“She has too many negroes,” Mr. Lear pointed out. “They eat up all the profits. She will not get rid of them; but, at least, she ought to employ them properly.”
“How could she do that?” Richard asked.
“Buy back the orchards she sold Hoskins,” he answered promptly. “Hoskins will sell, at a profit, of course. Then she should get Holloday’s orchards and Fennill’s and go into the business on a big scale. I shouldn’t advise more grape land, although I would most strongly suggest letting George Alexander manage the sprays in his own way; she interferes with absolutely original theories—all wrong, of course—and she drags off his negroes to fool with her gardens.”
Richard was taking rapid notes.
“Will you get an option on Hoskins’ apples for us,” he looked up eagerly, “and on Fennill’s and the other fellow’s, too?”
“I am no real-estate operator,” Mitchell Lear assumed his most judicial expression.
How proud everyone was in Yates county, Richard thought; but he said genially, “But as a friend——”
“Oh!” Lear laughed at the touch. “That is different. As a friend I would get an option on the Lake-side cemetery!”
“Good!” cried Richard. “And can you get those notes from—Uncle John, I believe you said; I mean if we raise the money?... As a friend!”
“As a friend,” Lear entered into the scheme, “I will try to get the notes without the interest! Uncle John ought to be glad to get the principal! But how are you going to find all that money?”