"Well, you are safe in it, Mr. Saunders," George said. "You never could lose in a deal like that. It has a good house on it, and every foot of the land is rich. It has a fine strip of woodland, too."
"I really have no use for the place," Saunders went on, more awkwardly. "If it adjoined my plantation I would like it better, but it is too far away for my manager to see it often. I want to sell it, and it struck me that if you could be persuaded to give up this Western idea maybe you could take it off my hands at what it cost me."
"I? huh! That is a joke, Mr. Saunders," George laughed. "If farms were going at ten cents apiece I couldn't buy a pig-track in a free mud-hole."
"I wouldn't require the money down," Saunders went on, still clumsily. "In fact, I could give you all the time you wanted to pay for it. I know you are going to succeed—I know it as well as I know anything; and you ought to own your own place. I am willing to advance money for your supplies—and some to get married on, too. You and your sweetheart could be very snug in that little house."
George stared like a man waking from a perplexing dream. His toil-hardened, sun-browned hands were visibly quivering, his mouth was open, his lower lip twitching.
"You can't mean it—you can't be in earnest!" he gasped, leaning heavily against the door-jamb, actually pale with excitement.
"Yes, I mean it, George." Saunders put his hand on the broad shoulder again. "And I hope you will take me up. You will be doing me a favor, you see. I lend money every day to men I don't trust half as much as I do you."
At this juncture Dolly hurried down the aisle, a look of fresh anxiety on her face. "What is the matter, George?" she asked, eying her brother in surprise. "What has happened?"
Falteringly and with all but sobs of elation, George explained Saunders's proposition. "Did you ever in your life think of such a thing?" he cried. "Dolly, I'm going to take him up. If he is willing to risk me I'll take him up. I'll work my fingers to the bone rather than see him lose a cent. I'm going to take him up—I tell you, Sis, I'm going to take him up!"
Dolly said nothing. A glow of boundless delight suffused her face, rendering her unspeakably beautiful. Her eyes had a depth Saunders had never beheld before. He saw her round breast quiver and expand in tense agitation. She put her arm about her brother's neck and kissed him on the cheek. Then, without a word, her hand on her lips as if to suppress a rising sob, she turned back into the schoolhouse and, with head down, went to her desk, where she sat with her back to the door.