“You’ll see,” she assured him, comfortably.
“And Joe he went and stuck to the old place,” reflected Sol. “He might ’a’ got some better land for his sperimentin’ and projeckin’ if he’d ’a’ looked around.”
“He was offered land, all the land a man could want,” said she. “Ollie wanted him to take over the Chase home place and farm it when she and Morgan married and left, but Joe he said no; the Newbolts had made their failures here, he said, and here they was goin’ to make their success. He had to redeem the past, Joe said, and wipe out the mistakes, and show folks what a Newbolt can do when he gits his foot set right.”
“He’ll do it, too,” said Sol, without a reserved grudge or jealousy; “he’s doin’ it already.”
“Yes, I always knew Joe would,” said she. “When he was nothing but a little shaver he’d read the Cottage Encyclopedy and the Imitation and the Bible, from back to back. I said then he’d be governor of this state, and he will.”
She spoke confidently, nodding over her work.
“Shucks! How do you know he will?”
Sol’s faith was not strong in this high-flying forecast. It seemed to him that it was crowding things a little too far.
“You’ll live to see it,” said she.
Sol sat with his back against a pillar of the porch, one foot on the ground, the other standing on the boards in front of him, his hands locked about his doubled knee. He sat there and looked up at the Widow Newbolt, raising his eyebrows and rolling his eyes, but not lifting his head, which was slightly bent. “Well, what’s to be’s to be,” said he. “When’s he goin’ to marry?” 366