“What you say is all right, I have no doubt, Mr. Jones; but it is not land that I want so much as to do good among this people; and I should not wish to do anything that would cause ill feeling.”
“Just as I expected,” said the squatter, with a disappointed air; “and I rather think you belong to the kingdom that is not of this world. 76 But you are stopping at Edmunds’s–aren’t you? Well, it’s only a short piece to his cabin, and I must take the team back; but”–after thinking a moment–“if you’ll take the dam on your way, you’ll find Palmer there. He’s a Christian, if there is one in these parts; and you can depend on him; and if you choose to talk with him a bit about this eighty-acre lot, there won’t be any harm done.”
The minister thanked the squatter for his services, the latter saying, as he drove off,–
“Call on me agin, if you want anything in my line.”
As the missionary passed towards the dam, he saw the surveyors at work, dividing the town site into lots; and he paused to notice again the location. The underbrush had been carefully removed, and the cleared space–bounded on one hand by the river, and on the other by the forest, while farther away from each side stretched the smooth prairie–looked as if nature had intended it as a business centre.
“How do you like our town plot?” said a voice at his side.
“It is charming!” exclaimed the preacher; and, turning, he saw Mr. Palmer.
He was a medium-sized man, in shirt sleeves and blue overalls, with an old black silk hat on, which, from its bent appearance, gave one 77 the idea that it had on occasions been used for a seat as well as a covering. The keen blue eyes under it, and the general contour of the face, ending in a smoothly-shaven chin, revealed a hard-working, frugal, money-saving character, yet honest, sincere, and unselfish. He was, indeed,–what he struck the observer as being,–a prudent counsellor, a true friend, a wisely-generous helper in every good word and work. No man in the settlement was more respected than he–a respect not based on his personal appearance, it was clear; for he had a perfect contempt for the ostentations of dress and equipage, but due to his straightforward and consistent deportment. He was about forty, and unmarried, and, on account of his amiable, thrifty, and Christianly qualities, was said to be the victim of incessant “cap-setting” by managing mammas and marriageable daughters, and of no little raillery on the part of the men, which he bore with great good nature, safely escaping from each matrimonial snare, and returning joke for joke.
“Been looking up land?” asked the bachelor.
The missionary related the day’s doings, and what the squatter had said about Mr. Smith and the eighty acres.