“We’d take up a free homestead out West and raise wheat.”
So utterly different from anything they had expected was this announcement that Mrs. Porter and her daughters simply sat in silence.
Confronted with the necessity of bringing up four young children with only a small life insurance as a basis, the mother had courageously set about the task.
Artistic by nature, through the aid of friends, she obtained a responsible and remunerative position with a large department store which had enabled her to make their home in Weston comfortable and attractive, even, indeed, through the strictest economy, to save a few hundred dollars—but the effort had been at the expense of her strength and health.
“A lot you kids know about farming,” exclaimed Margie, the first to recover from her surprise.
“Or about anything else that’s practical,” retorted Phil. “But we can learn—and there’s a better living to be made from a farm, say out in Washington State, even the first year, than we could provide you in the city in five.”
“You think you would be happy to leave Weston, with your amusements and all your friends?” quietly asked Mrs. Porter.
“We know we should be,” asserted Phil. “Why, Jack Howell told us it took all the money he could earn just to buy his clothes and go round—and he receives twenty dollars a week. So how could we take care of you and the girls, too, even if we were able to get that much?”
“Which we wouldn’t be,” promptly declared Ted. “If a fellow can get ten dollars a week when he starts in, he is lucky. I know, because I’ve been trying to find a place where I could earn some money to put into my flying machine.”
“Why go way out to Washington?” inquired Sallie. “If you are set on going in for farming, there must be no end of places nearer where you could do as well.”