“Well, I would never have done it if you hadn’t come along, Miss Mercer. You gave us all courage in the first place, and then you got Jud Harkness and all the others to come and help me this way.”
“Oh, they’d have done it themselves, as soon as they heard. I didn’t suggest a thing—I just told them the news, and they thought of everything else all by themselves. The only thing I thought of was using your farm so that it would really pay you.”
“Now that you’ve told us how, it seems so easy that I wonder I never thought of it myself.”
“Well, lots and lots of farmers just waste their land and themselves, Mrs. Pratt. You’re not the only one. My father has a farm, and in his section he’s done his level best to make the regular farmers see that there are new ways of farming, just as there are new ways of doing everything else.”
“That’s what my poor husband always said. He had all sorts of new-fangled ideas, as I used to call them. Maybe he was right, too. But he didn’t have money enough to try them and see how they’d do, though we always made a good living off this place.”
“Well, the advantage of my idea is that you don’t need much money to give it a trial, and if you don’t succeed, you won’t lose much.”
“I think we’d be pretty stupid if we didn’t succeed, after the fine start you’ve given us, and the way you’ve told me what to do.”
“Well, I think so myself,” said Eleanor, with a frank laugh. “And I know you’re not stupid—not a bit of it! It’s going to be hard work, but I’m sure you’ll succeed. You’ll be able to hire someone to do most of the work for you before long, I think, and then you’ll have to have a rest, and come down to visit me in the city.”
“Well, well, I do hope so, Miss Mercer! I ain’t been in the city since I don’t know when. Tom—my husband—took me once, but that was years and years ago, and I expect there’s been a lot of changes since then.”
“I’m going to keep an eye on you, Mrs. Pratt. And I feel as if I were a sort of partner in this business, so if you don’t make as much money as I think you ought to, why, you’ll hear from me. I can promise you that! Girls, we’ll sleep in the lean-to to-night, and in the morning we’ll be off, bright and early.”