The Little Lady of the Big House

-lockered, with a generous fireplace, out of which opened a bathroom; and, second, a long office room, wherein was all the paraphernalia o

es swung on a pivot, revealing a tiny spiral stairway of steel, which he descended wi

lved with books from floor to ceiling. He went directly to a case, directly to a shelf, and unerringly laid his hand on the book he

with redwood logs and interlaced with smaller trunks of redwood,

d, and the hoof-beaten gravel showed the stamping place of many horses, he found a pale-golden, almost tan-golden, sorrel mare. Her well-groomed spring coat was alive and flaming in the morning sun that slanted str

ng?" he queried, as he unsnappe

told of some thoroughbred's wild loves with wild mares among the hil

r, she went off down the graveled road. And rear she would have, had it not been for the marting

ght a glimpse of the Big House. Big it was in all seeming, and yet, such was the vagrant nature of it, it was not so big as it seemed. Eight hundred feet across the front face, it stretched. But much of this eight hundred feet was composed of mere corrid

o a hundred years before, and which had been modified by modern architects to the California-Spanish architecture of the day. Hispano-Mo

ines, long and horizontal, broken only by lines that were vertical and by the lines of juts and recesses that were alway

g. The sense of the Big House was solidarity. It defied earthquakes. It was planted for a thousand years. The honest concrete was overlaid by a cream-stucco of

ered for a quick solicitous instant on the great wing across the two-hundred-foot court, where, under climbing group

er hills and steeper wooded slopes that merged upward, steeper, into mighty mountains. The fourth quadrant was unbounded by mountain walls and h

with a pedigree, each with a history. There had to be a near two hundred of them, and he knew, according to the rigorous selection he commanded, not having been clipped in the fall, that the shining mohair draping the sides of the least of them, as fine as any human n

his nervous horse. Two Basque herders brought up the rear. They were short, broad, swarthy men, black-eyed, vivid-faced, contemplative and philosophic of expression. They pulled off the

eir presence. The time for kidding was approaching and they were being brought down from their brush-pastures to the brood-pens and shelters for jealous care and generous feed through the period of incre

wing the plows back and forth across, contour-plowing, turning the green sod of the hillsides to the rich dark brown of humus-filled earth so organic and friable that it would almost melt by gravity into fine-particled seed-

d no weeds grew in the shelters of the fences. Many of the level fields were in alfalfa. Others, following the rotations, bore crops planted the previous fall, or were in preparation for the spring-planting. Still others, c

pleasing to the eye, each set in the midst of gardens where stouter blooms, including roses, were out and smiling at the threat of

d smith, a shoe fresh-nailed on the fore-foot of an elderly Shire mare that would disturb the scales at eighteen hundred weight, was rasping down the outer wall of the hoof

a hybrid machine, half-auto, half-truck, passed him at speed and took the main road for the railroad station eight m

s of silos and with litter carriers emerging on overhead tracks and automatically dumping into waiting manure-spreaders. Several times, business-looking men, college-marked, astride horses or driving carts, stopped him and conferred with him. They were f

how soon will she be ready for

e now, just the way Mrs. Forrest wanted, but she's over-strung a

ce, and Hennessy, who wa

the alfalfa gang I'd lik

e matter w

-soldier. He may know government m

st no

s, but he's drinking now, and he take

smooth-shaven, with a cast in hi

erinary

ll. And send that other fellow--Hopkins, you said?--along with him. By the way, Mr. Hennessy." As he spoke, Forrest drew forth his pa

w to make up

take your orders. I observed him just now fitting a shoe to old

new b

hamping mount with the slightest of spur-tickles and shot her o

hed the objective of the ride: the hospital. Here he found but two young heifers being tested for tuberculosis, and a magnificent Duroc Jersey boar in magnificent condition. Weighing fully six hundred pounds, its bright eyes, brisk movements, and sheen of hair shouted out that there was nothing the

ce, outlined the next few months of destiny of Burgess Premier, and learned that the brood sow, Lady Isleton, the matron of all matrons of the O. I. C.'s and blue-ribboner in

nd wants to enter Stanford," Forrest said, curbing the

ng with the marks of college and the youthfulness of a man used to the open air and straight-livi

es, and State Normal girls--you know. How many of them follow career, and how m

usly bent on the mat

ged nurse, then. And four months after that I had to send her a wedding present. She married an automobile agent. She's lived in hotels ever since. She's never had a chance to nurse--never a ch

de of the road. Forrest glanced with kindling eye at the off mare of the machine, a huge, symmetrical Shire whose own

c selection, has man evolved her into a draught beast breeding true to kind. But being a draught-beast is secondary. Primarily she is a female. Take them by and large, our o

conomic sanction,"

ial system prevents marriage and compels woman to career. But, remember, indu

ung women with marriage these d

t laughed i

classical scholar at that--well, what has she done with it?... Two boys and three girls, I belie

elp it. That far, I agree. She had planned unheard-of achievements, while I saw nothing else than the deanship of the College of Agriculture. We just coul

be otherwise than what she has always been: first, the mother, second, the mate of man. It is a statistic. I've been looking up the girls who graduate from the State Normal. You will notice that those who marry by the way before graduation are excluded. Nevertheless, the average length of ti

re men are concerned," Crellin muttered, unable to disp

prepared to lift his mare into a gallop, "and you and I and all me

his Kipling, and the thought that caused the smile was: "But where's the kid of your

l, who was his horse-manager as well as pasture expert, and who was reputed to know, not only every blade

Forrest to signal was a glance he had caught, across the northern edge of the valley, of great, smooth-hill ranges

ed, such as the Little Coyote and Los Cuatos creeks, the Yolo and the Miramar hills, the Big Basin, Round Valley, and the San Anselmo and Los Banos ranges. Movements of herds and droves, past, present, and to come, were discu

-Eater. A stableman came on the run to take the mare, and Forrest, scarce pausing for