DEALLY, it should not be a long

I journey from the "City of Brotherly Love" to the "Land of Heart's Desire." In this case, however, it was a journey of more than three thousand miles. And it is no small adventure for the Eastern-reared, with tick-like attachments, to shut their eyes to uncertainties and their ears to the advice of their sticktight friends and cross a continent, even in a comfortable Pullman.

But Belden Roberts and his young wife, Lora, belonged to the Army of the Unafraid. Moreover, they were in excellent health and spirits and had not lost their job.

Why the journey, then?

This question can be answered only in terms of wholesome discontent, worthy ambition and dreams of achievement. Some blue blood is red.

To the impelling, irresistible Call of the West may be attributed more than four centuries of the world's best progress. To many who feel the smothering choke of the typical crowded eastern city the "Call of the Soil" is equally insistent.

Belden Roberts was born and reared in Providence, Rhode Island, but he had never considered it unprovidential that he went to Philadelphia to find his mate. They were prospering as well as the average pair could on the pay of a first-class machinist, but, without knowing exactly why, had gradually acquired a longing for the freedom of the open country. Should their home be a city home with a country outlook, or a country home with a city inlook?

"O yes, indeed," agreed the superintendent of the shops, "you will enjoy a vacation in California. You deserve it. I will hold your job for you and be glad to see you back. But mind the sharks," which admonition, like some of the ancient oracles, might be interpreted at least two ways.

"My Own Dear Girl," Belden wrote, in less than two weeks, "I have spied out the land. The milk here has more cream and the honey' is sweeter. Pack your trunks and come in a hurry, where roses and orange blossoms are blooming and there are no bloomin' blizzards. I've a job in the Santa Fe shops in San Bernardino. Come quick, girl, come!"

Lora's friend, Sylvia, had just gone down the steps when the postman came. As she picked her way through the slush of snow and ice she reflected solicitously, "I'm afraid Lora wants to go to that horrid, rough, coarse jumble of people and things. I'm afraid she is going, to become rough and coarse with the rest. If she does, I wonder if I-"

"Hurry, Sylvia. Lora Roberts in calling you at the phone," greeted her mother as Sylvia neared the home gate.

"O Lora! Don't tell me! Pack up? Tomorrow? You poor girl! I mean-I don't mean-why, yes, of course I shall be over."

Thus it is that life-long friends and chums are separated, and that which brings joy to one brings sadness to another. But summer will come again, roses will bloom again, even in Philadelphia.

To one who had never been west of "The Falls," the wonderful four-day journey, the novelty of the environment, the utter absorption in the jumble of people and things, only added characteristic emphasis to the call of the Pipes o' Pan.

A few weeks later Lora announced at breakfast, "I'm going to look for a ranch today." She had acquired a new word, distinctly western, as in the West any tract of land larger than a city lot is called a "ranch." The same evening at five o'clock the genial real estate agent, with Mrs. Roberts on his comfortable cushions, awaited Belden at the shops. The conditional "buy" consisted of five

acres of seven-year-old orange trees. The ranch hunter had found a "grove" instead.

an

The trees of this grove had suffered for everything orange grove needs, namely, cultivation, fertilization, fumigation and irrigation. The former owner was rated as a "booze-fighter," the money which should have paid for water to turn down the orange rows having been turned in liquid form down his ever thirsty throat. Generous neighbors had contributed time and money, in the hours of his penitence, to water the withering trees, but had given it up when he proved himself a hopeless quitter. Only twice during the three hottest months had the trees been watered, and then insufficiently. The leaves had fallen and the branches had died to the extent that the neighbors had said of the grove as they had of its derelict owner, "It is past reclamation."

The agent had bought this abandoned "Sunkist" prospect at his own price and now regarded it worth little more than the raw land. The cottage, by a little repair, could be made cozy as a squirrel's nest, and the agent offered the place at such a price and on such terms that Belden said, "Well, Lora, if this is your choice and you think our courage is equal to the task of reclamation—and you won't be too lonely out here we will begin life on the farm at once.'

"Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare descry." These were indeed bold adventurers, who were even more courageous than they knew. The decision was prompted by an intuitive feeling that careful nursing would bring the apparently dead grove to life, combined with an impulse to attempt the accomplishment of a thing others said was impossible.

Wooden flumes, checked and warped by three months of southern California sun, leaked most wastefully, in spite of weary hours of plugging with sandy mud, tar and oakum. Water came in turns of twenty-four hours each to groves which must use it then or await their turn again, so expert knowledge was necessary to its ecoonmical use. This knowledge

was not of the intuitive kind, but must be gained by amateurs, promptly and thoroughly, by studying the best bulletins on orange irrigation and by actual observation of the work in the best groves of the community.

Since the payments and improvements necessitated Belden's continuing his work in the shops, the division of time and labor became a complex problem. Here is the way they solved it:

It is no less true now than in the time of Antony and Cleopatra that "To business that we love we rise betimes

And go to't with delight."

So, at one o'clock in the morning of the day on which the water was to be used Belden arose, and, with Dick, the semi-retired old horse who seemed happy in his work (half time with good feed), and a bicycle lamp on his cultivator, furrowed the ground, finishing in time for breakfast. He then went to his work in the shops, leaving the wife to change the water to other furrows when necessary during the day. At night again Belden attended the water until it was turned into the last series of furrows, then, with hopeful dreams of a "Sunkist" harvest bye and bye, slept as late as he dared next morning.

"O, but you are a game girl," declared Belden as Lora insisted that she and Dick would close the furrows with the cultivator. While she was doing it that afternoon a friend from the East who had come West for his health strolled feebly by and, observing the muddy streaks made by rivulets of perspiration through the dust on her face, exclaimed: "Well, I'll be durned if that isn't clear grit! You are taking your physical culture and a mud bath at the same time, Mrs. Roberts! But don't I wish I could do that?"

The neighbors repeated the advice to grub out the trees and start over, attributing the perseverence of this city-bred pair of adventurers to their ignorance. But they only smiled and said, "If we fail we have had our fun and are willing to pay the fiddler."

Equal parts of common sense and elbow grease were mixed most skilfully,

after a study of all the latest bulletins on problems of citrus fruit culture. With never a thought of despair, legumes were sown to aid nitrification and fertilizers were used as seemed best for the soil. Where there are two wills there are at

least two ways. "He who by the plow

would thrive, himself must either hold or drive."

Time came when work was slack in the shops and the machinist-rancher went to work on reservoir construction in Little Bear Valley. Days seemed weeks. Unspeakable loneliness and camp fare tested severely the endurance of a young man accustomed to a companionable wife and a cozy home. An appealing letter home said, "If you were here, Lora, to give both my stomach and my soul a balanced ration for awhile, I could be content to stay. I like the work, but the play doesn't rest me. I am tired of cards and not one of the boys is as good a sport with the gun as you are. Can't you come, girl?"

"To the man o'er the mountains went the girl that was game;

A 'man's woman' was she, in fact as in name."

The trail through the foothills and lower mountains of the San Bernardino range was not a well-traveled trail. Progress through the regions of sage brush, greasewood, chaparral, manzanita and live oaks was uncertain and slow, and it was thus necessary to camp for the night in Little Bear Canyon. This required no small amount of courage, since it was known that mountain lions were numerous in the region.

At nine next morning the camp commissary, glancing appraisingly at the early visitors, responded, "Yes, you will find Belden Roberts at the shed just down the trail at your right."

If her Philadelphia friends could see her now, as the wonderingly commissary. with an extra long puff from his pipe and half-closed eyes, watched the gypsy-like outfit disappear down the trail, woman, horse, wagon, dog, they would have said with palm to palm, "Just what we feah'd, she has become one of them

the rough, coah'se jumble of people and things."

But the starved goose must be fed back to maternal vigor before she could again lay the golden ("Sunkist") eggs, and the husband's wages paid for the feed.

At the sheds the foreman called Roberts out and pretended to retire to a polite distance, but could not resist the temptation to observe enviously the greeting of the pair.

"Well, well, Girl of my Heart, you come early into camp! How are the 'Sunkists'?" (to fill up time while assisting Lora to the ground).

"As fine as the man-kissed!" she responded, after the embrace in which she met her devoted mate at least halfway. "But where is Phil, Lora?"

"At the ranch. Here is his substitute," drawing from under the seat blanket a Colt's thirty-eight, which she knew well how to use. "He thought he would be able to return to the navy yard at Mare Island in a few days, so I came alone.'

"Of course you didn't come all the way this morning. Where did you stay last night?"

"Well, if you aren't a Trojan!" exclaimed the admiring husband after Lora had recounted to him the experience of the night in Little Bear Canyon.

"Wouldn't that rattle your ribs?" ejaculated the foreman after a formal introduction to Mrs. Roberts.

"I've come over the mountain to keep my husband's ribs from rattling, and if he will rustle a tent of some sort we will set up housekeeping at once."

"I'll borrow one from the boys and be with you as soon as I can leave the machine," Belden assured her, and at noon their comradeship was supported by venison steaks, "good gravy." hot biscuits. baked in a reflector oven, and other campfire delectations.

Once a month the devoted helpmate returned to San Bernardino for a new supply of provisions and to irrigate the orange grove as needed. She hired the furrowing done, but, like a faithful nurse with a critical case, would trust no substitute to administer the life-restoring fluid. A full share must go to each tree

and all were responding beautifully with vigorous foliage and some fruit.

At night when the water was on Lora would take her blanket, alarm clock and revolver, sleeping on the ground near the flume, changing the water to other rows when warned by the clock, declaring to her friends that she was not the least bit afraid when out in the open, but nervous with fear when shut in the house with locked doors and drawn blinds. How characteristic is this experience also of our tendency to become mental "shutins," fearing to come out into the open and meet the world squarely in the field of thought and expression and enjoy the intellectual fresh air which insures intellectual health and vigor. Some of the neighbors said this woman was brave; others said she was foolish; but all agreed that she was sticking to her job and succeeding past all belief.

On one of the return trips she took her forty hens to the camp in the mountains, on another her sewing machine, and with these precious evidences of domesticity eleven months of almost ideal camp life was made possible.

The trip could not be made in a day, so camping in the mountains became a regular feature. Many interesting incidents relieved the monotony and added spice to the adventure. On one occasion a party of rough mountaineers drove in late at night and camped only a few rods away. Thinking she might avoid embarrassment, Lora made quiet preparations and moved on at daybreak. As she drove into the trail one of the men was observed to rise on his elbow and remark, "By jove! It's a woman, and she is alone." Appreciating this rare courage in a woman, men were always quick to offer assistance and she was never molested.

On a high load of pea vines Lora passed a group of men who were irrigating and overheard them placing a wager as to whether the person whose "sombrero" they could see above the load was a man or a woman. When she slid off the load to open a gate the bet was quickly adjusted and the curious men got busy. They had "rubbered" at her hose,

The years that have passed since this self-imposed task began have not all been so strenuous as were the first three. The rewards have increased many fold in the fruits of honest toil, which are always the sweetest fruits. By careful pruning the neglected trees were put into almost ideal condition, which resulted in a much larger yield of marketable fruit. Concrete hydrants have supplanted the old wooden flumes and no more water is wasted. The grove is worth more than five times what was paid and is yielding its proud owners a substantial income. A English walnuts, almonds, peaches, apriquarter acre in one corner is supplying cots, pears, quinces and figs.

From the porch of this modern, comfortable dwelling, shaded by Crimson Ramblers, American Beauties and Cherokees, the resting "ranchers," who have not only skilfully manipulated man-made machinery of iron, but have so wonderfully used their own creative power in assisting the machinery of Nature, may look over and beyond the sweet-scented orange blossoms where the valley stretches away fifteen miles to the mountains. There they may see the snowcapped. snow-draped summits of Mt. San Bernardino. San Gorgonio and San Jacinto, which, silhouetted against the clear blue sky, emphasize the contrast between the extreme climates encompassed in so small a radius.

Harmonizing with this scene the chorus of bird voices and the humming of bees express in full measure the joy of honest endeavor and the gratitude of these toilers, who can say without equivocation that their response to the "Call of the Soil" has brought them all they ever dreamed it could.