eep of valley farmland the
driver stopped the car in shade and scanned the fields of grain where
the green was already fading.

"There's the Home Farm," said Sharon. "High mighty! Some change since my
grandad came in here and fit the Injins and catamounts off it. I wonder
what he'd say if he could hear what I'm paying for farm help right
now--and hard to get at that. I don't know how I've managed. See that
mower going down there in the south forty? Well, the best man I've had
for two years is cutting that patch of timothy. Who do you guess? It's
my girl, Juliana. She not only took charge for me, but she jumped in
herself and did two men's work.

"Funny girl, that one. So quiet all these years, never saying much,
never letting out. But she let out when the men went. I guess lots have
been like her. You can see a woman doing anything nowadays. Why, they
got a woman burglar over to the county seat the other night! And I just
read the speech of a silly-softy of a congressman telling why they
shouldn't have the vote. Hell! Excuse me for cursing so."

Unconsciously Wilbur had been following with his eyes the course of the
willow-bordered creek. He half expected to hear the crisp little tacking
of machine guns from its shelter, and he uneasily scanned the wood at
his left. It was the valley of the Surmelin, and yonder was the Marne.

"I keep thinking I'll be shot at," he explained.

"You won't be. Safe as a church here--just like being in God's pocket.
Say, don't that house look good to you?" He cocked a thumb toward the
dwelling of the Home Farm in a flat space beyond the creek. It was the
house of dull red brick, broad, low, square fronted, with many windows,
the house in a green setting to which they had gone so many years
before. Heat waves made it shimmer.

"Yes, it looks good," conceded Wilbur.

"Then listen, young man! You're to live there. It'll be your
headquarters. You're going to manage the four other farms from there,
and give me a chance to be seventy-three years old next Tuesday without
a thing on my mind. You ain't a farmer, but you're educated; you can
learn anything after you've seen it done; and farming is mostly
commonsense and machinery nowadays. So that's where you'll be,
understand? No more dubbing round doing this and that, printing office
one day, garage the next, and nothing much the next. You're going to
settle down and take up your future, see?"

"Well, if you think I can."

"I do! You're