Here, within the memory of men yet living, fields of wild mustard had hidden hundreds of grazing cattle and vaqueros, riding down to them from the foot-hills, had vanished in seas of yellow bloom; here the padres had trudged patiently on the road from Santa Clara to Mission San José; here pioneers had broken the raw soil and lined the cup of the valley with golden wheat fields, and Blaine had come in the heyday of his popularity, counseling orchards.
Now, mile after mile to the edge of the blue hills, prune-trees and apricots and cherries stood in trim rows, smooth boulevards hummed with the passing of motor-cars, and where the vaqueros had broken the wild mustard, San José stood, the throbbing heart of all these arteries reaching into past and present and future.
"And he says there's nothing of interest here!" she cried. "Oh, if only I could write it! If I could write one tenth of it!"
Midnight found her sitting before her typewriter, disheveled, hot-eyed, surrounded by crumpled sheets of paper, pondering over sentences, discarding paragraphs, by turns glowing with satisfaction and chilled by hopelessness. "I could write an advertisement about it," she thought. "I could interest a buyer. Magazine articles are different. But human beings are all alike. Interest them. I've got to interest them. If I can just make it human, make them see—Oh, what an idiot that man was!" Absorbed in her attempt to express the spirit of San José, she still felt burning within her a rage against him. "I'll show him, anyway, that there are some things he doesn't see!"
Next morning she read her work and found it worthless.
"I'll write it like a letter," she thought, and pages poured easily from the typewriter. She spent the next day slashing black pencil-marks through paragraphs, shifting sentences, altering words. The intricacy of the work fascinated her; it allured like an embroidery pattern, challenged like a land sale, roused all her energies.
When she could do no more, she read and re-read the finished article. She thought it hopelessly stupid; she thought it as good as some she had read; a sentence glinted at her like a ray of light, and again it faded into insignificance. She did not know what she thought about it. The memory of that irritating young man decided her. "It may be done absurdly, but it will prove my point. There is something here to write about." She sent it to him.
After five empty days, during which she struggled in a chaos of indecisions, she tore open an envelope with the "Pacific Coast" imprint. "Perhaps that plan will go through, after all," she thought. She read a note asking her to call, a note signed "A. C. Hayden, Editor."
The next afternoon she was in his office. It was a quiet room, lined with filled bookcases, furnished with comfortable chairs and a huge table loaded with proofs and manuscripts piled in orderly disorder. Mr. Hayden himself gave the same impression of leisurely efficiency; Helen felt that he accomplished a great deal of work without haste, smiling. He was not hurried; he was quite willing to discuss her circulation scheme, listening sympathetically, pointing out the reasons why it was not advisable. Her article lay on the desk. It had brought her a pleasant interview. After all, there was no reason why she should not accept Clark's offer.
"Now this," Mr. Hayden said, unfolding her manuscript. "We can use this, simply as a story, if you want to sell it to us. With the right illustrations and a few changes it will make a very good feature. Our rates, of course—" Helen had made no sound, but some quality in her breathless silence interrupted him. He looked at her questioningly.