Burning Daylight by Jack London

service of Daylight’s new electric roads into Oakland made this

big district immediately accessible, and long before the ferry

system was in operation hundreds of residences were going up.

The profit on this land was enormous. In a day, his onslaught of

wealth had turned open farming country into one of the best

residential districts of the city.

But this money that flowed in upon him was immediately poured

back into his other investments. The need for electric cars was

so great that he installed his own shops for building them. And

even on the rising land market, he continued to buy choice

factory sites and building properties. On the advice of

Wilkinson, practically every electric road already in operation

was rebuilt. The light, old fashioned rails were torn out and

replaced by the heaviest that were manufactured. Corner lots, on

the sharp turns of narrow streets, were bought and ruthlessly

presented to the city in order to make wide curves for his tracks

and high speed for his cars. Then, too, there were the main-line

feeders for his ferry system, tapping every portion of Oakland,

Alameda, and Berkeley, and running fast expresses to the pier

end. The same large-scale methods were employed in the water

system. Service of the best was needed, if his huge land

investment was to succeed. Oakland had to be made into a

worth-while city, and that was what he intended to do. In

addition to his big hotels, he built amusement parks for the

common people, and art galleries and club-house country inns for

the more finicky classes. Even before there was any increase in

population, a marked increase in street-railway traffic took

place. There was nothing fanciful about his schemes. They were

sound investments.

“What Oakland wants is a first glass theatre,” he said, and,

after vainly trying to interest local capital, he started the

building of the theatre himself; for he alone had vision for the

two hundred thousand new people that were coming to the town.

But no matter what pressure was on Daylight, his Sundays he

reserved for his riding in the hills. It was not the winter

weather, however, that brought these rides with Dede to an end.

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One Saturday afternoon in the office she told him not to expect

to meet her next day, and, when he pressed for an explanation:

“I’ve sold Mab.”

Daylight was speechless for the moment. Her act meant one of so

many serious things that he couldn’t classify it. It smacked

almost of treachery. She might have met with financial disaster.

It might be her way of letting him know she had seen enough of

him. Or…

“What’s the matter?” he managed to ask.

“I couldn’t afford to keep her with hay forty-five dollars a

ton,” Dede answered.

“Was that your only reason?” he demanded, looking at her

steadily; for he remembered her once telling him how she had

brought the mare through one winter, five years before, when hay

had gone as high as sixty dollars a ton.

“No. My brother’s expenses have been higher, as well, and I was

driven to the conclusion that since I could not afford both, I’d

better let the mare go and keep the brother.”

Daylight felt inexpressibly saddened. He was suddenly aware of a

great emptiness. What would a Sunday be without Dede? And

Sundays without end without her? He drummed perplexedly on the

desk with his fingers.

“Who bought her?” he asked. Dede’s eyes flashed in the way long

since familiar to him when she was angry.

“Don’t you dare buy her back for me,” she cried. “And don’t deny

that that was what you had in mind.”

“I won’t deny it. It was my idea to a tee. But I wouldn’t have

done it without asking you first, and seeing how you feel about

it, I won’t even ask you. But you thought a heap of that mare,

and it’s pretty hard on you to lose her. I’m sure sorry. And

I’m sorry, too, that you won’t be riding with me tomorrow. I’ll

be plumb lost. I won’t know what to do with myself.”

“Neither shall I,” Dede confessed mournfully, “except that I

shall be able to catch up with my sewing.”

“But I haven’t any sewing.”

Daylight’s tone was whimsically plaintive, but secretly he was

delighted with her confession of loneliness. It was almost worth

the loss of the mare to get that out of her. At any rate, he

meant something to her. He was not utterly unliked.

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178

“I wish you would reconsider, Miss Mason,” he said softly. “Not

alone for the mare’s sake, but for my sake. Money don’t cut any

ice in this. For me to buy that mare wouldn’t mean as it does to

most men to send a bouquet of flowers or a box of candy to a

young lady. And I’ve never sent you flowers or candy.” He

observed the warning flash of her eyes, and hurried on to escape

refusal. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Suppose I buy the mare

and own her myself, and lend her to you when you want to ride.

There’s nothing wrong in that. Anybody borrows a horse from

anybody, you know.”

Agin he saw refusal, and headed her off.

“Lots of men take women buggy-riding. There’s nothing wrong in

that. And the man always furnishes the horse and buggy. Well,

now, what’s the difference between my taking you buggy-riding and

furnishing the horse and buggy, and taking you horse-back-riding

and furnishing the horses?”

She shook her head, and declined to answer, at the same time

looking at the door as if to intimate that it was time for this

unbusinesslike conversation to end. He made one more effort.

“Do you know, Miss Mason, I haven’t a friend in the world outside

you? I mean a real friend, man or woman, the kind you chum with,

you know, and that you’re glad to be with and sorry to be away

from. Hegan is the nearest man I get to, and he’s a million

miles away from me. Outside business, we don’t hitch. He’s got

a big library of books, and some crazy kind of culture, and he

spends all his off times reading things in French and German and

other outlandish lingoes–when he ain’t writing plays and poetry.

There’s nobody I feel chummy with except you, and you know how

little we’ve chummed–once a week, if it didn’t rain, on Sunday.

I’ve grown kind of to depend on you. You’re a sort of–of–of–”

“A sort of habit,” she said with a smile.

“That’s about it. And that mare, and you astride of her, coming

along the road under the trees or through the sunshine–why, with

both you and the mare missing, there won’t be anything worth

waiting through the week for. If you’d just let me buy her

back–”

“No, no; I tell you no.” Dede rose impatiently, but her eyes

were moist with the memory of her pet. “Please don’t mention her

to me again. If you think it was easy to part with her, you are

mistaken. But I’ve seen the last of her, and I want to forget

her.”

Daylight made no answer, and the door closed behind him.

Half an hour later he was conferring with Jones, the erstwhile

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179

elevator boy and rabid proletarian whom Daylight long before had

grubstaked to literature for a year. The resulting novel had

been a failure. Editors and publishers would not look at it, and

now Daylight was using the disgruntled author in a little private

secret service system he had been compelled to establish for

himself. Jones, who affected to be surprised at nothing after

his crushing experience with railroad freight rates on firweood

and charcoal, betrayed no surprise now when the task was given to

him to locate the purchaser of a certain sorrel mare.

“How high shall I pay for her?” he asked.

“Any price. You’ve got to get her, that’s the point. Drive a

sharp bargain so as not to excite suspicion, but her. Then you

deliver her to that address up in Sonoma County. The man’s the

caretaker on a little ranch I have there. Tell him he’s to take

whacking good care of her. And after that forget all about it.

Don’t tell me the name of the man you buy her from. Don’t tell

me anything about it except that you’ve got her and delivered

her. Savvee?”

But the week had not passed, when Daylight noted the flash in

Dede’s eyes that boded trouble.

“Something’s gone wrong–what is it?” he asked boldly.

“Mab,” she said. “The man who bought her has sold her already.

If I thought you had anything to do with it–”

“I don’t even know who you sold her to,” was Daylight’s answer.

“And what’s more, I’m not bothering my head about her. She was

your mare, and it’s none of my business what you did with her.

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