Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1898-04-19
A CALIFORNIA FEUD.

1t had lasted for the seven years durin,
which the Garrys and the SHADES had liyel
and raised oranges, Strawberries and rasp
berries on adjoining farms. The Garry
mad ten acres, the SHADES had three. TIL
Garrys had been laying by a little none,
each year and improving their pror erty
The SHADES had run behind a trife NOR,
each year. Their little square frame house
mad not been repainted or repaired since
they bought 1t and their outbuildings WERE
half ruinous. The Garrys could afford te
hire Mexicans to help turn the water on
the trees when the monthly irrigating day
came. The SHADES had to depend on thei,
own family-mother and father, eight
children and an uncle who was diving Of
consumption. These II people lived the
year round in a seven roomed house. and
at harvest time or when the precious tw,
or three miners inches'' Of water had
been bought and must be served, they ali
turned out into the fields.
The Garrys and the SHADES quarreled
about the eternal question, which embit.
tiers the life of the Californian farmer.
which makes deadly enemies of people
VINO live next door to one another, simply
by reason of that proximity, and sets every
mans tongue and hand against his neigh
bor-the question of water rights. The
SHADES attributed the undue prosperity of
the Garrys I'd the fact that they got more
than their share of the water. The Garrys
considered it part of the general cussed-
ness of the SHADES that they stole water
whenever they got a chance. Crimina-
tions and recriminations flew constantly
back and forth across the zanja which sep
arated the two places, and suspicion regu-
iarly became wrought to frenzy as the
middle of the month anne round. Garry
who was a hot blooded Irishman, swore
fearful oaths that if he once caught anr
OF them at 1T he'd blow them off the eartk,
He placed his %neighbors on the level of the
Chinese coolies whose vast strawberry
fields stretched beyond him to the east and
who would lie all night in the bitches,
waiting for a chance to slip a gate up an
inch or so when the zanchero had passed
on his round.
Garry posted up a hand written placard
on his tankhouse, offering S. reward for
the capture of any Slade caught where he
should not be. He could not keep it there,
however, for three times some one slipped
at night through the orchard, tore half
the card off and covered the other half
with opprobrious remarks concerning the
Garrys' ancestry.
No one had the least doubt as to the au-
thor of these reflections, for Minta, the 49,
year-old daughter of the SHADES, was
known to be the only one Of the family
who could write two words together.
Garry threatened before his men to horse
whip her If he caught her on his property,
and, hearing this, Minta sharpened 4
kitchen knife on the grindstone In the
rickety woodshed and carried it in the
pocket of her dress-when she had a pocket
OR stuck 1T in her belt-when she wore a
belt.
She was q small, wiry, restless creature,
with light hair, bleaohed almost white by
the sun, always %stringing into her eyes,
face and hands tanned copper brown and
a sly, bright, rodent look. She seemed to
concentrate in herself all the energy, all
the vitality, which might have been dis
tributed among the ten other members Of
her shiftless Virginian family. She was
always abroad in the fields working like a
man when she chose or playing boyish
pranks. She wore generally an old skirt
and a mans coat and went barefoot and
hatless. She used to climb after birds
nests into the tops of the tallest eucalyptus
trees and cling there to be tossed about by
the wind. She might be seen very often
walking the ridgepole of the Slade man
sion, balancing herself with shrieks of de-
light, and then she would jump down into
the green spray of the great pepper tree
that grew back of the house. Her father
used to smile when he saw or heard of
these performances.
"Girls will be girls" he would say in
diligently, land eff they want to DO boys,
why, SO much the better for the ranch. We
need boys, heaven knows. And Minta's
the only n of y all that does a days
work"
Minta helped prune the orange trees,
tearing her clothes and sometimes her
brown, calloused hands ON the needlelike
thorns. When it came to picking berries,
she was cheerfully admitted by all the
other SHADES to be equnl to any two Of
them. She made desperate wal on the
.gophers, which are the pest Of tho orchards,
used to visit her traps night and morning,
dragging the struggling, chattering ami
mails out of their burrows, to smash their
heads with a stick. Sometimes she held
them for a few moments to laugh at the
queer faces and noises they made, or put
her finger in their mouths and laughed
still more when the sharp teeth drew
blood.
When, once a month, the zanchero came
at night and unlocked the SHADES water
gate, the whole family turned out to work
by lantern light till dawn. Then Minta
discarded skirts and assumed the garb
which she vastly preferred-trousers, a
flannel shirt and long rubber boots, and
standing deep in the running water she
welded spade or hoe like a man. But the
Joy OF her life was a horse. To ride with
only the bride and a girth looped for her
foot, throwing herself fiat along the back
the brute and shouting into his ear as
he tore at full speed across the mesa-this
was a pleasure for which Minta would az
any moment cheerfully risk her life. She
had been thrown half a hundred times.
trampled on, all but rolled on, and
her left arm showed the marks Of q horse's
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