THE VALLEY OF THE MOON
JACK LONDON
BOOK 2
CHAPTER 4

Saxon had been clear-eyed all her days, though her field of vision had been
restricted. Clear-eyed, from her childhood days with the saloonkeeper Cady and
Cady's good-natured but unmoral spouse, she had observed, and, later, generalized
much upon sex. She knew the post-nuptial problem of retaining a husband's love,
as few wives of any class knew it, just as she knew the pre-nuptial problem of
selecting a husband, as few girls of the working class knew it.
She had of herself developed an eminently rational philosophy of love.
Instinctively, and consciously, too, she had made toward delicacy, and shunned the
perils of the habitual and commonplace. Thoroughly aware she was that as she
cheapened herself so did she cheapen love. Never, in the weeks of their married
life, had Billy found her dowdy, or harshly irritable, or lethargic. And she had
deliberately permeated her house with her personal atmosphere of coolness, and
freshness, and equableness. Nor had she been ignorant of such assets as surprise
and charm. Her imagination had not been asleep, and she had been born with
wisdom. In Billy she had won a prize, and she knew it. She appreciated his lover's
ardor and was proud. His open-handed liberality, his desire for everything of the
best, his own personal cleanliness and care of himself she recognized as far beyond
the average. He was never coarse. He met delicacy with delicacy, though it was
obvious to her that the initiative in all such matters lay with her and must lie with
her always. He was largely unconscious of what he did and why. But she knew in
all full clarity of judgment. And he was such a prize among men.
Despite her clear sight of her problem of keeping Billy a lover, and despite the
considerable knowledge and experience arrayed before her mental vision,
Mercedes Higgins had spread before her a vastly wider panorama. The old woman
had verified her own conclusions, given her new ideas, clinched old ones, and even
savagely emphasized the tragic importance of the whole problem. Much Saxon

drawnwork. She crocheted fine edgings on the inexpensive knitted underwear she
wore in winter. She made little corset covers and chemises of fine but fairly
inexpensive lawns, and, with simple flowered designs and perfect laundering, her
nightgowns were always sweetly fresh and dainty. In some publication she ran
across a brief printed note to the effect that French women were just beginning to
wear fascinating beruffled caps at the breakfast table. It meant nothing to her that
in her case she must first prepare the breakfast. Promptly appeared in the house a
yard of dotted Swiss muslin, and Saxon was deep in experimenting on patterns for
herself, and in sorting her bits of laces for suitable trimmings. The resultant dainty
creation won Mercedes Higgins' enthusiastic approval.
Saxon made for herself simple house slips of pretty gingham, with neat low collars
turned back from her fresh round throat. She crocheted yards of laces for her
underwear, and made Battenberg in abundance for her table and for the bureau. A
great achievement, that aroused Billy's applause, was an Afghan for the bed. She
even ventured a rag carpet, which, the women's magazines informed her, had
newly returned into fashion. As a matter of course she hemstitched the best table
linen and bed linen they could afford.
As the happy months went by she was never idle. Nor was Billy forgotten. When
the cold weather came on she knitted him wristlets, which he always religiously
wore from the house and pocketed immediately thereafter. The two sweaters she
made for him, however, received a better fate, as did the slippers which she
insisted on his slipping into, on the evenings they remained at home.
The hard practical wisdom of Mercedes Higgins proved of immense help, for
Saxon strove with a fervor almost religious to have everything of the best and at
the same time to be saving. Here she faced the financial and economic problem of
keeping house in a society where the cost of living rose faster than the wages of
industry. And here the old woman taught her the science of marketing so
thoroughly that she made a dollar of Billy's go half as far again as the wives of the
neighborhood made the dollars of their men go.
Invariably, on Saturday night, Billy poured his total wages into her lap. He never

"Then it's no different because you're married. It's your money, Billy."
"Not by a damn sight," he cried. "It ain't mine. It's ourn. And I wouldn't think of
lettin' anybody have it without seein' you first."
"I hope you didn't tell him that," she ssid with quick concern.
"Nope," Billy laughed. "I knew, if I did, you'd be madder'n a hatter. I just told him
I'd try an' figure it out. After all, I was sure you'd stand for it if you had it."
"Oh, Billy," she murmured, her voice rich and low with love; "maybe you don't
know it, but that's one of the sweetest things you've said since we got married."
The more Saxon saw of Mercedes Higgins the less did she understand her. That the
old woman was a close-fisted miser, Saxon soon learned. And this trait she found
hard to reconcile with her tales of squandering. On the other hand, Saxon was
bewildered by Mercedes' extravagance in personal matters. Her underlinen, hand-
made of course, was very costly. The table she set for Barry was good, but the
table for herself was vastly better. Yet both tables were set on the same table.
While Barry contented himaelf with solid round steak, Mercedes ate tenderloin. A
huge, tough muttonchop on Barry's plate would be balanced by tiny French chops
on Mercedes' plate. Tea was brewed in separate pots. So was coffee. While Barry
gulped twenty-five cent tea from a large and heavy mug, Mercedes sipped three-
dollar tea from a tiny cup of Belleek, rose-tinted, fragile as all egg-shell. In the
same manner, his twenty-five cent coffee was diluted with milk, her eighty cent
Turkish with cream.
"'Tis good enough for the old man," she told Saxon. "He knows no better, and it
would be a wicked sin to waste it on him."
Little traffickings began between the two women. After Mercedes had freely
taught Saxon the loose-wristed facility of playing accompaniments on the ukulele,
she proposed an exchange. Her time was past, she said, for such frivolities, and she
offered the instrument for the breakfast cap of which Saxon had made so good a
success.
"It's worth a few dollars," Mercedes said. "It cost me twenty, though that was years
ago. Yet it is well worth the value of the cap."