Abel had come up, and listened like a frightened woman, the muscles of his face working, tears in his light-blue eyes.
"Cheer up, Abe," said the younger boy, heartily; "I've thought of a plan."
"There's one way, Matthew," said Abel, eagerly. "If only"——
"No, none of that!"—sternly. "We've had enough of waitin' for an 'if.' We'll help ourselves now."
An hour after, I saw him lock up his shed as if he had done with it, and presently come out of the house with his face washed and his shoes on, and take his way across the fields.
That afternoon, at the mound, Doctor Peters, the owner of the farm, began a conversation with me about the Steadmans.
"It was the ruin of the old man," he said, "waiting for his rights. It kept him a loafer all his life. What little he made was by digging, just enough to hold body and soul together, hoping Mrs. C—— would not hold out another year. But there's no die in her."
"C——!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, yon's her place. The way of it was this. She was a Fawcett,—Betty Fawcett: I've heard my grandfather talk of her. Her first husband was a Colonel Shepler."
"Of the District?"