The Little Lady of the Big House

that he did not need the lectures he cut, and he knew it. His coaches, while preparing him for the entrance examinations, had carried him nearly through

heir families, were professors of literature, history, jurisprudence, and philosophy. It was long remembered in the university as the "high-brow" cruise. The professors, on their return, reported a most enjoyable time. Dick returned with

ege girls loved him, and he was indefatigable in his dancing. He never cut a smoker, a

lid and dependable player, and that was all. It seemed never his luck to take the ball and go down the length of the field while the Blue and Gold host tore itself and the grandstand to pieces. But it was at the end of heart-breaking, grueling slog in mud and

m at boxing. Anson Burge could always put his shoulders to the mat, two out of three, but always only by the hardest work. In English composition a fifth of his class excelled him. Edlin, the Russian Jew, o

he betrayed no weakness nor deficiency. As he told his guardians, who, by his unrelenting good conduct had

ist. My father arranged that for me when he left me his money. B

ly his key. He had no flare for anything. He was that

ardians, stated his pleasure in that Dick had shown

ld myself whe

finest thing in the world that you sowed

ed at him

see, Diego Valdez, like me, had good fortune. He rose so fast to be High Admiral of Spain that he found no time to take the pleasure he had merely tasted. He was lusty and husky, but he had no time, being t

comr

ates on n

we trade

the sa

leagues t

ty years

not nobl

ey knew a

that found

nk it no

at found fa

ld us e

ur chose

t shoals

ty from f

ered to

ned our bre

along t

our worn

above

each year

mellow s

ur careles

ch to hi

our loosen

ned our n

rn mid the

chings of

ain in t

rn in th

we ate

spilled

new-taught

w curbed

ife proud

maid awa

unslaked,

ded in

more than

ose forfe

three oldsters, as I've got

d to wait

my spring

to wait m

y sprin

t in face

in maze

Diego

miral o

hink I am a dead one because I am a darn nice, meritorious boy at college. I am young. I am alive. I am all lusty and husky. But I make no mistake. I hold myself. I don't start out now

ks no wind

that shal

careen

morous, cro

ain in th

ern in t

we ate i

e spilled

the lusty, husky fool. I want to take my chance. I want my careening riot, and I want it while I am young, but not while I am too young. And I'm going to have it. And in the meantime

queried Mr

n. I haven't gone wild yet, b

start when y

e youngster s

arming. I want to do something ... something constructive. My father wasn't constructive to amount to anything. Neither were you fellows. You

nce in Californian farming," Mr.

cres of the finest Sacramento Valley soil and you grew wheat on it year after year. You never dreamed of rotation. You burned your straw. You exhausted your humus. You pl

money and construct. I'm going to take worked-out wheat-land that I can buy as at a fire-sale, rip

that Mr. Crockett again mentioned D

n I'm going to buy, and stock, and start a ranch that'll

ch will you start with

imit. People haven't begun to come to California yet. Without a tap of my hand or a turn over, fifteen years from now l

rs an acre means five million doll

ans twenty-five mil

ened. He might waste his fortune on new-fangled farming, but to go lit

y nice girls. Next, after that, he had signalized his Senior year by captaining the Varsity to its first victory over Stanford in five years. It was in the day prior to large-salaried football coaches, when individual play meant much

alifornia. Jacques Ribot, esteemed one of the greatest world authorities on agricultural chemistry, who had been seduced from his two thousand a year in France by the six thousand offered by the University of C

up their hands in horror and knew that this w

ialist in livestock breeding, and by similar misconduct he robbed the University of Nebraska of its greatest milch cow professor, and broke the hea

orses and actresses? Besides, the trouble with you fellows is that you don't know the game of buying brains. I do. That's my specialty. I'm going to make money

hile he delved in agricultural chemistry, soil analysis, farm management, and traveled California with his corps of high-salaried experts. And his guardians could only apprehen

rincipality, that extended west from the Sacram

e price," sai

ought to see my water-reports. And you ought to hear me sing. Listen,

at is the sense of song to the North American

yo'-kim k

n'-ning k

an'-ning

al-u'-dom yo nai,

and the Maidu and the Konkau are gone. Their last rancheria is not. You plowed it under, Mr. Crockett, with you bonanza gang-plowing, plow-soling farming. And I got the song from a certain ethnological report, volume three, of the U

umph, vernal and bursting, slapping his thighs

come down

hort acorns i

long acorns

black-oak acorn,

paid ten thousand dollars for a single bull. His livestock specialist, whom he had filched from the Federal Government, in England outbid the Roths

s price the first twelvemonth. He will be the sire and grandsire of many sons and grandsons for which t

unk millions into his original folly, that he turned it over to his experts personally to develop along the general broad lines laid down by him

Dick's name in the papers as master when his ship rescued the passengers of the ill-fated Orion, and because they collected the insurance when Dick's ship was lost with most of all hands in the great Fiji hurricane. In 1896, he was in the Klondike; in 1897, he was in

the entire political pressure of the Pacific Coast to bear upon Washington in order to get him out of a scrape in Russia, of which affair not

Thrice they read in the press dispatches that he was dead: once, in battle, in Mexico; and twice, executed, in Venezuela. After such false flutterings, his guardians refused longer to be thr

father's fortune in the final catastrophe at the Los Cocos mine in Chihuahua when the United States demonetized silver. Mr. Davidson had pulled a million out of the Last Stake along with her father when he pulled eight millions from that sunken, man-resurrected, river bed in Amador County. Mr. Crockett, a youth at the time, had "spooned" t

f genius. Paula Desten! Philip Desten's daughter! The Desten blood! The Destens and the Forrests! It was enough. The three aged comrades of Forrest and Desten of the old Gold Days, of the two who had played and passed on, were even severe with Dick. They warned him of the extreme value of his treasure, of the sacred duty s

ten, for once they were agreed that he was spending wisely and well. As for his farming, it was incontestible that the Harvest Group was unfalteringly producing, and he might be allowed