“Oh, Edgar,” said Mrs. Tramlay, plaintively, “our minister told us all this in a sermon nearly a year ago. I’m sure I listened patiently to it then; I don’t think it’s very kind of you to go all over it again.”
“No, I suppose not,” sighed the merchant, hastily kissing his family good-by and starting for his office. In a moment he returned, and said,—
“Just a word with you, my dear. It’s nothing about farmers, or battles, or industrial—— Say,” he whispered, as his wife joined him in the hall, “don’t you think I’d better have the doctor drop in to see Lucia? I’m afraid she’s going to be sick. She’s looked poorly for days, and doesn’t seem to have any spirit.”
“I’m sure she’s lively enough when she’s out of temper,” said Mrs. Tramlay, “which she is nearly all the while. She’s snapped at the children until they hate the sight of her, and I can’t speak to her without being greeted by a flood of tears. Margie seems the only one who can do anything with her.”
“Umph!” muttered the merchant, taking much time to arrange his hat before the mirror of the hat-rack.
Meanwhile, the old farmer and his son were having a long chat in a hotel bedroom.
“So you see how the land lies,” said the old man. “Though I never held that part of the farm at over two hundred an acre, the soil bein’ thinner than the lower-lyin’ land, an’ requirin’ a good deal more manure to make decent crops, Tramlay says it’ll fetch a clean two thousand an acre when it’s cut up, if the scheme takes hold as it’s likely to. That’s why he advised me to retain an interest, instead of sellin’ out-an’-out. I’m to get five thousand in cash for the forty acres, an’ have a quarter interest in all sales: that means twenty thousand in the end, if things turn out as Tramlay thinks.”
“My!” ejaculated Phil, his eyes opening very wide, and going into a brown study. The old man contemplated him for some time with a smile of supreme satisfaction. Finally he said,—
“Makes you feel a little bit as if you was a rich man’s son, don’t it, old boy?”
“Indeed it does,” Phil replied. “But I don’t see how I can help you about it.”