"If I loved a man I'd take my chance," was my parting shot.
"Then, my dear, it's to be hoped you won't love a man just yet," said mother, as she went out of the room.
And that was all that I got by my endeavor to further my sister's cause with mother. I think, however, I soon forgot the annoyance that my failure caused me; it was driven out of my head by other and more engrossing interests.
Mother and I had been up at "The Elms" that very day getting things in order for Mr. Harrod. We had found a tidy widow woman to wait on him, and mother had put up fresh white dimity curtains from her own store to brighten up his little parlor. When he came in to supper he was full of quiet delight. I forget what he said; he was not a man of many words; he was always wrapped up in his business; but I recollect that, however few they were, they were words of affectionate gratitude to mother for a kind of care which he seemed never to have known before, and I know that I was grateful to him for them—so sensitively responsible is one for the actions of another who is slowly creeping near to one's heart.
Harrod sat some time with mother on the lawn discussing the qualities of cows; she wanted father to give her a new one, and she wanted Harrod to find her one as good as Daisy, if such a thing were possible. He listened with great patience to her reminiscences of past favorites, and promised to do his best; but I could see that there was something on his mind.
I fell to wondering what it was. I fell to wondering whether Trayton Harrod ever thought of anything else but the work he had to do, the dumb creatures that came his way in the doing of it, and the fair or lowering face of the world in which he did it. I soon learned what it was. It was something that had been discussed many times, but it had never been discussed as it was discussed that evening.
Father came out with his pipe a-light; his rugged old face wore its most dreamy and contented expression. He had evidently been thinking of something that had given him pleasure; but I do not think it had to do with the farm. But Mr. Harrod went to meet him, and they strolled down the garden together, and stood for about ten minutes talking hard by the bed where the golden gillyflowers and the purple iris bloomed side by side.
"Well, you know what I have told you, Mr. Maliphant," said Harrod. "You never can make the farm pay so long as you hold these theories. Your men work shorter hours and receive higher wages than anybody else's; and, added to that, you absolutely refuse to have any machinery used. It'll take you twice as long to get in your hay and your wheat as it will take the other farmers. How can you possibly compete with them?"
"I don't want to compete with them," said father—"not in the sense of getting the better of them. I merely want the farm to yield me sufficient for a modest living; I don't need riches."