"It's better for me, Rod," answered Uncle Jim, "it's better for me."
Rodney was a little uneasy. "But won't it be better for me?" he asked.
"Mebbe," was the slow answer, "mebbe, mebbe so."
"And then there's mother, she's getting too old for the work, ain't she?"
"She's done it straight along," answered the old man, "straight along till now."
"But Millie can help her, and we'll have a hired girl, eh?"
"I dunno, I dunno," was the brooding answer; "the place ain't going to stand it."
"We'll get more out of it," answered Rodney. "I'll stock it up, I'll put more under barley. All the thing wants is working, dad. Put more in, get more out. Now ain't that right?"
The other was looking off towards the rye-field, where, for forty years, up and down the hillside, he had travelled with the cradle and the scythe, putting all there was in him into it, and he answered, blinking along the avenue of the past:
"Mebbe, mebbe!"