"What did you say, Bob?" eagerly asked his uncle.
"I told him we couldn't think of it," replied Bob with a grin.
"What! You didn't take him up? What could you have been thinking of,
Bob?"
"Well, you see, Uncle Joe, we'll need a lot of sand and gravel ourselves for making concrete fence posts and things like that, and then we may want to build a concrete road from the main road up to the barn, and, of course, we need a new dairy house and big silo."
"Yes, I know, Bob; the old place is pretty well run down," said his uncle. "Mr. White said something to-day about looking ahead and making permanent improvements, but we can't think of doing that now."
"I'm not so sure about that, Uncle Joe," replied Bob. "It seems we've got the only sand and gravel pit within fifteen miles with sand and gravel that the railroad engineer will accept for his work. I overheard him say that to Mr. Brady."
"Well, what did you finally do about the sand, Bob?" inquired his uncle eagerly.
"I told him the price was fifty cents per cubic yard in the pit, but we would let him pay for it in work, if his prices for the work were not too high, so he's going to make up a figure and come back and see us. I told him I thought you'd be willing to let him have the timber from the mill if he would take off the boards and two by fours and haul them over to the sand pit for us. You know, Uncle Joe, these will come in handy for us to build a shed when we start to make fence posts and other things there."
"But will he need enough sand to pay for all this work, Bob?" asked his uncle, now greatly excited.
"Yes, I'm sure he'll need more, for he seemed to be anxious to buy the pit outright."