“Is that so? I fancied you did. Don’t all farmers raise hay-seed?”
“No,” replied Dan quietly, looking calmly at Sin as he spoke.
“I confess my ignorance. You must forgive me.”
Dan glanced at Walter as if he was somehow puzzled, but his dark eyes and bronzed face did not change their expression. “If you don’t get into the country very often of course you have forgotten some things,” he said to Sinclair. “I remember only last summer there was a family that came to Rodman to spend a few days. I didn’t know them, but it seems their father was raised in our town; he went down to the city and made a lot of money. This man Silas you asked me about knew them all, though, and he explained everything to them, told them how he had helped take their grandfather to the town poorhouse and got up a donation party for the children. He described the first mule their father bought—for it seems he made his first money as a horse-trader before he began to buy hogs.”
“No wonder they forgot,” said Sinclair a little foolishly as he arose. “So long, Walter,” he added lightly. “I’ll see you again,” he said to Dan and at once departed from the room.
“You were enough for him, Dan,” laughed Walter.
“‘Enough for him’? I don’t know that I understand.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Walter, what does this fellow Sinclair’s father do for a living?”