STARR, OF THE DESERT




CHAPTER ONE

A COMMONPLACE MAN WAS PETER


Daffodils were selling at two bits a dozen in the flower stand beside the
New Era Drug Store. Therefore Peter Stevenson knew that winter was over,
and that the weather would probably "settle." There would be the spring
fogs, of course--and fog did not agree with Helen May since that last
spell of grippe. Peter decided that he would stop and see the doctor
again, and ask him what he thought of a bungalow out against the hills
behind Hollywood; something cheap, of course--and within the five-cent
limit on the street cars; something with a sleeping porch that opened
upon a pleasanter outlook than your neighbor's back yard. If Helen May
would then form the habit of riding to and from town on the open end of
the cars, that would help considerably; in fact, the longer the ride the
better it would be for Helen May. The air was sweet and clean out there
toward the hills. It would be better for Vic, too. It would break up
that daily habit of going out to see "the boys" as soon as he had
swallowed his dinner.

Peter finished refilling the prescription on which he was working, and