It Pays to Smile

by Nina Wilcox Putnam

"Well, I found it on the sofa," said Peaches. "And it has his name in it. I was going to return it next day at luncheon—the luncheon to which he never came."

Then she broke down again.

"I guess it's only a Dago mileage book," she sobbed, "but it's all I've got of his! He must have used it a lot!" She buried her head in the pillow, the wallet clasped tightly to her breast, and I stole out of the room without seeing the contents. If only I had looked—insisted on looking at it then, what a lot of trouble we would have been spared! But as my dear father used to say, it is easy to be wise in retrospect. At the time I thought merely of Peaches getting a little sleep and that somebody had to get up and start the Chinaman or the foremen wouldn't get their breakfast by five o'clock, and there was still one sheltered flat of oranges to be picked.

Though the lugs were already in the orchard I knew that if we were ever to get through in time to make a complete shipment we must begin work as soon as it was light enough to see the yellow glow under the green on the fruit, and work until it was so dark that the prime oranges were indistinguishable from the unripe ones, and the Mohammedans would come out of the orchard and pray, in their heathen manner, facing where they supposed Mecca to be. Somebody had to see to things, even in time of sorrow, and I was what Peaches cryptically termed the "goat."

Mr. Kipling may not have known it, but the dawn comes up like thunder in California, too, so it is really no effort to rise early, once you are accustomed to so doing. It is a common observation that when one does get up at sunrise one wonders why one does not do it always. And for almost three years such had been my continuous habit.

I set about my duties this morning, however, with a heavy heart, for I anticipated a long siege with Peaches and her grief. But by the time the foremen had gone to their sections and I myself had ridden the rounds of the various orchards to see that all was well, and given the Chinaman instructions about the meals, which instructions he would later pretend not to have heard, and had ridden over to the sluice at the top of the head ditch to see why the new feed to the seedling flat wasn't working properly, and taken a look at the flock of turkeys which I had imported to keep the grasshoppers down and which had lately been depleted by coyotes, I returned to my second breakfast; and there was Peaches already seated at table, well-groomed in her riding clothes, and prepared to accompany me to the packing sheds at the railroads.

She was a trifle pale perhaps, and rather quieter than ever, but perfectly composed, and even smiled a little as I sat down beside her and attacked my meal.

"I'm all set now, Free," she whispered. "I'll just do my bit, as he did his."

And then we got out the car and went to town. I drove, at her request, and between bumps and mud holes watched her out of one corner of my eye for any signs of a breakdown. But none came, either then or later in the long sheds where the sweated fruit roared down the channel of the separator, falling into the bins like golden hail, which the wives and daughters of the neighboring ranchers stood swiftly packing; a most competent lot of females, very swift and precise and earning a good bit of pin money thus every year.