Jack got Link to make the first marks for him on the floor, and laughed, as he looked through the sights of the compass, to hear Mr. Wiggett describe the finding of his section corner,—"runnin' a line plumb to the old stake, out on the open perairie,"—and praise the boy-surveyor's skill.
The mark was made with quickness and precision; friends and strangers crowded around Jack with kind words and questions; and he was surprised to find himself all at once a person of importance.
Peakslow puffed hard at his pipe. His face was troubled; and two or three times he pulled the pipe out of his mouth, thrust his knuckles under his hat, and took a step toward the young surveyor. He also cleared his throat. He evidently had a word to say. But the word would not come.
When at last he let Jack go off without offering him even a syllable of thanks, the bystanders smiled, and somebody might have been heard to mutter, "Peakslow all over! Just like his hoggishness!"
Jack smiled too as he went, for he had shrewdly observed his enemy, and he knew it was not "hoggishness" which kept Peakslow's lips closed, but a feeling which few suspected in that grasping, hard, and violent-tempered man.
Peakslow was abashed!
CHAPTER XLI.
CONCLUSION.
The house made once more inhabitable, Peakslow's family moved back into it. But this change did not take Lyddy away from the "castle," nor break up Vinnie's school.