substantial houses in the outskirts, which seemed to have sucked the
vitality of the little settlement. One of these--he had been told--was
the property of his rich and wicked maternal uncle, the hated
appropriator of his red-headed cousin's affections. He recalled his
brief visit to the departed testator's claim and market garden, and his
by no means favorable impression of the lonely, crabbed old man, as well
as his relief that his objectionable cousin, whom he had not seen since
he was a boy, was then absent at the rival uncle's. He made his way
across the road to a sunny slope where the market garden of three acres
seemed to roll like a river of green rapids to a little "run" or brook,
which, even in the dry season, showed a trickling rill. But here he was
struck by a singular circumstance. The garden rested in a rich, alluvial
soil, and under the quickening Californian sky had developed far beyond
the ability of its late cultivator to restrain or keep it in order.
Everything had grown luxuriantly, and in monstrous size and profusion.
The garden had even trespassed its bounds, and impinged upon the open
road, the deserted claims, and the ruins of the past. Stimulated by the
little cultivation Quincy Wells had found time to give it, it had
leaped its three acres and rioted through the Hollow. There were scarlet
runners crossing the abandoned sluices, peas climbing the court-house
wall, strawberries matting the trail, while the seeds and pollen of
its few homely Eastern flowers had been blown far and wide through the
woods. By a grim satire, Nature seemed to have been the only thing that
still prospered in that settlement of man.
The cabin itself, built of unpainted boards, consisted of a
sitting-room, dining-room, kitchen, and two bedrooms, all plainly
furnished, although one of the bedrooms was better ordered, and
displayed certain signs of feminine decoration, which made Jackson
believe it had been his cousin's room. Luckily, the slight, temporary
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