"If I put it in the window," said the son thoughtfully, "I shall want some saw-horses and bushel baskets and——"
"Take 'em right out of stock," said his fond father.
—"something to make a real country scene, in fact. And possibly a farmer sitting alongside in jeans. Just the place for the artist himself. It might be better, though, to put the whole show by the fountain. In that case I'd have a band, and it would play, 'On the Banks of the Kankakee.'"
"Have you got that song on hand?" asked his father.
"It ain't written yet, but it will be inside of a week; and in a week more the whole town will be going wild over it, or my name——"
Van Horn cut short the youthful visionary. "Well," he said to Jared, "you hustle off and get the show together. Check for five hundred on delivery. And mum's the word," he added, with good-natured vulgarity, "on both sides."
"Ain't nobody ever said I talked too much," mumbled Jared, reaching for his hat.
VIII
Soon the Squash dawned on the town—the Last, the Ultimate. Jared had soothed his ruffled feelings and gone back to his old barn and worked for a fortnight. The result was in all men's eyes: a "Golden Hubbard"—an agricultural novelty—backed up by all the pomp and circumstance a pillaged farm could yield.
"There it stands, Melissa," he said to the girl, who had come out with an admiring little company to bid Jared's masterpiece godspeed. "And here I stand—a ten-thousand-dollar artist, and the only one in the country."