and desire that he had found in the frenzied big things
when he was a power and rocked half a continent with
the fury of the blows he struck. With head and
hand, at risk of life and limb, to bit and break a
wild colt and win it to the service of man, was to
him no less great an achievement. And this new
table on which he played the game was clean.
Neither lying, nor cheating, nor hypocrisy was here.
The other game had made for decay and death, while
this new one made for clean strength and life.
And so he was content, with Dede at his side, to
watch the procession of the days and seasons from
the farm-house perched on the canon-lip; to ride through
crisp frosty mornings or under burning summer suns;
and to shelter in the big room where blazed the logs
in the fireplace he had built, while outside the world
shuddered and struggled in the storm-clasp of a southeaster.
Once only Dede asked him if he ever regretted, and
his answer was to crush her in his arms and smother
her lips with his. His answer, a minute later,
took speech.
“Little woman, even if you did cost thirty millions,
you are sure the cheapest necessity of life I ever
indulged in.” And then he added, “Yes,
I do have one regret, and a monstrous big one, too.
I’d sure like to have the winning of you all
over again. I’d like to go sneaking around
the Piedmont hills looking for you. I’d
like to meander into those rooms of yours at Berkeley
for the first time. And there’s no use
talking, I’m plumb soaking with regret that
I can’t put my arms around you again that time
you leaned your head on my breast and cried in the
wind and rain.”
But there came the day, one year, in early April,
when Dede sat in an easy chair on the porch, sewing
on certain small garments, while Daylight read aloud
to her. It was in the afternoon, and a bright
sun was shining down on a world of new green.
Along the irrigation channels of the vegetable garden
streams of water were flowing, and now and again Daylight
broke off from his reading to run out and change the
flow of water. Also, he was teasingly interested
in the certain small garments on which Dede worked,
while she was radiantly happy over them, though at
times, when his tender fun was too insistent, she
was rosily confused or affectionately resentful.
From where they sat they could look out over the world.
Like the curve of a skirting blade, the Valley of
the Moon stretched before them, dotted with farm-houses
and varied by pasture-lands, hay-fields, and vineyards.
Beyond rose the wall of the valley, every crease
and wrinkle of which Dede and Daylight knew, and at
one place, where the sun struck squarely, the white
dump of the abandoned mine burned like a jewel.
In the foreground, in the paddock by the barn, was
Mab, full of pretty anxieties for the early spring
foal that staggered about her on tottery legs.
