The son did not reply, but he was pleased to hear that his father still held to his decision.
Presently they came to a farm beautifully situated on a hill. There was a white-painted dwelling house, with a balcony and a veranda, and round the house were tall poplars whose pretty silvery stems were swollen with sap.
"Look!" said the farmer. "That was just the sort of house I meant to have—with a veranda and a balcony and a lot of ornamental woodwork, and with just such a well-mown lawn in front. Wouldn't that have been nice, Gabriel?"
As the son said nothing, the farmer concluded that he must be tired of hearing about the farm, so he, too, lapsed into silence although his thoughts were still upon his home. He wondered how the horses would fare with their new owners, and how things in general would be run on the place. "My goodness!" he muttered under his breath, "I'm surely doing a foolish thing in selling out to a corporation! They'll go and cut down all the trees, and let the farm go to waste. It would be just like them to allow the land to become marshy again, and to let the birch woods grow down into the fields."
They had at last reached the works, where the farmer's interest was again roused. There he saw ploughs and harrows of the latest pattern, and was suddenly reminded that for a long time he had been thinking of getting a new reaper. Gazing fondly at his good-looking son, he pictured him sitting on a fine, red-painted reaper, cracking his whip over the horses, and mowing down the thick, waving grass, as a war hero mows down his enemies. And as he stepped into the office he seemed to hear the clicking noise of the reaper, the soft swish of falling grass and the shrill chirp and light flutter of frightened birds and insects.
On the desk in there lay the deed. The negotiations had been concluded, and the price settled upon; all that was needed to complete the deal was his signature.
While the deed was being read to him he sat quietly listening. He heard that there were so and so many acres of woodland, and so and so many of arable land and meadow, so and so many head of cattle, and such and such household furnishings, all of which he must turn over. His features became set.
"No," he said to himself, "it mustn't happen."
After the reading he was about to say that he had changed his mind, when his son bent down and whispered to him:
"Father, it's a choice between me and the farm, for I'm going anyway no matter what you do."