“So you’ve set the time,” said Bobby, with eager pleasure. He had met Platt’s “best girl” and her mother out at the Addition, and liked her, as he did earnest young Platt.
“June the first,” replied Jimmy exultantly. “The date of your opening—in the evening.”
“Don’t forget to send me an invitation.”
“Will you come?” said Platt. He had wanted to ask Bobby before, but had not been quite sure that he ought.
“Come!” replied Bobby. “Indeed I shall—unless I happen to have a wedding of my own on that date.”
Bobby went away satisfied once more, and quite willing to give up the additional foot of wall. The work would entail considerable cost, and expense now was much more of an item than it had been a few months previously. Already he had spent upon this project over two hundred and ten thousand dollars; ten thousand he had given to Biff Bates; ten thousand he had used personally, so there was but an insignificant portion left of his two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Their “grand opening” would eat up another tidy little sum, for it was to be an expensive affair. The liberal advertising that had already appeared was augmented as the great day approached, a brass band had been engaged, a magnificent lunch, sufficient to feed an army, had been arranged for, and every available ‘bus and carry-all and picnic wagon in the city had been secured to transport all comers, free of charge, from the end of the car line to the new Addition. The price of vehicles was high, however, for Silas Trimmer had already engaged quite a number of them to run between the Applerod Addition and his own. During the week preceding June first, there had appeared, in the local papers, advertisements of about one-fourth the size that Bobby was using, calling attention to the opening of the Trimmer Addition, which was to be upon the same date.
On the evening of May twenty-ninth, Bobby found Silas pacing the top of the retaining wall which held in his swamp, and waited for the spider-like figure to come across and join him.
“Too bad you didn’t come in with me, or sell me your property at a reasonable figure,” said Bobby affably, willing, in spite of his recent bitter experience, to meet his competitor upon the same friendly grounds that he would a crack polo antagonist on the eve of contest. “It’s a shame that this could not all have been improved at one time.”
“I’d just as lief have my part of it the way it is,” said Silas. “It’s no good now, but it’s as good as yours,” and he climbed into his buggy and drove away laughing, leaving Bobby strangely dissatisfied and doubtful over that strange remark.
While he was still trying to unravel it, he noted that the water in Silas’ pond, which but a day or so previously had been down to fully nine inches from the top, was now climbing rapidly upward again; and there had been no rain for more than two weeks! The thing was inexplicable. He was still puzzling over this as he drove down the road and turned in at broad Burnit Avenue toward the club-house. The asphalt and the pavements were bone dry and as clean as a ball-room floor, and it seemed to him that the young grass was growing greener and higher here than anywhere.