The Project Gutenberg EBook of Susy, A Story of the Plains, by Bret Harte

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Susy, A Story of the Plains

Author: Bret Harte

Release Date: May 16, 2006 [EBook #2495]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUSY, A STORY OF THE PLAINS ***

Produced by Donald Lainson

SUSY, A STORY OF THE PLAINS

By Bret Harte

From: "ARGONAUT EDITION" OF THE WORKS OF BRET HARTE, VOL. 7

P. F. COLLIER & SON

NEW YORK

SUSY, A STORY OF THE PLAINS

CHAPTER I.

Where the San Leandro turnpike stretches its dusty, hot, and
interminable length along the valley, at a point where the heat and dust
have become intolerable, the monotonous expanse of wild oats on either
side illimitable, and the distant horizon apparently remoter than ever,
it suddenly slips between a stunted thicket or hedge of "scrub oaks,"
which until that moment had been undistinguishable above the long,
misty, quivering level of the grain. The thicket rising gradually in
height, but with a regular slope whose gradient had been determined
by centuries of western trade winds, presently becomes a fair wood of
live-oak, and a few hundred yards further at last assumes the aspect of
a primeval forest. A delicious coolness fills the air; the long, shadowy
aisles greet the aching eye with a soothing twilight; the murmur
of unseen brooks is heard, and, by a strange irony, the enormous,
widely-spaced stacks of wild oats are replaced by a carpet of
tiny-leaved mosses and chickweed at the roots of trees, and the minutest
clover in more open spaces. The baked and cracked adobe soil of the now
vanished plains is exchanged for a heavy red mineral dust and gravel,
rocks and boulders make their appearance, and at times the road is
crossed by the white veins of quartz. It is still the San Leandro
turnpike,--a few miles later to rise from this canada into the upper
plains again,--but it is also the actual gateway and avenue to the
Robles Rancho. When the departing visitors of Judge Peyton, now owner
of the rancho, reach the outer plains again, after twenty minutes'
drive from the house, the canada, rancho, and avenue have as completely
di