“You don't call that dinky gardening farming,” he objected, pointing to a piece of land barely the size of an acre, which they were passing.
“Oh, your ideas are still big,” she laughed. “You're like Uncle Will, who owned thousands of acres and wanted to own a million, and who wound up as night watchman. That's what was the trouble with all us Americans. Everything large scale. Anything less than one hundred and sixty acres was small scale.”
“Just the same,” Billy held stubbornly, “large scale's a whole lot better'n small scale like all these dinky gardens.”
Saxon sighed. “I don't know which is the dinkier,” she observed finally, “—owning a few little acres and the team you're driving, or not owning any acres and driving a team somebody else owns for wages.”
Billy winced.
“Go on, Robinson Crusoe,” he growled good naturedly. “Rub it in good an' plenty. An' the worst of it is it's correct. A hell of a free-born American I've been, adrivin' other folkses' teams for a livin', a-strikin' and a-sluggin' scabs, an' not bein' able to keep up with the installments for a few sticks of furniture. Just the same I was sorry for one thing. I hated worse 'n Sam Hill to see that Morris chair go back—you liked it so. We did a lot of honeymoonin' in that chair.”
They were well out of San Leandro, walking through a region of tiny holdings—“farmlets,” Billy called them; and Saxon got out her ukulele to cheer him with a song.
First, it was “Treat my daughter kind-i-ly,” and then she swung into old-fashioned darky camp-meeting hymns, beginning with:
“Oh! de Judgmen' Day am rollin' roun', Rollin', yes, a-rollin', I hear the trumpets' awful soun', Rollin', yes, a-rollin'.”
A big touring car, dashing past, threw a dusty pause in her singing, and Saxon delivered herself of her latest wisdom.