The life is splendidly healthy so long as one is not overdriven; the physical exercise of the different occupations, and all in the open air, is like the training of an athlete. Hoeing round the lemon trees is as good for the chest and arms of the labourer as for the roots of the lemon trees; but only always if the worker be not overtaxed. Indeed, from our experience it is only by carrying on sure regular active work in the open air that one gets the real benefit from this climate.
With thirty-one acres planted, we have found the help of one ranchman with Larry, our eldest son, and his father to be sufficient; so all our digging and piping and road-making went forward without too heavy a strain. The accepted theory is that one man can manage ten acres of planted land, and do justice to it; and a ranchman costs from twenty to thirty dollars a month, and his keep.
If the rough work and life are hard for men to accustom themselves to, it is much harder still for the women, especially, of course, for delicate women, who are supposed to have been brought out “for their health.” And here is the place to point out what a farce it is to suppose that any frail woman could possibly get any benefit out of the finest climate in the world if, in addition to the burden of her illness, she has to take upon herself the onerous duties of cook and housemaid and charwoman, and everything combined. Again the important question is whether the rancher has money enough to pay the very high wage demanded for even the simplest household help during at least five years, while he is waiting for his ranch to yield an income. Even then the wife must be prepared to work much harder than she was ever accustomed to at home, since one pair of hands, even if they are the most talented Chinese hands, necessarily leave a very great deal to be done. In our case, for instance, the Chinaman never touches the bedrooms or drawing-room, except to turn them out once a fortnight, when he leaves them fairly clean, but all topsy-turvy.
But this is as nothing, when one sees so many ranchers’ wives doing without any help at all. That is a cruel life for any man to bring his wife to, unless he has absolutely no other choice; it is to my mind quite unforgivable. Let such men come without womenfolk.
We had a wearisome long piece of work—building the rain-water cistern and the cesspool, for they had to be dug out of the hard granite. The cistern was finished, however, in time to catch part of the winter’s rain, and though we feared it would become stagnant, this danger was quite overcome by the simple little pump used, which is made almost exactly after the pattern of the old Egyptian pumps, and consists of a chain of small buckets, which revolves, and as one half come up and empty themselves through the pump spout, the other half go down into the water full of air; and thus the contents of the cistern are in this way constantly revitalised.
We have never done congratulating ourselves on possessing this cistern, for the water is always cool and sweet, and as our roof is very large, it soon fills the cistern, which holds three hundred barrels, and lasts all the year. The flume water, which we use in irrigation, and which is also laid on in the house for the boiler, etc., comes from the mountains in an open aqueduct or flume. It is at times full of moss and impurities, and is besides quite tepid in the summer.
We had many discussions, standing on our front verandah, and looking down the rough hill slope, as to how the drive should be laid out. We meant to have an avenue of pepper trees on each side, and once these were planted, the road could not well be altered. Meanwhile, sixteen more acres had been cleared of roots and brush, ploughed and harrowed for more lemon trees. In the spring we planted seven hundred young trees, which made in all one thousand five hundred.
The kitchen garden was set in order, and fenced in to keep out the squirrels and rabbits. They were a great nuisance that first year, but have now retired to their own wild part of the land, which certainly is roomy enough. The rattlesnakes, too, though we were constantly coming across them in the beginning, have now quietly withdrawn to the stony mountain tops.
That first year I was haunted with the fear of those hideous creatures, and the dread of an accident to one of my dear ranchers.
But all the same, it was a thrilling excitement when each one was caught and brought down to the barn to be gloated over; and though it was dead, it would still wriggle its ugly body, and snap its terrible jaws at anything that might touch it, and with the power still of deadly effect.