"How much? why, two shillings a pound," said Mrs. Backfield, rather surprised.
"That's too much." Reuben's brows and mouth were straight lines.
"Wot d'you mean, Reuben?"
"Why, two shillings is too much fur farm-folks lik us to give fur a pound of chocolate. It's naun but a treat, and we can do wudout it."
"But we've bin drinking chocolate fur a dunnamany years now—your poor fäather always liked it—and I döan't see why we should stop it."
"Look'ee, mother, I've something to tell you. I've a plan in my head, and it'll justabout mean being shut of a lot of things besides chocolate. I know fäather dudn't care much about the farm, about mäaking it grow and buying more land, and all that. But I do. I mean to buy the whole of Boarzell."
There was a gasping silence.
"The whole of Boarzell," repeated Reuben.
He might have said the whole world, to judge by his mother's and Harry's faces.
"Yes—I mean every bit, even the bit Grandturzel's got now. Squire he wöan't be sorry to sell it, and I mean to buy it piece by piece. I'll buy my first piece at the end of this year. We must start saving money at wunst. But I can't do naun wudout you help me, you two."