“We are!”
“Well, you know that everything is going up?”
“Everything but prayer!” from the discontented one.
“Even that may be going up, too,” he answered solemnly. “Now listen: Perhaps you know that I am rich,—not so rich as some, but richer than I have any right to be or any reason for being——”
Here Mary Culbertson tossed her proud little head as much as to let him know that charity was not what she wanted. Major Fern saw her and smiled his approval.
“I have no idea of offering any of my ill-gotten gold to you.—I know how you would hate that. In fact, I haven’t any gold to offer. I am rich only in land and about as poor as they make ’em in other things. I am really land poor, having much more land than I have any use for or can till. I can’t get labor to keep up my farms. I have been thinking of selling an especially fertile farm about four miles from Wellington, but I don’t want to lose money on it, and if I sell at this time I am sure to. This farm comprises about two hundred acres of as good land as one can find in these parts, and that is saying a great deal. And now I am coming to my scheme——”
The old gentleman paused while the girls waited in breathless eagerness.
“I will let you have this farm if you will work it for me,—have it for as long as you need it. You don’t know what can be done in the way of intensive farming if one can get the labor. You could raise enough potatoes to run your mess for the winter; enough tomatoes and beans to can, and what’s more you can can them right on the spot.”
“Hurrah! Hurrah!” shouted Billie McKym. “The problem is solved or I’m a Boche.”
“Are you willing to undertake it?” asked the Major.