Whistling Girl
A Victorian Romance
By
Ardell L. D. Taylor
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2000 by Ardell Loretta Durrell Taylor
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WHISTLING GIRL
CHAPTER ONE
"¡Santa Madre!, Anita, where have you been? I hope you have not been down into the town looking like that!"
The words were in Spanish, but the reply came in English.
"No, Mamá. I have only been walking in the chaparral."
"Thank the good Lord for that! You look positively indecent."
"Indecent!"
"Yes, María Anita, positively indecent. Your bosom actually quivers when you walk. Any man seeing you would think you were a loose woman. I have told you time after time to wear your corset, but you pay no attention to me."
Doña Guadalupe Aldon heaved a great sigh and her mouth took on a slight pout, a more and more frequent occurrence these days. Her speech to her daughter was mostly in the language of her youth, with an occasional English word or phrase thrown in. When she did use English, it was clear enough, spoken with a charming accent and an odd wording. To Anita, both languages came with equal ease and her responses were divided evenly between the two.
"I just don't understand," Doña Guadalupe went on, "why it should be, after giving birth to seven other children, and losing four of them, that God should give me a disobedient child like you in my old age."
"Mamá!" protested Anita. "I am not a child and I am not disobedient. I am eighteen years old and I do wear that...that miserable corset whenever I go out where I will be seen. And besides," she added designedly, knowing her mother's weaknesses, "you are not anywhere near old age. You will not be old for a long time yet."
Her mother softened at once. She was a handsome woman, vain of her creamy olive skin, still smooth and unwrinkled. After fifty-six years she retained more than a little of the beauty of her youth, which had been famous in the California of her day.
"Well, I feel old anyway since Alexander died. It is very hard to be a poor widow with an unmarried daughter and no money. How you will ever find a husband of your own class when we are so poor, I do not know."
It was Anita's turn to sigh. An attractive girl in her own right, she bore little resemblance to her mother. The deep dimple in her left cheek and her fair skin, turned golden by the California sun, were from her English father, Alexander Aldon. Even her dark eyes and hair were more like those of the Aldons than the Falcóns, her mother's family. Only her full, mature figure came from her mother, and it had been the cause of all her mother's worry about eligible husbands since Anita reached the age of fourteen.
To Anita, it seemed that any talk of her “own class" was foolish since the loss of their money had placed them in quite a different class but she knew better than to say so. She knew, almost word for word, the lecture she would receive about the excellence of her English ancestors, the Aldons, and the nobility of her Spanish ancestors, the Falcóns, and how the mere loss of money did not mean they had lost any of the innate refinement of those old families. It was merely that their financial straits made it more difficult for a marriageable daughter to find a suitable husband. It was an old, old complaint, one Anita had heard many times since her father's death four years ago.
Don Alejandro, as he was called, had been owner of the Rancho Las Tunas, patrón of many thousands of acres, hundreds of Spanish and Indian workers, and countless cattle and horses. The rancho had been a little kingdom of its own, like many others in California. When Don Alejandro had married the beautiful Guadalupe Falcón, he had installed his young bride as mistress of the great sprawling adobe house on its own hill at the foot of the San Gabriel mountains. She had reigned like a queen in the big house, and eight children had been born there, though only four survived. The others had been laid to rest, one by one, in the rancho cemetery, including the only son, long awaited and greatly mourned, who had lived a mere three years.
But all that was before the squatters had come and begun the steady, merciless stealing of land, cattle, and water. This never ending thievery had cost Don Alejandro so much in legal fees, in a losing battle for his rights, that in the end almost all the land had been sold to pay his debts. Of all his broad acres he had managed to keep only eighty of the choicest in the foothills, his orchards, and a vineyard. All the rest, including the old house, had been lost.
Anita was not yet twelve years old when they had moved out of their old home on the hill and into the house of their former mayordomo. She would never forget that day. They had brought all the beautiful old furniture, many heirlooms from her mother's family, and had tried to fit it into these four little rooms. Even when the house was so crowded they could hardly move, many pieces were still outside...and that night it rained. She still remembered her mother sobbing over the ruin of Grandmother Falcón's hand carved chest and beautiful French dressing table.
Only a little more than two years later Alexander Aldon died, a broken man. Since then, Doña Guadalupe, his much younger wife, and María Anita, the child of his old age, had lived in the little house on the last of their property and tried to make ends meet.
For Anita it was not hard. She had loved the old home, but mostly she loved the land, as her father had. Also like her father, she loved to see what the land would grow, and it was at her instigation that a garden was planted to supply the kitchen. There were many things in her garden that were unfamiliar to most Californians of her time because Anita remembered her father's talk about the gardens he had known in his native England and in the other places he had visited before marrying and settling down in California in his middle years.
He had planted vineyards of French grapes, orchards of olives, and was one of the first to grow the new navel oranges after they were imported in '73. The vineyards and orchards were sadly in need of care, but Anita made sure that they were at least irrigated periodically.
Anita's mother took no interest in the orchards or garden and found her widowhood a great burden to her. Her one desire was to get away from the place of her mortification and she made frequent visits to her relatives in Los Angeles, never understanding why Anita had no great desire to accompany her. Doña Guadalupe was always ready to seize any excuse for one of these visits; and during the years since her husband's death she had never ceased lamenting that their limited means would not allow them to move into town permanently.
"If only we could sell the last of this accursed land," she would say, "we could afford to buy a nice little house in Los Angeles and you could go to all the parties and meet all the well-to-do young men and find a nice husband."
Anita no longer made any reply to this frequently repeated remark. She had known for a long time that their savings were dwindling and that if a buyer could be found they would have to sell their remaining land just to keep living.
Doña Guadalupe had no head for figures, and a life of luxury had not prepared her for the necessity of careful spending. After the first disastrous year of her widowhood it became apparent that she could not handle her own finances, so they had been taken over by her brother, Don Jorge Falcón. Don Jorge was the oldest living male member of the family. Doña Guadalupe had been obeying one or another masculine relative all her life, so it was with great relief that she had turned over her affairs to Don Jorge. This willingness, however, did not prevent her from making constant complaints about the smallness of the monthly sum he allowed her for living expenses.
"But it is so little!" she wailed repeatedly. "Of course I have confidence in Jorge. I am sure he knows what is best. But how can we exist on so little?"
Actually, they existed quite well. Anita took over the buying of household provisions, and since her kitchen garden saved a great deal of food money, and her careful purchases saved even more, her mother was able to spend small sums for many little luxuries they could not otherwise have afforded. But Doña Guadalupe never understood this and spoke constantly of their poverty and the necessity of selling their property.
She was speaking of it now.
"It would be so much easier to meet men of your class if we could sell this place and move to Los Angeles. We are too far away from everything out here. We never see anyone."
"Oh, Mamá, Aunt Alma and Uncle Jim were here just last week, and Don Jorge comes almost every month."
"Well, of course, the family comes. I mean other people —— friends of the family and young people of your age."
"We saw lots of people at Christmastime," Anita reminded her, "and at Easter. And San Juan's Day is almost here. You know we always see everyone at Luisa's house on San Juan's Day."
Anita's oldest sister, Luisa, lived in Los Angeles with her husband and family, and it had been her custom for years to entertain the entire family, as well as some friends, on the Día de San Juan, June twenty-fourth.
Doña Guadalupe brightened. "That is true," she exclaimed. "San Juan's Day is coming! What day is today? Run and look at your calendar."
Anita went into her bedroom where a calendar hung on the door. It seemed only a few weeks ago that her uncle Jim Taylor had given her the calendar because she had admired the pretty picture on it. It was a painting of snow covered mountains reflected in a blue lake with strange little high-peaked houses along the shore. Under the picture was printed, in heavy black letters, Farmers and Merchants Bank of Los Angeles - 1887. Her uncle had said, "It's a new idea of Mr. Hellman's to advertise his bank. Take it if you like it." That was last Christmas, and here it was June already and the year half over.
"It is the sixteenth," she called to her mother.
"The sixteenth! Why, Día de San Juan is only a week away! Why didn't I think sooner? Luisa will need help getting everything ready. We must go in and help her."
"She won't need help so soon, Mamá," protested Anita. "She has been having the San Juan's Day party for years. She knows just how to plan everything so it is no trouble."
"Nonsense," said Doña Guadalupe. "Of course she will be glad to have her own mother and sister there. We can pack up a few things and get Emeterio to drive us in on Sunday."
Anita sighed. She knew that nothing she could say would have any effect. Once again her mother had found an excuse to leave Las Tunas and spend a week in Los Angeles.
"All right, Mamá," she agreed, "you go. But I am not going."
"Not going? Of course you must go."
"No," she replied quietly. "I do not want to leave so soon. There is a lot of work to do in the garden, and the orange grove needs irrigating."
"María Anita, you exasperate me! Here you have a chance to go where you might meet some young men, and you prefer to stay home and work in that garden! I wish you would leave the gardening to Emeterio. How many times do I have to tell you that you will spoil your complexion working outside? Weeding and irrigating like a peón! A daughter of Don Alejandro Aldon and a granddaughter of Don Luis Falcón y Figueroa! ¡Dios Mío! That I should live to see this day!"
"I like to work outside, especially in the garden," said Anita. "Besides, we need the vegetables."
"Vegetables!" cried Doña Guadalupe. "What we need is for you to learn to behave like a lady so that some nice young man will want to marry you! No decent young men will look at you if your skin is all brown from the sun and your hands are rough from working in the dirt."
"If that is the case, then I will not marry," said Anita firmly.
Doña Guadalupe wrung her hands.
"¡Santa Madre!" she cried. "And how do you think you will live if you do not marry?"
"I will go to work."
"Go to work? Doing what, in the name of God?"
"I could become a teacher," answered Anita, "or a seamstress like the station agent's wife."
"Oh, Anita, how foolish you are! You do not know what you are talking about. You could not possibly live on what you would earn that way."
"Maybe you could not," said Anita, "but I could."
Doña Guadalupe pulled a handkerchief from the bosom of her basque, put it to her eyes, and began to weep.
At once, remorse swept Anita. "Oh, don't cry, Mamá! Please do not. I am sorry that I worried you." She put a hand on her mother's arm and kissed her cheek. "You go and help Luisa. She will be glad to have you. But if I go, I will only be in the way. And I would really much rather stay at home. You go without me. Please."
"Well...will you promise not to work all day in the sun?"
"All right, Mamá. I promise."
"And you will come in later?"
"Yes, of course. I will be there for the party."
Sunday morning Anita assisted her mother to get ready, and helped load her belongings in the wagon. Emeterio Hernandez, the old servant who lived with his wife, Concha, in a one-room house on the Aldon property, drove the wagon out to the road. Anita waved goodbye and then turned back into the house with a relief which she could not deny.
She loved and pitied her mother because she understood her. Doña Gaudalupe's character was shallow and as clear as water. She had a sweet, trusting nature and had loved and been loved by everyone all her life. She believed without question whatever she was told by those who represented authority in her life —— parents, husband, priests —— and she had sailed serenely through life, secure in her ignorance, trusting to those others to clear every obstacle from her path. Then her safe little world had fallen apart. She had not the capacity to understand what had happened, and could only rail at fate in her helplessness, clinging to all the old dogma of her youth like a drowning person clutching at flotsam. Her daughter pitied her... and was glad to see her go.
Anita went back into her own room and sat down. She had been wanting to sort out her thoughts ever since her mother had questioned her so insistently about her future, but she had to be alone to think seriously; and she had deliberately postponed the effort until her mother had left. Now, as she sat down on the white counterpane of her bed, she realized that the room was stuffy and dark. She wanted to be out in the open, under the sky, with a breeze in her face.
For one wistful moment she let herself think how nice it would be to ride a horse once more as she used to do before the rancho was lost. How she had loved to urge her horse to a gallop and make her own breeze on hot days! She had had her own little mare, and they had roamed all over the rancho together. Amistosa was her name. Was it possible she was still alive...somewhere...after all these years? But those days were long over. The only horse they could afford now was the tired old animal who pulled Emeterio's wagon. Anita took herself firmly in hand. After all, she liked to walk almost as much as she had liked to ride.
She went back out into the kitchen, where Concha, the old cook, was cutting up a chicken to prepare for Sunday dinner.
"I am going for a walk, Concha," she said. "I will be back by lunchtime."
"Bien, mi hijita. It is too nice to stay indoors."
Anita smiled affectionately and patted the old woman's shoulder as she passed. She had always been mi hijita, my little daughter, to this woman who had had only sons, now long grown and departed. It was like having two mothers.
Outside, Anita took a deep breath and looked around. The summer heat had not yet begun and the day was warm and pleasant. Anita went out of the yard into the orange grove, and down an aisle between the rows of big dark trees, walking beside the old furrows long since grown over with mustard, mallow, and other weeds. On the far side of the grove she emerged into a section of chaparral which had never been put under cultivation and here she struck out in an apparently aimless direction, weaving her way around the bushes. After perhaps a quarter of a mile, she came to a well-worn path and turned onto it, heading toward a ridge which stretched out into the valley from the foothills ahead of her.
She walked slowly and pensively, and though her eyes took in the beauty of the mountains and of the wildflowers blooming here and there, it did not give her as much pleasure as usual. She had been depressed by the disagreement with her mother, though she was long used to similar scenes and not usually disturbed by them. But this time had been different. Her mother's desperate questions had suddenly made her aware that she really did not know how she was going to cope with the future, and if her mother's plans did not suit her, she must make some of her own.
So she followed the path to the base of the ridge and up the side to the top, where she found a grassy spot in front of a boulder and sat down. Here she leaned back against the rock and stared out over the stretch of the valley she had just crossed, to the orchard beyond, and the roofs of some of the buildings in Las Tunas beyond that. It was her home, and she loved it, but she knew that she would not be able to stay here much longer —— probably not more than a year or two more at most. Property was beginning to be sold all around them, and it was only a question of time before a buyer would be found for the Aldon land.
If only they could make a living from the place! Then it would not have to be sold. Her father had believed it could be done, but he had been too old and sick those last two years before he died. Afterwards she had suggested to her uncle, Don Jorge, that something should be done with the oranges, the grapes, and the olives, but Don Jorge was a cattleman and regarded orchards and vineyards much as Anita regarded her kitchen garden —— a nice addition to the household diet, but hardly a source of income.
Then she had spoken to her uncle Jim Taylor; he was an American and he agreed with Anita that there might be some money to be made from the place —— if she could find a man who understood pruning and fertilizing and spraying and all the other necessary procedures. But Uncle Jim was a merchant, not a farmer, and he did not have the needed knowledge. Neither did Anita, though she almost thought if she could get a little money to hire a few skilled workers, her rudimentary expertise might be enough. But who was going to believe that a mere girl would know anything about such work? Certainly no one was going to give her money to experiment.
So the property would have to be sold, and they would move to Los Angeles and live on a lot, and she would never again roam the chaparral and climb the foothills. And how were they going to live when that money ran out? Of course, she knew the family would not let them starve, but in that respect she was in perfect agreement with her mother. She had no desire to be supported by her relatives.
She did not even consider the idea of marriage, which loomed so large in Doña Guadalupe's mind. She had never met a man she could love, and she certainly would not marry for money. She had told her mother she would become a teacher or a seamstress. She had said it without thought, simply as a defense, but now she gave it serious consideration.
She had to admit she would never make a good dressmaker; her sewing was not that good. She disliked making her own clothes and had actually paid to have her newest dress made for her by a seamstress who had recently arrived in Las Tunas.
So that left teaching. Well, it was a definite possibility. If they moved into Los Angeles she could attend the normal school that had opened a few years ago. She thought she might be a pretty fair teacher. She liked children, and her little nieces and nephews adored her. And there were plenty of places for teachers in Los Angeles. Yes, she could really do that. She might even be able to teach in the Las Tunas school. Of course! Why hadn't she thought of that? There were only three teachers there, but the turnover rate was high. Her spirits began to revive.
Then it occurred to her that even if they did not move to Los Angeles, she could still attend normal school by staying with Uncle Jim and Aunt Alma at their house in town. If she did that, and if she got a job soon enough, they might not even have to sell the property! She could start when the fall term began!
She laughed aloud and stood up. The weight of doubt lifted and her spirits rose to their usual level. Brushing her skirt with her hands, she wondered why she had been so downcast. There wasn't really any problem. Swiftly she descended the trail, headed for home, but as soon as she reached level ground she slowed to a saunter and began whistling "La Golondrina", feeling contented in spite of the plaintive sound of the tune.
CHAPTER TWO
It was the nineteenth of June when John Claremont Vanderburg, youngest son of W. Stuyvesant Vanderburg, the New York financier, looked out the window of the smoking car on the slowly moving train and realized that the desert he had been seeing for so many miles was at last giving way to something else.
The train had entered a rough break in the mountains and was now descending from the high desert to an altogether different landscape. Now, though he still spotted an occasional cactus, he also began to see cultivated fields and could hardly believe his eyes. Then he saw farm houses surrounded by trees. And these trees were not the cottonwoods he had grown used to seeing at every desert oasis where the train stopped but others that were unfamiliar to him. One was large, gnarled, and spreading with dark foliage; it seemed native to the place, for he also saw that it was growing wild in some of the canyons. Another type of tree, which he often saw close to the houses, was lacy with bright green drooping branches; it resembled a willow but was not.
When the train passed close enough for him to identify the plants growing in the fields, he began looking with interest at the varied crops he saw. This was what he had come for, after all. But nothing in his previous reading or his training at the Massachusetts Agricultural College prepared him for his shock of disbelief when he saw the first orange grove growing next to a stand of wheat as flourishing as any he had seen in the east. There were even a few oranges on the trees although he knew from his reading that it was not their principal producing season.
The train pulled into a little town, evidently the center of the farming community, and stopped. The name on the depot was San Bernardino.
What a mouthful, he thought as he attempted to repeat the name under his breath.
Several people were waiting to board the train at the station. Some appeared to be farmers obviously wearing their best clothes. One was an elderly man, very tall and straight, dressed in an outlandish costume of black material trimmed with silver pieces. He also wore a broad flat-brimmed hat and was smoking a long, thin cigar, but none of the others on the platform seemed to pay any attention to his peculiar attire. Two ladies, apparently a mother and daughter, were accompanied by a man in an ordinary business suit. The ladies seemed quite fashionable to John, although he was aware that his sister-in-law, Alice, always laughed at him whenever he made any remark about fashions. He would have liked very much to hear her comments on these people, especially that tall, Spanish-looking fellow.
Alice was Mrs. Gordon Lawrence Vanderburg, wife of his oldest brother, and John had a great deal of respect for her opinions regarding dress, manners, and social form. She was a leader of the younger set of New York society and an exponent of the very latest modes. Even John's mother, who rarely took a back seat to anyone, admitted that Alice was an expert in the matter of fashion.
"Look what she's done for Gordon," his mother had said to him. "Since they've been married, he's become the best dressed man in New York, and you could be the same if you'd just ask Alice's advice before you bought your clothes."
"I suppose that's a polite way of telling me you don't like the way I dress," said John, who had heard similar complaints before.
"Well, dear," replied his mother, "you know you've always been careless about your wearing apparel; and I did overhear Mrs. Astor telling Miss Stanford that she didn't see how a brother of Gordon Vanderburg could be so démodé. At least," she added, "I think you should have some new things made before we go to Newport this year."
So he had taken his mother's advice and consulted his sister-in-law, who had very kindly accompanied him to a tailor shop and one or two haberdasheries. The result was eminently pleasing to everybody. John had had the satisfaction of knowing that he cut a very fine figure on the lawns and in the ballrooms of Newport that season. Even he could see that the year's crop of debutantes cast many a languishing glance at him over their croquet mallets and their dance programmes.
Even Miss Millicent Carrington had looked kindly on him that year, and she the Beauty of the season. He had paid his court to her all the following winter and left his cards at her door and sent his flowers with the other dozen young men who did the same. But she had accepted young Mr. Winslow of Winslow, Smythe and Winslow, and though John had murmured suitably regretful remarks and done his best to appear properly woebegone, he was conscious that his regret was merely good form.
That was the same year he had tried, and failed, to become interested in his father's business. Installed in his own small room in Vanderburg and Sons' fashionable office, he had struggled manfully to learn the ins and outs of the Stock Exchange and the Board of Trade under the guidance of his father and both older brothers. He had only become bored. In fact, his “romance” with Miss Carrington was a direct result of his boredom. She was a refreshing change from stocks and bonds, and she waltzed beautifully.
It was after she accepted young Winslow that John decided he could no longer face the Stock Exchange. He confronted his father in the library one evening after dinner.
"Father," he began, "I'm afraid I'm not much of an asset to the Vanderburg offices. I'm sorry."
His father smiled. "Well, son," he said kindly, "we don't all pick up things as quickly as others. Keep working, and I'm sure you'll fit in eventually."
"I'm sure I would, but I'm not sure I want to," John replied ruefully. "I've been thinking I'd like to go back to college. After all," he hurried on as he saw his father's raised eyebrows, "you have Gordon and Bert both in the business; you don't really need me."
"Yes, of course, Gordon has a good head and takes a great deal off my shoulders, and Bert's doing very well, but there's always room for one more, and we've always expected you'd join us."
His father puffed on his cigar and looked speculatively at his son. "What did you have in mind to study if you go back to Harvard? I hope you're not thinking of more philosophy and Greek. I never could see the good of that sort of thing, unless you intend to become a teacher."
"No," John said with a smile, "no more liberal arts."
"I know that was your mother's idea. Culture is a fine thing, but it doesn't make money," continued the older man. "Law, now, would be good, or medicine, or possibly engineering."
"I was thinking of agriculture."
"Agriculture!" His father's eyebrows went all the way up this time, and he jerked the cigar from his mouth. "You want to be a goddamned farmer? There's no money in farming! Why, my grandfather was a farmer and nearly died in the poorhouse. He would have, too, if my father hadn't supported him at the last."
"I know, Father," John said quietly. "I've seen the old place. It was a typical upstate New York farm, a family operation aimed at self-sufficiency, growing a little bit of everything, definitely not a money maker."
"That's an understatement! Why, if the old folks saw a hundred dollars in cash from one end of the year to the next, they thought it was a lot! My mother never stopped being grateful to my father for bringing her to the city."
"I know all that," said John, "but that's exactly why I'd like to study agriculture. I think the old folks went at it wrong. Well, not wrong exactly. Their methods were all right for pioneer days. But I don't see why in these modern times a farm can't be run like a business, strictly for profit.”
He hastened to elaborate. "I saw some farms out west when Mother and I went out to Chicago last year that made me think about it. You should see the grain fields out there, miles and miles of nothing but grain, a cash crop and nothing else. I got the idea then that I'd like to try it scientifically. This is the age of science, and I don't see why it shouldn't apply to farming as well as anything else."
He had gone on and explained his vision to his father: how he wanted to grow strictly for the market —— whatever would sell well —— and use only the best modern methods to produce the finest possible crops and command the highest prices. In the end he had convinced his father of his sincerity, if not his wisdom, and the following fall he had begun his studies at Amherst.
As his learning progressed his interest had increased instead of lessening, as his father had expected, and his ideas for the future had begun to take form. On his visits home, he was so enthusiastic and so convincing in discussions with his father that the older man found himself beginning to change his opinion. By the time John got his degree, father and son had reached an agreement. John was to start his farming as a business enterprise with the full backing of Vanderburg and Sons, the company retaining a one-third interest in whatever ventures he should decide upon. The agricultural aspect of the business was to be entirely under John's direction, and he would be able to buy out the company interest at any time.
John vindicated himself from the very first. That year had been a bumper one for wheat, and because there was so much of it, prices had been low and the growers had lost money. He had traveled through upstate New York looking for farmland to rent, and he had heard farmer after farmer telling tales of losses and disappointments.
"Goin' t' plant oats next year,"(or buckwheat or rye) “ain't no money in wheat."
"My neighbor down the road had his land in corn instead of wheat, and he made money. I'm goin' t' plant corn next year."
"I had fifty acres in wheat an' barely cleared my costs. I'll be glad t' rent it to ye, if ye want it. I'm goin' t' stick t' my apple orchards next year. Always make a little off'n them."
John had rented five hundred acres and with hired hands to help had planted it all in wheat. The local farmers laughed at him for a city slicker while they tilled their oats and rye. But the following year the price of wheat was high because there was very little supply to meet the demand, and John made a killing.
The next year he again correctly estimated the market and made a tidy profit on broom corn. His father and brothers began to look at him with new respect.
"It's just like the Board of Trade," he told them. "You have to make an educated guess which commodities are going to go up and which are going down."
That autumn of 1886 he had come into the city feeling happier than ever before. He was tanned and healthy from his summer in the country and the season's debutantes made much of him. He was pleased to be admired and respected but he found the usual teas and balls irksome, and the constant attention to the newest modes seemed sillier to him than it had before. He contrasted the fashionplates he saw in the ballrooms with the down-to-earth folk of the country and he found the city people had sunk lower in his estimation. They used better grammar, but their interests were frivolous.
His greatest pleasure that winter was a visit to one of his former teachers at Amherst. Professor William Taylor was a middle aged family man with mild blue eyes and a well-trimmed beard. He welcomed John into his small home and introduced him to his wife and children with genuine warmth. After a pleasant family dinner, John and his host settled down to a long talk beside the parlor fireplace. John related his recent experiences and confided his future hopes.
"Eventually," he said, "I want to buy my own land. But I can't decide where. I want too many different things. I'd like to try my hand at grapes, but I also want to be able to grow grain and try truck gardening as well. I think I'll take a look out around Illinois and Iowa."
"Have you thought of California?" asked his host.
"California!" exclaimed John. "I thought there was nothing out there but prospectors and cattle ranchers."
"Oh, they have those all right," Taylor admitted and his blue eyes twinkled, "but they have a lot more besides. I have a brother out there, been there for twenty years or so,” he went on, “He headed out just on a pleasure trip when he was young and fell in love with the place. He's still in love with it, too. “You should read his letters! He's always telling us how great the climate is and how beautiful the country, and how foolish we are to stay here in the cold."
"But what about the farming?" asked John. "Can they really grow things? It's not just a desert?"
"Here," replied Taylor getting up. "I have a book you can take that will tell you all about it." He went to a corner bookcase and took down a small volume. "It's called California for Health, Pleasure and Residence by Charles Nordhoff. He tells of meeting a farmer driving into Los Angeles in January with a load of produce including oranges, pumpkins, corn, green peas and some other things I've forgotten. You'll find it very interesting."
John had found it interesting. He had found it so interesting that he had gone on to read everything he could about California and concluded that he would never be satisfied until he had traveled there himself to see how much of what he had read was truth and how much was exaggeration. The winter was almost over when he reached his decision, and he wondered if he should wait until the following winter to make the trip. But one day his brother Gordon had approached him with a plan.
"Alice and I are going out to San Francisco in April. We've been invited to spend a couple of months with an old school friend of Alice's. Though between you and me," he added, "it's more business than pleasure."
"How is that?" asked John.
"Well, this friend of Alice's is one of Fenton Collingwood's daughters. You know, the railroad magnate? She's a widow and has moved back home with her old man, and now she's sent Alice this invitation. Father and Bert and I have been trying to get Collingwood to give us his business for quite a while without much luck. Now Father figures that if Alice and I go out there and actually spend time in Collingwood's home, he can hardly ignore us in a business way."
"That sounds reasonable," John said.
"Since you want to see the west coast, too, why don't you head out a few weeks after us, and we can meet somewhere after Alice and I finish buttering up old Collingwood? We can all spend some time looking around and then come home together."
So here John was at the beginning of summer, entering California on a train headed for Los Angeles. In his suitcase he carried a letter of introduction to Professor Taylor's brother. The brother's name was James Taylor, and he had a hardware business.
The rest of the way to Los Angeles John kept moving from one side of the train to the other as he found himself fascinated by the views on either hand. The train passed through mile after mile of sparsely settled country, rolling hills and flat brushland stretching down from a sharply rising mountain range, along the base of which the train was crawling. For the most part the valley was brown and dry-looking yet oddly attractive to John's eyes. On the opposite side greenery could occasionally be seen in the mouths of canyons and along the course of the shallow streams that flowed out from those canyons. But most startling of all to John was the sudden appearance of lush green fields and orchards in the midst of the brown wilderness whenever the train passed an outlying farm or settlement.
One such place he noticed in particular because of the row of small houses he could see close to the tracks. Each little yard was shaded by large trees and overflowing with flowers. Roses, especially, seemed almost to grow wild, so luxuriantly did they cover fences and climb over porches. Obviously, where there was water here, things grew and grew well. John read the name of the place on the depot sign as they passed. It was Las Tunas.
At last, turning away from the mountains, the train rolled through a park-like grassland sprinkled with huge, gnarled trees, across a deep, dry canyon, through some rolling hills, and into the booming town of Los Angeles. He caught glimpses first of many small farms, giving way to neat residential streets, then closely-built commercial buildings, and finally, as the train came to a stop, a station, the newness of which was plain to the eye.
As he descended from the car, he was accosted by a young man, well dressed and smiling affably.
"Welcome to California, sir. I'm Bill Cameron of Cameron Land and Development Company. My card, sir. If you're looking for property, we have many fine pieces we'd be happy to show you."
John took the card."Why, thank you. Perhaps after I'm settled..."
"Any time, sir, any time," said the affable Mr. Cameron, and he moved on to present his card to another passenger just descending from the train.
John was still looking at the business card in his hand when a voice spoke loudly behind him.
"Just in time! Just in time, folks, for the big land auction tomorrow. Hundreds of beautiful homesites in the brand-new town of Burbank! Here's our announcement, madam, and one for you, sir," said the promoter, thrusting a sheet of paper at John. It was printed in red ink:
DON'T MISS THIS
FANTASTIC OPPORTUNITY!
Over 300 Lots in
BEAUTIFUL BURBANK
Will Be Sold At
AUCTION
12 NOON TUESDAY JUNE 20TH
NEW BURBANK CIVIC PLAZA
FREE
PICNIC LUNCH, COFFEE, & LEMONADE
COME ONE, COME ALL!
John thrust the paper into his pocket and made his way through the station building and out to the street where a line of hacks were waiting.
Since it was well after business hours by the time he had settled into his hotel and enjoyed a leisurely meal in the dining room, he decided to take a walk around town before bedtime. Accordingly, he left his hotel, the Nadeau, at First and Spring, and walked north. He noted the Acme Hardware, James Taylor's place of business, in the middle of the block below Arcadia Street, where he turned east to Main, then south again and back to the Nadeau.
He returned to his room with the impression of a raw
frontier town with dusty, unpaved streets and mostly wooden sidewalks. He had seen saloons, restaurants, and real estate dealers in plenty, but only one theater.
CHAPTER THREE
The week before San Juan's Day passed quickly and pleasantly for Anita. Mindful of her promise to her mother, she had confined her gardening to the mornings, when the sun was not so hot, and sometimes an hour or two in the evening after the sun had set.
Once, she had put on her corset, a clean dress, and a hat and walked down into the small but growing settlement of Las Tunas. It was still a matter of amazement to her that a town was sprouting on ground that used to be devoted to her father's horse corrals. The present owner, Mr. Lawson, had subdivided the land and laid out streets where the mares and colts used to graze, and the two-story brick building he had erected on the corner of Las Tunas Avenue and Lawson Street stood on the very spot where a stable had sheltered Don Alejandro's prize stallion. The new brick structure housed a grocery on the ground floor, where Anita made some purchases.
As she left the store she noticed a sign announcing that one Carter P. Clarke, D.D.M., had opened an office upstairs, where he was available for dentistry. Dr. Clarke was new to Las Tunas. The other office upstairs was occupied by a lawyer who had moved in as soon as the building was finished. Anita suspected he was a friend of Mr. Lawson's, which automatically made him a shyster in her mind.
Across the street another new building was going up, the latest in the ever growing number of small wooden structures. She wondered what sort of business it was going to hold.
Farther along she approached Lawson's office and saw Mr. Willetts, Lawson's clerk, standing in front with a sunburned, pale-eyed man, plainly a rancher, who took off his battered hat when he saw Anita and stepped aside for her to pass before turning back to Willetts.
"Shore, I'd like to buy a grove, but I cain't afford it," he was saying. "I was hopin' you'd have somethin' t' lease...on shares mebbe."
"Sorry," Willetts replied. "Mr. Lawson's only interested in selling."
She had gone another half block before the idea hit her. The man wanted to lease an orange grove and pay the owner a share of his profit on the crop! Why couldn’t her mother's land be leased out?
She stopped walking and stood still for a moment, strongly tempted to run back and speak to the man. The thought of her mother’s disapproval stopped her. She giggled to herself as she imagined the horrified look on Doña Guadalupe's face if Anita were to tell her she had accosted a strange man on the street. "María Anita! Ladies never speak to a man until they have been introduced! And only loose women approach men on the public street."
Well, it did not matter. If one man wanted to lease an orange grove, others must, too. Perhaps they could advertise. She would speak to Uncle Jim about it. She was sure he would think the effort was worthwhile. Leasing the land would provide an income. Maybe not very much, but better than nothing. Of course, her mother would still want to move to Los Angeles, and Anita would have to go along, but at least they would still own the land, and who knew what might happen in the future?
On Thursday the weather turned hot, but Anita had arranged with the zanjero, who was in charge of the irrigation canals, to direct the flow into the orange grove. She went out personally to open the sluice and let the water run into the old furrows. It would have been better if she could have had the grove cultivated and fresh furrows put in, but the old ones would have to do. She spent the morning with a hoe, checking the furrows to keep the water from breaking out. By afternoon Emeterio returned from his morning's job and took over the chore from her. She was glad to return to the house; it was hot work.
She spent the afternoon inside the house and did not go out into the garden until after supper. Then she enjoyed a quiet hour among her plants. Only one more day, she thought, before the Día de San Juan and the big party in town.
The thought of the party gave Anita somewhat mixed feelings. The twenty-mile drive in the wagon was always pleasant, and she enjoyed seeing her aunts and uncles and her many cousins, nieces, and nephews; but she could never get used to having the celebration at Luisa's house in Los Angeles.
All during her childhood it had been her father who entertained the family here at Rancho Las Tunas. The festivities had been held in the huge patio of the old adobe house where she had been born, complete with musicians and dancing and a whole steer roasted in a pit. The Día de San Juan had been celebrated all day and all night. Compared to those times, San Juan's Day at her sister's house seemed very tame and sedate.
But the memory of the past did not really make her unhappy. The past was long departed and the world was still a beautiful place. She was young, and she had a new dress to wear to the party.
The next morning Anita discovered that the raspberries in her garden were ripe, and consequently she spent a very warm hour among the brambles. The berries were thick on the vines and the picking was slow work, but she was rewarded with a heaping bowl full of the delicate fruit.
When she walked into the kitchen with them, Concha stared at her, aghast.
"Oh, señorita! Look at you. One would think you were of the common people instead of la gente de razón!"
Anita wiped the sweat from her nose with a berry-stained hand and frowned impatiently. "You are as bad as Mother! One cannot pick berries without soiling one's hands and clothes."
She deposited her bowl of raspberries on the heavy antique table that served for kitchen work as well as for meals and went out to the wash-stand under the ramada outside the back door.
"But you should not be picking the berries, María Anita, or digging the carrots or pulling the weeds as you do," protested the old woman, following her to stand in the doorway. "Why can you not wait for me to pick things and for Emeterio to do the digging and weeding?"
"Because you are too busy already, Concha mía. And it is hard for you to work in the hot sun. You know it is. And poor Emeterio," she went on as she rubbed soap over the scratches and stains on her arms, "has enough to do in Mr. Lawson's garden and at the new hotel."
"Well, that is true," conceded the maid, "but still it is not right. You should not be out in the hot sun. Look how dark you are getting! You should stay inside during the heat, and keep your skin white or the gentlemen will never look at you." After this pessimistic conclusion, old Concha went back to her work, shaking her head.
Anita smiled ruefully to herself. I must really look a fright, she thought, if I have shocked Concha into calling me señorita. I have not been anything but mi hijita for a long time."
After washing she went back through the kitchen into her own room and stood looking into the bevel-edged mirror on the front of the great mahogany wardrobe, so out of place in the tiny chamber.
"No wonder!" she said as she saw her reflection and laughed aloud. Her cheeks were flushed from her labor in the heat of the garden, her face and arms distinctly brown, her hair tangled by the briars, and even the sleeves of her basque had acquired one or two rips. "Oh, well, it is an old one and getting a little tight in the bosom."
Then she giggled.
"Of course I know what Mamá would say: 'If you would only wear your corset, María Anita, your clothes would fit properly.' Well, I will put on the corset tomorrow and look like a lady at the party, but today I will be comfortable."
She combed the snarls from her long dark hair and twisted it into a French knot at the back of her head, which gave her a dignity belied by the dimple in her left cheek when she smiled at herself in the mirror. The false air of stateliness amused her, and she began to whistle “La Golondrina” to herself as she returned to the kitchen to join Concha for the mid-day meal.
"Now you look like a lady, mi hijita," said the old woman as she set a bowl of soup in front of Anita. "But you sound like a boy with your whistling," she added as she took a plate of warm tortillas from the back of the stove. "Why can you not be a lady all the time?"
"Well, to tell the truth," replied Anita honestly, "I think that ladies are very dull."
Concha threw up her hands. "¡Qué tontería! What foolishness! You think it dull to have handsome caballeros come to court you?"
"All the caballeros I have seen so far," said Anita, calmly tearing a tortilla in half, "have been very boring, and not very handsome, either. And, besides, if they do not like me as I am, what is the use of pretending? I cannot pretend forever."
"¡Por supuesto, no! Of course not! One has only to pretend until after the wedding. Dios only knows why the men have such funny ideas how women should act, but we have to humor them until after they have knelt before the priest with us and then we can let them know, poco a poco, how silly their notions are."
Anita looked seriously at the old woman. "But that does not seem fair to me, Concha, to make them think they are getting something they are not. It is cheating."
"Cheating! ¡Por Dios! Do they not cheat us if they get a chance? Do they not swear eternal faithfulness to us and then hardly wait for the first baby to come before they are visiting the girls in the cantinas?"
Anita blushed, but the old woman continued. "Believe me, hijita, it is a hard world for women. You must look out for yourself and do whatever you have to do, but above all things, never let the men think you are not a lady."
Anita ate quietly for a while. Then she said wistfully, "Surely they are not all unfaithful. What about my father? And Emeterio? I do not think that Emeterio has been unfaithful to you."
"Pues, sí, your father was a true caballero, a real gentleman, and Emeterio is a good man as men go, but there have been times..." Concha shrugged her fat shoulders expressively.
"He is late today," said Anita after a moment.
"Yes. He was going to stop by the hotel on his way home to see if there was any work for him this afternoon. I hope he will have a few hours free; I want to send him up into the mouth of the cañón to get me some leaves of the yerba santa. I promised Juanita Ortiz I would make a tea for her little girl who has a bad throat."
"You do not need to wait for Emeterio," said Anita. "Give me a bag to put the leaves in and I will go and get them for you."
"You have been out in the sun all morning and now you talk of walking miles into the cañón and back?"
"It is a beautiful day and I feel like walking," insisted Anita. "I will take a hat to keep the sun off my face," she added, seeing the look Concha gave her.
"And long sleeves?"
"All right, long sleeves, too."
Only a few wisps of clouds floated in the deep blue of the sky and a mockingbird was practicing his repertoire as Anita stepped out of the house and started out to the road. She whistled a trill in answer to the mockingbird, then began "La Golondrina" again but thought better of it until she was past the big pepper trees in the yard and well down the road out of Concha's hearing. Then she puckered her red lips and let out the melody full and clear.
It was a song all Californians loved, and it was Anita's favorite. Her cousins in Los Angeles preferred the new American ballads such as “Love’s Old Sweet Song,” but Anita thought the Spanish one was prettier than any of them.
She had taught herself to whistle when quite a small girl after hearing her cousin, Silverio Falcón, two years older than she, demonstrating the art. He had assured her with masculine conceit that girls couldn't do it, so of course she set out to prove him wrong and did so with satisfying thoroughness. Unfortunately, the accomplishment did not gain her the admiration she had expected. When she first demonstrated her ability to her Uncle Jim Taylor, he shook his head disapprovingly.
"'Whistling girls and crowing hens
Always come to no good ends,'" he recited emphatically. "Pretty little ladies like you should not whistle."
She was surprised and disappointed but not convinced, until forced to it by a solid wall of familial disapproval. Her mother was horrified, her aunts shocked, and even her dear, indulgent father shook his head and said he hoped she would not spoil her pretty mouth that way.
After that she did not whistle in front of her family and only occasionally before old Concha and her husband, Emeterio, who were servants after all, though very privileged since they were all who were left of the great household of which they had once been a part. Concha had always been a shining light in the kitchen and Emeterio had been in charge of the gardens.
He still cared for those same gardens, only they belonged to Mr. Lawson instead of the Aldons, and Emeterio was paid by the day for his labor. The payment was small, and since the new hotel had been built, he had added to his income by tending the potted palms on the verandah and doing odd jobs for the manager. Between times he worked with Anita in the kitchen garden, helped irrigate the vineyard and groves,tended the horse and drove the wagon, and lent his stooped shoulders to many other tasks. It was a hard life for an old man, but he had never known any other existence and he was content.
When Anita reached the turn in the road that led down into the main part of the little town, she saw Emeterio sitting in the shade of a big eucalyptus tree, rolling a cigarette out of brown paper and tobacco from a pouch which he carried in the pocket of his sweat-stained shirt. He was a lean and leathery man with high brown cheekbones, a drooping mustache, and thick gray hair showing under the brim of his wide straw hat. His faded old eyes twinkled as he looked at her.
"Ay, mi hijita, walking again? You are young and never tired like me."
Anita smiled. "Oh, no, I am never tired, but I will sit with you a moment while you rest," and she gathered her skirts around her and sat down on the ground beside him.
"On the ground, mi hijita?" he protested as she settled herself.