“How can you be so impertinent?” the mother interfered.
“Oh, no,” Blynn urged. “This is not impertinent, it’s important. She should ask that first. It will bring the school of cards down at the first shot. Outside of salary and lectures and writings, my sure income is exactly $96 per annum, the rental of Bardek’s house. I have a half-dozen other small properties. Sometimes I have had as much as $600 a year. It practically put me through college. Of course, mother has her own. Just at present I am pulling about $300. The reason I know is that I have just had an annual report from the agent. But Bardek is the only sure tenant. The dream’s up, my lady; oats is too high.”
“Do you think so?” she was calmly figuring. “Please let me do the managering, if I am to be manager.” After a moment or two of consideration she looked up satisfied. But first she asked questions. They included a complete list of his “cases.” Alongside of each one she checked those who could pay and those who could not.
“Here’s my scheme,” she showed him her paper. “I’ll rent you five acres of woodland for the grounds. There’s a good stone house there. It needs fixing up. I’ll attend to that. It’s just off the old mill above Cresheim Creek, where the road forks and goes up, you know, at the top of the hill.”
“‘Top-o’-the-Hill!’” he exclaimed. “We’ll call it ‘Top-o’-the-Hill.’ But,” ruefully, “where are we going to get the rent?”
“On the premises,” she continued. “I shall retain 51% of the stock and demand one wild rose paid to me every year with proper literary ceremonies.”
“A Pageant of the Wild Rose,” said he. “We shall crown you queen and I will recite. Listen! Wouldn’t this be nice and lugubrious. It’s old Dick Fanshawe’s fancy of complimenting his lady-love three hundred years ago.”
He began with, “Blown in the morning, thou shalt fade ere noon”—but she interrupted at the first line.
“I should particularly fancy that when I am growing aged and the petals begin to drop off. But to come down to business,” the manager referred to her paper; “would keeping up your outside lectures be too much for you?”
“Not at all,” he rejoined. “That is mere play. I figured out once that I could just about make a living by giving one or two series each year.”