“And why do you do it? Or why don’t you do more of it?” Thaine asked.
The girl answered, smiling:
“Just between us two, I hope to do a piece good enough to sell and help to lift the price of alfalfa seed a bit.”
“By the way, I brought the first load of seed over just now. Where’s Uncle Jim?” Thaine asked, trying not to let the pity in his heart show itself in his eyes. 276
“Uncle Jim is breaking sod—weeds, I mean—for fall sowing. Wait a minute and I’ll get you the money he left for you.”
Thaine threw himself down in the shade beside Leigh’s seat while she went into the house.
“I wish I didn’t have to take that money, but I know better than to say a word,” he said to himself. “Thank the Lord, the worried look is beginning to leave Uncle Jim’s face, though. How could any of us get along without Uncle Jim?”
“What little seed to be worth so much, but it’s the beginning of conquest,” Leigh said as Thaine took the bills from her hand. “And it’s a much more hopeful business to reclaim from booms and weeds than from this lonely old prairie as it was when Uncle Jim and your father first came here.”
“It’s just the same old pioneer spirit, though, and you are fighting a mortgage just like they fought loneliness, and besides, Asher Aydelot had Virginia Thaine to help him to keep his courage up.”
A sudden flush deepened on his ruddy cheeks and he continued: