“I know what that feeling is, and all about it; and if you feel that way, you’ll never be worth a cent, or be contented in any other spot. There’s something comes out of the soil you love that puts the strength into your arm, and the courage into your heart.”
“But how shall I get it?”
“Buy it. You’ve got money enough, when Fred pays you, to buy enough for a farm, and more too.”
“But before that, some one that has got money to pay down might see it, like it just as well as I have, and buy it right off; perhaps it’s sold now.”
“No, it ain’t. People are not so fond of going on to wild land. They had rather buy land that has been partly cleared. I’ll write to Mr. Pickering, and get the price, and the refusal of it, and I’ll buy it for you. When you get your money from Fred, you can pay me. You’ll have enough from your boats, probably, to buy two hundred acres; and when we hear from him, I’ll go over it with you. There’s a heavy growth of pine back from the shore: I should want that; and there’s a pond, that the brook is an outlet of: I should want command of that water. The brook is a mill privilege. Boards will be worth something by and by; not in my day, perhaps, but you are young, and can afford to wait.”
“Then there’s bears on it, Uncle Isaac. It is worth a good deal more for that.”
“Most people wouldn’t consider that any privilege.”
“O, I should!”
“But the thing that toles the bears there, and makes them like it, is a privilege.”