his head lugubriously, and grew pessimistically oratorical. Things
were very unsettled over the line: there was talk of increased Mexican
duty on cotton, of a raise in water rates; the price of cotton was
down; ranchers were coming out instead of going in; no sale at all for
leases. He himself had not had an offer for a lease in two months.
They dickered for an hour. Reedy watching with a gloating shrewdness
the impractical fellow who had tried to farm with money. He knew
Benson had lost money on the last crop, and besides had been thoroughly
scared by the sly Madrigal.
"I'm tired of the whole thing." Benson spoke with annoyed vexation.
"I tell you what I'll do: I'll walk off the ranch and leave you the
whole damn thing for $20,000."
"I'll take it." Reedy knew when the limit was reached. "I'll pay you
$2,000 now to bind the bargain; and the balance within ten days."
As Benson left the office with the check, Reedy began figuring
feverishly. It was the biggest thing he had ever pulled off. The
lease, even with cotton selling for only eight cents, was worth
certainly $50,000, the equipment at least $10,000 more. And the five
thousand acres was already planted and coming up! In the Imperial
Valley the planting is by far the most expensive part of the cotton
crop up to picking. It costs from seven to ten dollars an acre to get
it planted; after that it is easy. There are so few weeds and so
little grass that one man, with a little extra help once or twice
during the summer, can tend from forty to eighty acres.
It was such an astounding bargain that Reedy's pink face grew a little
pale, and he moistened his lips as he figured. He was trying to
reassure himself that it would be dead easy to borrow the other
$18,000. He did not have it. In truth, he had only two hundred left
in the bank. He thought of Tom Barton and two of the banks from whom
he had already borrowed. They did not seem promising. Then he thought
of Jim Crill, and the pinkness came slowly back to his face. He smiled
doggishly as he picked up the phone, called El Centro, and asked for
Mrs. Evelyn Barnett.
Mrs. Evelyn Barnett sat on the porch shaded by a wistaria vine, her
feet discreetly side by side on the floor, her hands primly folded in
her lap; her head righteously erect, as one who could wear her widow's
weeds without reproach, having been faithful to the very last ruffle of
her handsome dress to the memory of her deceased.
She had insisted on taking Uncle Crill from the hotel, which was
ruining his digestion, and making a home for him. She had leased an
apartment bungalow, opening on a court, and with the aid of three
servants had, at great personal sacrifice, managed to give Uncle Crill
a "real home." True, Uncle was not in it very much, but it was there
for him to come back to.
"Uncle," she had said, piously, showing him the homelike wonders that
three servants had been able to achieve in the six rooms, "in the
crudities of this horrid, uncouth country, we must keep up the
refinements to which we were accustomed in the East." The old
gentleman had grunted, remembering what sort of refinements they had
been accustomed to, but made no outward protests at being thus frillily
domesticated after ten years in the Texas oil fields.
And as Mrs. Barnett sat on the porch this morning, fully and carefully
dressed, awaiting the result of that telephone message from Calexico,
she watched with rank disapproval her neighbours to the right and left.
It was quite hot already and Mrs. Borden on the right had come out on
the porch, dressed with amazing looseness of wrapper, showing a very
liberal opening at the throat, and stood fanning herself with a
newspaper. Mrs. Cramer on the left, having finished her sweeping, had
come out on the porch also, and in garments that indicated no padding
whatever dropped into a rocking chair, crossed her legs, made a dab at
her loosely piled hair to see it did not topple down, and proceeded to
read the morning newspaper. It was positively shocking, thought Mrs.
Barnett, how women could so far forget themselves. She never did.
Directly her primly erect head turned slightly, and her eyes which
always seemed looking for something substantial--no dream stuff for
her--widened with satisfaction and she put her hand up to her collar to
see if the breastpin was in place.
It was Reedy Jenkins who got out of the machine which stopped at the
entrance. He took off his hat when halfway to the porch--his black
hair was smoothly brushed--his face opened with a flattering smile and
he quickened his step. Mrs. Barnett permitted herself to rise, take
two short steps forward, and to smile reservedly as she offered her
hand.
Reedy Jenkins had not exaggerated when he said he had a way with the
ladies. He did have. It was rather a broad way, but there are plenty
of ladies who are not subtle.
"You have a lovely little place here." Reedy gave a short, approving
glance round as he took the offered chair. "It's wonderful what a
woman's touch can do to make a home. No place like home, if there is
some dear woman there to preside."
Mrs. Barnett's mouth simpered at the implied flattery; but her eyes,
always looking calculatingly for substantial results, were studying
Reedy Jenkins. He certainly had handsome black hair, and he was well
dressed--and the manner of a gentleman. He reminded her of an
evangelist she had known back in Indiana. She had intended to marry
that evangelist if his wife died in time; but she did not.
"It is very hard to do much here," Mrs. Barnett said, deprecatingly.
"There is so much dust, and the market is so poor, and servants are so
untrained and so annoying. But of course I do what little I can to
make dear Uncle a good home. It was a great sacrifice for me to come,
but when duty calls one must not think of self."
"No, I suppose not." Reedy sighed and shook his head until the long
black lock dangled across the corner of his forehead--he did look like
that evangelist. "But I wish sometime that we could forget the other
fellow and think of ourselves. I'd have been a millionaire by now if I
hadn't been so chicken-hearted about giving the other fellow the best
of it."
"We never lose by being generous," said Mrs. Barnett with conviction.
"No, I suppose not," Reedy sighed. "No doubt it pays in the long run.
I know I've been put in the way of making many thousands of dollars
first and last by fellows I had been good to." Then Reedy looked at
Mrs. Barnett steadily and with wide admiration in his large
eyes--looked until she blushed very deeply.
"It may be a rough place to live," said Reedy, "but it certainly has
been good for your colour. You are pink as a--a flower; you look
positively swee----" He broke off abruptly. "I beg your pardon; I
almost forgot myself."
Then Reedy changed the subject to the matter of business on which he
had come.
"Yes," Mrs. Barnett said, giving him her hand as he rose to go, "I'll
see Uncle to-night; and I'm sure Mr. Jenkins"--he still held her hand
and increased the pressure--"he'll be most glad to do it."