Bob now opened the refrigerator and showed them how they kept their eggs, butter and fresh meat.
"My, what a nice-looking lot of things to eat," said Mrs. White admiringly, as she looked into the white-enameled refrigerator. "See the crates of nice white eggs and freshly-killed poultry."
"Of course, we aren't killing much poultry now," said Bob. "We won't get started on that until the hen house is finished, but we're killing off a lot of the common chickens to get rid of them. They're bringing thirty cents per pound now."
"We'll wait supper till you get your shower and change your clothes, Bob," whispered his aunt, as the party came to the house and Bob disappeared. The favorable comments made by the banker and his wife on his work raised his thoughts above the level of mere clothes. He cared not that his ready-made suit compared rather poorly with the tailor- made clothes of their boy visitors. He decided that as he was going to be a farmer, he would wear the kind of clothes that belonged to farmers, and wouldn't try to ape others in the matter of dress.
After supper was over, Bob and his uncle, with the banker, adjourned to the sitting room, where they spent a half hour in going over their system of cost-keeping.
"This is a fine system, Joe," said the banker. "I'm glad to know you're taking such an intelligent interest in your farm."
"Well, it was pretty hard, John, for me at first to understand keeping accounts and all that, but Bettie and Bob were so insistent that I finally made up my mind that I was going to learn what it was all about. I think now I've a pretty fair idea how to tell whether a thing's paying or not; besides, since we got it started it don't take over five minutes a day. Before the summer is over, we'll have our work pretty well systematized. I'm beginning already to find out that a lot of things we've been doing on this farm all our lives have been unprofitable and also that many things we've neglected entirely can be made to pay a good profit."
"Nothing like figures, Joe, to tell you where you're at," laughed the banker. "Next thing for us to do, Joe, is to see that we get our farmers all awake and in line for a new concrete road to town. We must build that road this summer. I want you to be able to haul your produce easily."
When Bob returned to the porch, he found that the boys and girls had gone for a walk, from which they did not return until the banker and his wife were ready to leave. It did not add to his pleasure to see the easy manner in which they walked along, arm in arm, on their return to the house, or the rather overlong hand-shaking when they finally parted. He decided he didn't like those boys—especially "Eddie" Brown.