"And you think if you could make it a lake again you could sell it to these wealthy people?"
"I know I could. I know an athletic club in town that would pay a big price for it. There are many of our wealthy men who would pay five hundred dollars for a hundred foot frontage, so that they might put up bungalows for summer residences. My plan is to find those choked springs, bring them again into their old channels, and convert the Hollow into a lake. Mr. Ryder, our farmer friend who now owns this farm, doesn't think much of my plan, and won't have anything to do with it any more than to sell me options on the land and the privilege of cutting this excellent stand of corn, and that is as far as my arrangements with him extend."
"And what is the first thing for me to do?" asked Glen.
"Excellent talk, that, my boy. What would you advise as to the first thing."
"I suppose you can't do much exploring while the corn stands. It should be cut."
"It should, and it must be cut in the old fashioned way. Did you ever cut corn in the old fashioned way?"
"You mean with a corn-knife. I helped cut a hundred acres at the school last fall."
"Well, there's only about five acres of this land in corn so the contract is smaller. The first thing is to borrow a corn-knife of our friend Ryder."
Glen's attack upon the field of corn began that very day. A year ago, at the reform school, he had hated this work; now, he enjoyed it. The corn was higher than his head, and the heavy stalks, piled on his left arm as he cut with his right, wore through his shirt and made an attempt upon his skin, but he did not complain. He was doing a work into which his heart entered, and so he was enjoying it.
Spencer could give no help at all. There are people, with like misfortune to his, who are able to make some sort of a shift with crutches, but Will could not use them at all. As Mrs. Spencer had explained to Glen, there had been some trouble in the amputation. All that was needed was money to go to a famous hospital and have things properly arranged and a pair of artificial legs fitted that would enable him to walk, run, race, dance or play the pipe organ. Will hoped to be successful enough to command the money for this and meantime he intended to be happy in the prospect. So he sat and watched Glen work, made suggestions, cracked jokes and drew diagrams of the surrounding country.