"So's mine," exulted Hiram. "Paid a dollar-twenty-six, but I'm satisfied. When it reaches a dollar-forty I'll quit."
Ezekiel Tinkle walked six miles to see his son Ham at the Wallingford place.
"Jonas Whetmore's bragging about two thousand dollars he's made in a few days in this wheat business," he stated. "I don't rightly understand it, Hamlet. How about it? I don't believe in speculating, but Jonas says this ain't speculating, and if there's such a lot of money to be made I want some."
"We all do," laughed Ham Tinkle, who, since he had "made good" with his new-fangled farming, was accepted as an equal by his father. "I had two hundred when I started. It's a thousand now, and will be five thousand before I quit. Bring your money to me, father, and I'll show you how to get in on the profits. But hurry. How much can you spare?"
"Well," figured Ezekiel, "there's that fifteen hundred I've saved up for Bobbie's schooling; then when I sell my wheat——"
"Don't do that!" interposed his son quickly. "Wheat is going up so rapidly because the growers are holding it for a dollar and a half. Every man who sells his now, weakens the price that much."
"Is that the way of it!" exclaimed the old man, enlightened at last, and he kicked reflectively at a piece of turf. "To make money out of this all the farmers must hold their wheat for a dollar and a half! Say, Hamlet; Charlie Granice sold his wheat at a dollar-six to go into this thing. Adam Spooner and Burt Powers and Charlie Dorsett all sold theirs, and they're all members of this association. Ham, I'm going right home to sell my wheat."
"They are traitors!" charged Hamlet angrily. "I won't send that money away for you."
"Send it away!" retorted the old man. "Not by a danged sight you won't! I'll sell my wheat right now while it's high, and put my money in the bank along with the fifteen hundred I've got there; and you go ahead and be your own fool. I know advice from your old daddy won't stop you."
Not many, however, were like old man Tinkle, and J. Rufus Wallingford, as he sped toward Chicago, was more self-congratulatory than he had ever been in all his life. A million dollars! A real million! Why, dignity could now attach to the same sort of dealing that had made him forever avoid the cities where he had "done business." Heretofore his operations had been on such a small scale that they could be called "common grafting," but now, with a larger scope, they would be termed "shrewd financiering." It was entirely a matter of proportion. A million! Well, he deserved a million, and the other millions that would follow. Didn't he look the part? Didn't he act it? Didn't he live it?