She proposed a new kind of real-estate advertising; small type, reading matter, sensible, straight-forward arguments. She was going into a settled farming community, where land values were high, and she was going to try out an advertising campaign for farmers. It had been a good farming year; farmers had money, and they had brains. She was going to offer them cheap land, and she was going to sell them.
She had the money to pay for the advertising, but she needed some one to work with her. She proposed that Hutchinson come in with her on a fifty-fifty basis. He could have his name on the door; he could make arrangements with the firm for the territory. They would hesitate to give it to her. But he knew she could sell land. Together they could make money.
Hutchinson did not take the proposition very seriously. She had not expected that he would. He thought about it, and grinned.
"I'd have to be mighty careful my wife didn't get wise!" he remarked.
"Cut that out!" she said in a voice that slashed. She unloosened her fury at him, at all men, and looked at him with blazing eyes. He stammered—he didn't mean—"When I talk business to you, don't forget that it's business," she said. She picked up her wallet of maps and left the office. As she did so she reflected that the scheme would work out.
Ten days later word ran through the oil fields that all the K. T. O. leases were letting out men. Hutchinson's inquiries showed that the Limited was not starting any new wells. Monroe, who had saved his money, announced that he would stop work for the winter. Hutchinson, remembering that Mrs. Kennedy had funds for an advertising campaign, decided that her proposition offered a shelter in time of storm.
They talked it over again, considering the details, and Hutchinson went to the city to see Clark. He got a small advance on commission, and the Santa Clara Valley territory.
On the train, leaving the oil fields for the last time, Helen looked back at the little station, the sand hills covered with black derricks, the wide, level desert, and felt that she was leaving behind her the chrysalis of the woman she had become.
CHAPTER XVII
On a hot July afternoon three years later she drove a dusty car through the traffic on Santa Clara Street in San José, and stopped it at the curb. When she had jumped to the sidewalk she walked around the car and thoughtfully kicked a ragged tire with a stubby boot. The tire had gone flat on the Cupertino road, and it was on her mind that she had put too much air into the patched tube. For two miles she had been expecting to hear the explosion of another blow-out, and had been too weary to stop the car and unscrew the air valve.