"Oh, I guess that won't worry us long. The Americans are comin' in now with lots o' good money. I was figurin' up that this place, as a goin' concern, ought to bring about forty thousand dollars, and I'll bet I could sell it inside of a week."
"Sell it?" she exclaimed. "You don't mean that you intend to sell this farm?"
"Why not? If somebody else wants it worse'n we do, and has the money to pay for it, why shouldn't I sell it?"
The tears stood in her eyes as she answered: "In all these years while we have been building up this home I never once thought of it as something to sell. It was too near for that—a part of ourselves, of our very life. It seemed more like—like one of the children, than a mere possession. And now you would sell it, just as you might sell a load of wheat or a fat steer. Is this place—this home where we have grown old and grey—nothing to you? Have you no sentiment that will save it from the highest bidder?"
"Sentiment is a poor affair in business," he answered. "Property was made t' sell; money was made t' buy it with. The successful man is the one who has his price for everythin', and knows how t' get it. As for growin' old and grey on this farm, why, that's a grudge I have against it, though I don't think I'm very grey and I don't feel very old. And if I get my price, why shouldn't I sell?"
"Very well," she answered. "I've nothing more to say. Sell it if you must, but remember one thing—I won't be here to see it pass into the hands of strangers." She straightened herself up, and there was a fire in her eye that it reminded him of the day when she had elected to share with him the hardships of the wilderness, and in spite of himself some of his old pride in her returned. "I leave to-morrow for a visit, and I may be gone some time. You reminded me of your liberality a few minutes ago; prove it now by writing me a cheque for my expenses. Remember I will expect to travel like the wife of a prosperous farmer, a man whose holdings are worth forty thousand dollars cash."
"So that's your decision, is it? You set me at defiance; you try t' wreck my plans by your own stubbornness. You break up my family piece by piece, until all I have left is Allan. Thank God, the boy, at least, is sound. Well, you shall have your cheque, and I'll make it a big one that it may carry you the farther."
Even in the teeth of his bitterness the mention of Allan's name strained the mother's heart beyond her power of resistance, and she turned with outstretched arms towards her husband. For a moment he wavered, the flame of love, still smouldering in his breast, leaping up before the breath of her response. But it was for a moment only. Weakness would have meant surrender, and surrender was the one thing of which Harris was incapable. He had laid out his course with a clear conscience; he was sincerely working for the greatest good to his family, and if his wife was determined to stand in her own light it was his duty to pursue the course in defiance of her. So he checked the impulse to take her in his arms and walked stolidly to his desk in the parlour.
He returned shortly and placed a cheque in her hands. She looked at it through misty eyes, and read that it was for two hundred dollars. It represented a two-hundredth part of their joint earnings, and yet he thought he was dealing liberally with her; he half expected, in fact, that his magnanimity would break her down where his firmness had failed. But she only whispered a faint "Thank you," and slowly folded the paper in her fingers. He waited for a minute, suspecting that she was overcome, but as she said nothing more he at length turned and left the house, saying gruffly as he went out, "When that's done I'll send you more if you write for it."
It was now ten at night, and almost dark, but Harris's footsteps instinctively turned down the road toward Riles'. Riles' reputation in the community was that of a hardworking, money-grubbing farmer, with a big bony body, and a little shrivelled soul, if indeed the latter had not entirely dried up into ashes. A few years ago Harris had held his neighbour in rather low regard, but of late he had been more and more impressed with Riles' ability to make his farm pay, which was as great as or greater than his own, and what he had once thought to be hardness and lack of humanity he now recognized as simply the capacity to take a common-sense, business view of conditions.