“Not yet. I suppose that is what we really must wait for. His own confidence returning. You see, what I’m afraid of is this: Dad was born and brought up right here, and the granite of these old hills is in his system. He loves every square foot of land around here. Just supposing he should be contented to settle down, like old Judge Ellis, and turn into a sort of Connecticut country squire.”
“There are worse things than that in the world,” Ralph replied. “Too many of our best men forget the land that gave them birth, and pour the full strength of their mature powers and capabilities into the city mart. You speak of Judge Ellis. Look at what that old fellow’s mind has done for his home community. He has literally brought modern improvements into Gilead. He has represented her up at Hartford off and on for years, when he was not sitting in judgment here.”
“You mean, that you think Dad ought not to go back?” asked Jean almost resentfully. “That just because he happened to have been born here, he owes it to Gilead to stay here now, and give it the best he has?”
Ralph laughed, good naturedly.
“We’re getting into rather deep water, Miss Jean,” he answered. “I can see that you don’t like the country, and I do. I love it down east here where all of my folks came from originally, and I’m mighty fond of the west.”
“Oh, I’m sure I’d like that too,” broke in Jean, eagerly. “Mother’s from the west, you know. From California, and I’d love to go out there. I would love the wide scope and freedom I am sure. What bothers me here, are those rock walls, for instance.” She pointed at the old one along the road, uneven, half tumbling down, and overgrown with gray moss; the standing symbol of the infinite patience and labor of a bygone generation. “Just think of all the people who spent their lives carrying those stones, and cutting up all this beautiful land into these little shut-in pastures.”
“Yes, but those rocks represent the clearing of fields for tillage. If they hadn’t dug them out of the ground, they wouldn’t have had any cause for Thanksgiving dinners. I’m mighty proud of my New England blood, and I want to tell you right now, if it wasn’t for the New England blood that went out to conquer the West, where would the West be today?”
“That’s all right,” said Jean, a bit crossly for her, “but if they had pioneered a little bit right around here, there wouldn’t be so many run down farms. What I would like to do, now that Dad is getting well, is make Greenacres our playground in summertime, and go back home in the winter.”
“Home,” he repeated, curiously.
“Yes, we were all born down in New York,” answered Jean, looking south over the country landscape, as though she could see Manhattan’s panoramic skyline rising like a mirage of beckoning promises. “I am afraid that is home to me.”