“No. No, of course not. But, Mother, just see what I could do—for you—with a thousand dollars. Why, there are so many little things, little luxuries, that you need.”
“I had rather not get them that way. No, Roscoe, I wouldn't sell to Mr. Colton. And I think I wouldn't sell to the town either.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because we don't have to sell, and selling to either party would make ill-feeling. I should—of course I'm only a woman; you are a man and know much more about such things than I—but why not let matters stay just as they are? The townspeople can use the Lane, just as they have always done, and, as I told you before, every one has been so kind to us that I like to feel we are doing a little in return. Let them use the Lane, without cost. Why not?”
“What do you think the Coltons would say to that?”
“Perhaps they don't understand the real situation. The next time you see Mr. Colton you could explain more fully; tell him what the Lane means to the town, and so on. I'm sure he would understand, if you told him that. And then, if the sight of the wagons was too annoying, he could put up some kind of a screen, or plant a row of fir trees by the fence. Don't you think so?”
I imagined the great man's reply to such a suggestion. However, I did not express my thoughts. I told Mother not to worry, I was sure everything would be all right, and, as Dorinda called me to supper, I went into the dining-room.
Lute was waiting for me at the table, and Dorinda, after taking the tray into Mother's room, joined us. Lute was so full of excitement and curiosity that he almost forgot to eat, a miracle of itself and made greater by the fact that he did not ask a single question until his wife asked one first. Then he asked three in succession. Dorinda, who was quite as curious as he but would not have shown it for the world, stopped him at the beginning of the fourth.
“There! there!” she said, sharply, “this is supposed to be a meal, not a parrot shop, and we're humans, not a passel of birds on a telegraph wire all hollerin' at once. Drink your tea and stop your cawin', Lute Rogers. Ros'll tell us when he gets ready. What DID Mr. Colton want of you, Roscoe?”
I told them as much of the interview at the Coltons' as I thought necessary they should know. Lute kept remarkably quiet, for him, until I named the figure offered by the millionaire. Then he could hold in no longer.