When Alvin Mulrady announced his intention of growing potatoes and garden "truck" on the green slopes of Los Gatos, the mining community of that region, and the adjacent hamlet of "Rough-and-Ready," regarded it with the contemptuous indifference¹ usually shown by those adventurers towards all bucolic² pursuits. There was certainly no active objection to the occupation of two hillsides, which gave so little promise to the prospector³ for gold that it was currently reported that a single prospector, called "Slinn," had once gone mad or imbecile through repeated failures. The only opposition⁴ came, incongruously enough, from the original pastoral owner of the soil, one Don Ramon Alvarado, whose claim for seven leagues of hill and valley, including the now prosperous towns of Rough-and-Ready and Red Dog, was met with simple derision from the squatters and miners. "Looks ez ef we woz goin' to travel three thousand miles to open up his d—d old wilderness⁵, and then pay for the increased valoo we give it—don't it? Oh, yes, certainly!" was their ironical⁶ commentary. Mulrady might have been pardoned for adopting this popular opinion; but by an equally incongruous sentiment, peculiar⁷, however, to the man, he called upon Don Ramon, and actually offered to purchase the land, or "go shares" with him in the agricultural profits. It was alleged⁸ that the Don was so struck with this concession⁹ that he not only granted the land, but struck up a quaint¹⁰ reserved friendship for the simple-minded agriculturist and his family. It is scarcely necessary to add that this intimacy¹¹ was viewed by the miners with the contempt that it deserved. They would have been more contemptuous, however, had they known the opinion that Don Ramon entertained of their particular vocation¹², and which he early confided¹³ to Mulrady.  
"They are savages¹⁴ who expect to reap where they have not sown; to take out of the earth without returning anything to it but their precious carcasses; heathens, who worship the mere¹⁵ stones they dig up." "And was there no Spaniard who ever dug gold?" asked Mulrady, simply. "Ah, there are Spaniards and Moors," responded Don Ramon, sententiously. "Gold has been dug, and by caballeros; but no good ever came of it. There were Alvarados in Sonora, look you, who had mines of SILVER, and worked them with peons and mules¹⁶, and lost their money—a gold mine to work a silver one—like gentlemen! But this grubbing in the dirt with one's fingers, that a little gold may stick to them, is not for caballeros. And then, one says nothing of the curse."
 
"The curse!" echoed Mary Mulrady, with youthful feminine superstition¹⁷. "What is that?"
 
"You knew not, friend Mulrady, that when these lands were given to my ancestors by Charles V., the Bishop¹⁸ of Monterey laid a curse upon any who should desecrate¹⁹ them. Good! Let us see! Of the three Americanos who founded yonder town, one was shot, another died of a fever—poisoned, you understand, by the soil—and the last got himself crazy of aguardiente. Even the scientifico,[1] who came here years ago and spied into the trees and the herbs: he was afterwards punished for his profanation²⁰, and died of an accident in other lands. But," added Don Ramon, with grave courtesy, "this touches not yourself. Through me, YOU are of the soil."
 
Indeed, it would seem as if a secure if not a rapid prosperity was the result of Don Ramon's manorial²¹ patronage²². The potato patch and market garden flourished exceedingly; the rich soil responded with magnificent vagaries²³ of growth; the even sunshine set the seasons at defiance²⁴ with extraordinary and premature²⁵ crops. The salt pork and biscuit consuming settlers did not allow their contempt of Mulrady's occupation to prevent their profiting by this opportunity for changing their diet. The gold they had taken from the soil presently began to flow into his pockets in exchange for his more modest treasures. The little cabin, which barely sheltered his family—a wife, son, and daughter—was enlarged, extended, and refitted, but in turn abandoned for a more pretentious²⁶ house on the opposite hill. A whitewashed²⁷ fence replaced the rudely-split rails, which had kept out the wilderness. By degrees, the first evidences of cultivation—the gashes²⁸ of red soil, the piles of brush and undergrowth, the bared boulders²⁹, and heaps of stone—melted away, and were lost under a carpet of lighter³¹ green, which made an oasis³² in the tawny³³ desert of wild oats on the hillside. Water was the only free boon³⁴ denied this Garden of Eden; what was necessary for irrigation had to be brought from a mining ditch at great expense, and was of insufficient³⁵ quantity. In this emergency Mulrady thought of sinking an artesian well on the sunny slope beside his house; not, however, without serious consultation³⁶ and much objection from his Spanish patron. With great austerity Don Ramon pointed³⁷ out that this trifling³⁸ with the entrails of the earth was not only an indignity³⁹ to Nature almost equal to shaft⁴⁰-sinking and tunneling, but was a disturbance⁴¹ of vested interests. "I and my fathers, San Diego rest them!" said Don Ramon, crossing himself, "were content with wells and cisterns⁴², filled by Heaven at its appointed seasons; the cattle, dumb brutes⁴³ though they were, knew where to find water when they wanted it. But thou sayest truly," he added, with a sigh, "that was before streams and rain were choked with hellish engines, and poisoned with their spume. Go on, friend Mulrady, dig and bore if thou wilt⁴⁴, but in a seemly fashion, and not with impious earthquakes of devilish gunpowder⁴⁵."
 
With this concession Alvin Mulrady began to sink his first artesian shaft. Being debarred the auxiliaries⁴⁶ of steam and gunpowder, the work went on slowly. The market garden did not suffer meantime, as Mulrady had employed two Chinamen to take charge of the ruder tillage, while he superintended the engineering work of the well. This trifling incident marked an epoch⁴⁷ in the social condition of the family. Mrs. Mulrady at once assumed a conscious importance among her neighbors. She spoke⁴⁸ of her husband's "men"; she alluded⁴⁹ to the well as "the works"; she checked the easy frontier familiarity of her customers with pretty Mary Mulrady, her seventeen-year-old daughter. Simple Alvin Mulrady looked with astonishment⁵⁰ at this sudden development of the germ planted in all feminine nature to expand in the slightest sunshine of prosperity. "Look yer, Malviny; ain't ye rather puttin' on airs with the boys that want to be civil to Mamie? Like as not one of 'em may be makin' up to her already." "You don't mean to say, Alvin Mulrady," responded Mrs. Mulrady, with sudden severity, "that you ever thought of givin' your daughter to a common miner, or that I'm goin' to allow her to marry out of our own set?" "Our own set!" echoed Mulrady feebly, blinking at her in astonishment, and then glancing hurriedly across at his freckle-faced son and the two Chinamen at work in the cabbages. "Oh, you know what I mean," said Mrs. Mulrady sharply; "the set that we move in. The Alvarados and their friends! Doesn't the old Don come here every day, and ain't his son the right age for Mamie? And ain't they the real first families here—all the same as if they were noblemen? No, leave Mamie to me, and keep to your shaft; there never was a man yet had the least sabe about these things, or knew what was due to his family." Like most of his larger minded, but feebler equipped sex, Mulrady was too glad to accept the truth of the latter proposition, which left the meannesses of life to feminine manipulation, and went off to his shaft on the hillside. But during that afternoon he was perplexed⁵² and troubled. He was too loyal a husband not to be pleased with this proof of an unexpected and superior foresight⁵³ in his wife, although he was, like all husbands, a little startled by it. He tried to dismiss it from his mind. But looking down from the hillside upon his little venture, where gradual increase and prosperity had not been beyond his faculties⁵⁴ to control and understand, he found himself haunted by the more ambitious projects of his helpmate. From his own knowledge of men, he doubted if Don Ramon, any more than himself, had ever thought of the possibility of a matrimonial connection between the families. He doubted if he would consent to it. And unfortunately it was this very doubt that, touching⁵⁵ his own pride as a self-made man, made him first seriously consider his wife's proposition. He was as good as Don Ramon, any day! With this subtle feminine poison instilled⁵⁶ in his veins⁵⁸, carried completely away by the logic⁵⁹ of his wife's illogical premises⁶⁰, he almost hated his old benefactor⁶¹. He looked down upon the little Garden of Eden, where his Eve had just tempted⁶² him with the fatal fruit, and felt a curious consciousness that he was losing its simple and innocent enjoyment⁶³ forever.
 
Happily, about this time Don Ramon died. It is not probable that he ever knew the amiable⁶⁴ intentions of Mrs. Mulrady in regard to his son, who now succeeded to the paternal⁶⁵ estate, sadly partitioned by relatives and lawsuits⁶⁶. The feminine Mulradys attended the funeral, in expensive mourning from Sacramento; even the gentle Alvin was forced into ready-made broadcloth, which accented his good-natured but unmistakably common presence. Mrs. Mulrady spoke openly of her "loss"; declared that the old families were dying out; and impressed the wives of a few new arrivals at Red Dog with the belief that her own family was contemporary with the Alvarados, and that her husband's health was far from perfect. She extended a motherly sympathy to the orphaned⁶⁷ Don Caesar. Reserved, like his father, in natural disposition⁶⁸, he was still more gravely ceremonious from his loss; and, perhaps from the shyness of an evident partiality for Mamie Mulrady, he rarely availed himself of her mother's sympathizing hospitality. But he carried out the intentions of his father by consenting to sell to Mulrady, for a small sum, the property he had leased. The idea of purchasing had originated with Mrs. Mulrady.
 
"It'll be all in the family," had observed that astute⁶⁹ lady, "and it's better for the looks of the things that we shouldn't he his tenants⁷⁰."
 
It was only a few weeks ............