"That was before you met Mary," Grace suggested.
"Yes; that's so."
"And he must get rid of Mary before he can ever have an opportunity to feel that way again," said the lady referred to, as she looked proudly at her husband. "Old! Used up! The most spirited, active, hopeful, cheerful man I ever met! But, really, you were different, Caleb, when I first saw you; it doesn't seem possible that you're the same man. From what I've seen of the people here, I believe it is one of the ways of the West for men to try to look older than they are; you must use your influence—and example—to make them stop it. In New York a man seldom looks old until he is very near the grave; the most active and fine-looking business men are beyond threescore, as a rule—about twenty years older than you, Caleb."
"Ye—es, but they weren't brought up on malaria, pork, plough-handles, an' saleratus biscuit," said Caleb. "There's hope for a change here, though. Doc Taggess says there's nothin' like as much malaria in town as there was before the swamps were drained, and the good times comin', because o' the railroad, 'll make some more changes for the better, for all of us."
For a few moments each member of the quartet seemed to have dropped into revery. The silence was broken by Philip, who said:—
"Caleb, a year ago even you would not have dared to prophesy the changes that have been made, and those which are within sight, yet to you belongs the credit for all of them."
"To me? Well, I've heard and seen so many amazin' calculations in the past three months that I'm prepared to stand up under almost anythin', but I'd like to know how you figure it out that I've done anythin' in particular."
"'Tis easily told. If you hadn't fallen in love with Miss Truett, and she with you, her brother wouldn't have come out here, and the malaria wouldn't have been drained from the swamps, and the railway wouldn't have been projected, and the farmers wouldn't have become owners of guaranteed stocks, which has put new life into many of them, and there'd have been no inducement for manufacturers to use our water-power and our hard woods, and no bank would have been possible, nor any of the public improvements,—paving, water service, and others that will soon be under way. Don't you see?"
"Ye—es, as far as you've gone, but I wouldn't have known there was such a person as Mary—bless her!—if you hadn't sent me East, an' your wife—bless her too—hadn't given me a letter of introduction to Mary, so I don't see but that honors are about even. You might as well go back a little further, though, and say that you wouldn't have been here to send me East if your Uncle Jethro hadn't loved your father, an' made up his mind that your father's son shouldn't fool away his life in pleasin' his eyes an' fancies in New York, but should get the disciplinin' that makes a man out of a youngster that's got the real stuff born in him."