two acres of vegetables, that by the time you own the horses your three
acres will feed, you will have all you can attend to. Then it will be
time to get more land, for more horses, for more riches, if that way
happiness lie."

Billy understood. In his enthusiasm he dashed out:

"You're some farmer."

Edmund smiled and glanced toward his wife.

"Give him your opinion of that, Annette."

Her blue eyes twinkled as she complied.

"Why, the dear, he never farms. He has never farmed. But he knows." She
waved her hand about the booklined walls. "He is a student of good. He
studies all good things done by good men under the sun. His pleasure is
in books and wood-working."

"Don't forget Dulcie," Edmund gently protested.

"Yes, and Dulcie." Annette laughed. "Dulcie is our cow. It is a great
question with Jack Hastings whether Edmund dotes more on Dulcie, or
Dulcie dotes more on Edmund. When he goes to San Francisco Dulcie is
miserable. So is Edmund, until he hastens back. Oh, Dulcie has given me
no few jealous pangs. But I have to confess he understands her as no one
else does."

"That is the one practical subject I know by experience," Edmund
confirmed. "I am an authority on Jersey cows. Call upon me any time for
counsel."

He stood up and went toward his book-shelves; and they saw how
magnificently large a man he was. He paused a book in his hand, to
answer a question from Saxon. No; there were no mosquitoes, although,
one summer when the south wind blew for ten days--an unprecedented
thing--a few mosquitoes had been carried up from San Pablo Bay. As for
fog, it was the making of the valley. And where they were situated,
sheltered behind Sonoma Mountain, the fogs were almost invariably high
fogs. Sweeping in from the ocean forty miles away, they were deflected
by Sonoma Mountain and shunted high into the air. Another thing,
Trillium Covert and Madrono Ranch were happily situated in a narrow
thermal belt, so that in the frosty mornings of winter the temperature
was always several degrees higher than in the rest of the valley. In
fact, frost was very rare in the thermal belt, as was proved by the
successful cultivation of certain orange and lemon trees.

Edmund continued reading titles and selecting books until he had drawn
out quite a number. He opened the top one, Bolton Hall's "Three Acres
and Liberty," and read to them of a man who walked six hundred and fifty
miles a year in cultivating, by old-fashioned me