![[Image: Frontispiece]](https://oldbook.b-cdn.net/kitaplar/1/pg6455-h/images/front.jpg)
The Little Lady of the Big House
by
Jack London
Author of “The Valley of the Moon,”
“The Star Rover,” “The Sea Wolf,”
Etc.
Chapter I
He awoke in the dark. His awakening was simple, easy,without movement save for the eyes that opened andmade him aware of darkness. Unlike most, who mustfeel and grope and listen to, and contact with, theworld about them, he knew himself on the moment ofawakening, instantly identifying himself in time andplace and personality. After the lapsed hours of sleephe took up, without effort, the interrupted tale ofhis days. He knew himself to be Dick Forrest, the masterof broad acres, who had fallen asleep hours beforeafter drowsily putting a match between the pages of“Road Town” and pressing off the electricreading lamp.
Near at hand there was the ripple and gurgle of somesleepy fountain. From far off, so faint and far thatonly a keen ear could catch, he heard a sound thatmade him smile with pleasure. He knew it for the distant,throaty bawl of King Polo—King Polo, hischampion Short Horn bull, thrice Grand Champion alsoof all bulls at Sacramento at the California StateFairs. The smile was slow in easing from Dick Forrest’sface, for he dwelt a moment on the new triumphs hehad destined that year for King Polo on the Easternlivestock circuits. He would show them that a bull,California born and finished, could compete with thecream of bulls corn-fed in Iowa or imported overseasfrom the immemorial home of Short Horns.
Not until the smile faded, which was a matter of seconds,did he reach out in the dark and press the first ofa row of buttons. There were three rows of such buttons.The concealed lighting that spilled from the hugebowl under the ceiling revealed a sleeping-porch, threesides of which were fine-meshed copper screen. Thefourth side was the house wall, solid concrete, throughwhich French windows gave access.
He pressed the second button in the row and the brightlight concentered at a particular place on the concretewall, illuminating, in a row, a clock, a barometer,and centigrade and Fahrenheit thermometers. Almostin a sweep of glance he read the messages of the dials:time 4:30; air pressure, 29:80, which was normal atthat altitude and season; and temperature, Fahrenheit,36°. With another press, the gauges of time and heatand air were sent back into the darkness.
A third button turned on his reading lamp, so arrangedthat the light fell from above and behind withoutshining into his eyes. The first button turned offthe concealed lighting overhead. He reached a massof proofsheets from the reading stand, and, pencilin hand, lighting a cigarette, he began to correct.
The place was clearly the sleeping quarters of a manwho worked. Efficiency was its key note, though comfort,not altogether Spartan, was also manifest. The bedwas of gray enameled iron to tone with the concretewall. Across the foot of the bed, an extra coverlet,hung a gray robe of wolfskins with every tail a-dangle.On the floor, where rested a pair of slippers, wasspread a thick-coated skin of mountain goat.
Heaped orderly with books, magazines and scribble-pads,there was room on the big reading stand for matches,cigarettes, an ash-tra