IN PARADISE VALLEY
Coming one forenoon from the kitchen, where she had been instructing
the new cook installed in the position Pearl had held so long, Lucy
observed Justin walking in a dejected manner down the trail that led
to Clayton’s, and saw that he had been in conversation with Philip
Davison. She knew what that conversation had been about, and when
Davison came into the house she followed him up to his room. There was
a heightened color in her cheeks, as she stood before her guardian. He
looked up, a frown on his florid face.
“What is it?” he asked almost gruffly; but she was not to be put down.
“You won’t mind telling me what you said to Justin awhile ago?”
She slid into a chair, and sat up very straight and stiff.
“You sent him to me, I suppose?”
“I didn’t, but I have known he meant to speak to you.”
“He wants to marry you!”
“That isn’t news to me.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t. But what has he got to marry on?”
“Now, Uncle Philip, I’m going to say what I think! Justin is your son,
and every father owes something to his child. Don’t you think so?”
Davison’s blue eyes snapped, but he would not be angry with this
favorite niece.
“Well, yes, I suppose so, if you put it that way.”
“Justin and I have been just the same as engaged for a long time.”
“Yes, I’ve known that, too. I told him to show what there was in him;
and,” his tone became bitter, “he has shown it!”
Lucy refused to become offended.
“Of course we can’t marry unless you help him along. Justin has been
wanting to go to Denver. He thinks he could do well there by and by,
after he became acquainted and had a start. Doctor Clayton knows a man
there to whom he will give him a letter. But expenses are something
terrific in a city, and we should have to wait a long time before
Justin could work up to a salary that would justify us in getting
married.”
“So it’s you that wants to get married, is it?”
“I am one who wants to get married; Justin is the other.”
Davison laughed in changing mood.
“What do you demand that I shall do?”
“I don’t demand anything, I simply suggest.”
“Then what do you suggest? He had the nerve to say that he thinks he
is capable of managing the new ditch.”
“I simply suggest that you help him in some way, as a father who is
able to should. He has worked for you a long time for very small
wages; wages so small that he could save nothing out of them, as you
know. I think that you ought to start him on one of the farms you have
recently bought, or else give him some good position, with a salary
that isn’t niggardly. It seems to me he is capable and worthy.”
“If I don’t give him a position, that will postpone this most
important marriage?”
“I don’t want him to go to Denver.”
A smile wrinkled Davison’s face and lighted his blue eyes.
“You are a good girl, Lucy; and Justin is a—is a Davison! And that
means he is hard-headed and has a good opinion of himself. I’ll think
about it. Now run down and see that the cook doesn’t spoil the dinner.
She burnt the bread yesterday until it was as black as coal and as
hard as a section of asphalt pavement. By the way, I don’t suppose you
could cook or do housework?”
“Try me!” she said, relaxing.
And she departed, for she did not yet trust the new cook.
The next day Davison offered Justin the position of ditch rider, at a
salary that made Fogg wince and protest, though he believed Justin to
be the very one for the place. That Justin should be given this
position seemed even to Fogg advisable, as a business consideration.
The “rider” of the canal and ditches comes into closer relationship
with the water users than any other person connected with an
irrigation company. He sees that the water is properly measured and
delivered, and he makes the equitable pro-rata distribution when the
supply is low or failing. Justin had the confidence of the farmers;
and, as there were sure to be many complaints, he would be a good
buffer to place between them and the company.
Justin accepted the position. In a financial sense, it promised to
advance him very materially; and the prospect of the proper irrigation
of Paradise Valley pleased both him and Clayton. It was the beginning
of the fulfillment of Peter Wingate’s dream. Yet Justin knew he was
asked to undertake a difficult task. Even when they had everything in
their own hands, the farmers had wrangled interminably over the
equitable distribution of the water.
Having control of the source of supply and of the canal and laterals,
the first act of Fogg and Davison was to offer water to the farmers at
increased rates. They were strengthening the dam, and widening the
canal and laterals, at “terrific cost,” Fogg claimed, and
reimbursement for this necessary outlay was but just.
It was Fogg who planned and Fogg who executed. This was new business
to him, but no one would have guessed it. Over his oily, scheming face
hovered perpetual sunshine. His manner and his arguments subdued even
intractable men. It was said of him that he could get blood out of a
grindstone. What he said of himself was, “Whenever I see that the
props are kicked out from under me, I plan to have some kind of a good
cushion to land on.” The cushion in this case was the exploitation of
the inevitable, the irrigation of Paradise Valley, for the benefit of
the exploiters.
Many new settlers were drawn in by attractively-worded advertisements.
Then one of the things Justin had feared came to pass. Fogg sold more
water than he could deliver, trouble arose, and this trouble
descended, in great measure, on the head of the ditch rider. In spite
of all he could do to distribute the water fairly complaints and
protests were made.
Fogg had planned for this condition, and he was iron. He claimed that
an unusually dry year had worked against the success of the company;
and as there was a clause in the water notes covering such a failure
to supply water, the farmers were forced, sometimes under the
sheriff’s hammer, to pay the notes they had given. Buying sometimes
from the sheriff, and sometimes through second parties from the
farmers themselves, for numbers of them, in disgust, were willing to
sell and leave the country, before the end of the first year Fogg and
Davison had greatly increased their land holdings, by “perfectly
legitimate” methods.