"Stock," she repeated with scorn. "The very idea, anyway, of taking real money and giving it away for a lot of little certificates. If I had money I'd put it in a nice clean, dry, covered tin pail, and hang it down my well, just like Jerushy said she always did when she had a ten-dollar bill around that worried her. And there Dad's got all the expense of rebuilding Greenacres. It's going to be a regular White Elephant, I'm afraid, because it isn't all paid for anyway, and there's the yearly interest." She hesitated before she added, slowly, "I wonder why on earth it is, Bill Ellis, that the people with the most children who need the most money always seem to be hunting for it, and these nice, old, placid darlings, like the Dean and Miss Daphne, have simply got oodles planted away somewhere, and never have to think twice over where the next windfall is coming from."
But Billie was inclined to take an optimistic view of the whole affair.
"Grandfather said that there was no cause for worry; it was just a case of pitch in and get your living out of the farms again."
"Yes," said Kit, with fine scorn, "get your living out of the farms. That's all very well for him to say, when he's got everything to do with, and twenty of the best cows in Windham County, but we moved up there on hope and a shoe-string. And we've never really raised anything except chickens and children. You know, Billie, even with a small income, how you can play country gentleman to your heart's content in a little place like Gilead."
"Stanley says your place, if it was properly worked, would make one of the finest fruit farms up there, 'cause all your land slopes to the south as far as the river. He says if he had it he'd sell off the heavy timber for cash and put the money right into hardy varieties of fruit and hogs."
Kit laughed.
"Can't you see Helen's face over the hogs, when she has wanted to raise bulbuls and white peacocks, with a few antelopes and gazelles wandering around. But I suppose one could keep the hogs out of sight, they wouldn't have to graze on the front lawn. Did he tell Dad that?"
"I don't know," Billie said, doubtfully. "You know, Uncle Jerry's kind of hard to get confidential with over his own affairs, but I wouldn't worry, Kit, if I were you. Things always come out all right."
"They do not," returned Kit, calmly. "Even Cousin Roxy says that you have to give Providence a helping hand now and then. I'm going to think up a way to start those hogs rambling over the southern slopes of Greenacre Hall."
Billie smiled at her mischievously.