had
not seen before. Next they took the old wood-road and came out on the
dozen acres of clearing where the wine grapes grew in the wine-colored
volcanic soil. Then they followed the cow-path through more woods and
thickets and scattered glades, and dropped down the hillside to where
the farm-house, poised on the lip of the big canon, came into view only
when they were right upon it.

Dede stood on the wide porch that ran the length of the house while
Daylight tied the horses. To Dede it was very quiet. It was the dry,
warm, breathless calm of California midday. All the world seemed
dozing. From somewhere pigeons were cooing lazily. With a deep sigh of
satisfaction, Wolf, who had drunk his fill at all the streams along the
way, dropped down in the cool shadow of the porch. She heard the
footsteps of Daylight returning, and caught her breath with a quick
intake. He took her hand in his, and, as he turned the door-knob, felt
her hesitate. Then he put his arm around her; the door swung open, and
together they passed in.

CHAPTER XXV

Many persons, themselves city-bred and city-reared, have fled to the
soil and succeeded in winning great happiness. In such cases they have
succeeded only by going through a process of savage disillusionment.
But with Dede and Daylight it was different. They had both been born on
the soil, and they knew its naked simplicities and rawer ways. They
were like two persons, after far wandering, who had merely come home
again. There was less of the unexpected in their dealings with nature,
while theirs was all the delight of reminiscence. What might appear
sordid and squalid to the fastidiously reared, was to them eminently
wholesome and natural. The commerce of nature was to them no unknown
and untried trade. They made fewer mistakes. They already knew, and
it was a joy to remember what they had forgotten.

And another thing they learned was that it was easier for one who has
gorged at the flesh-pots to content himself with the meagerness of a
crust, than for one who has known only the crust.

Not that their life was meagre. It was that they found keener delights
and deeper satisfactions in little things. Daylight, who had played
the game in its biggest and most fantastic aspects, found that here, on
the slopes of Sonoma Mountain, it was still the same old game. Man had
still work to perform, forces to combat, obstacles to overcome. When
he experimented in a small way