ob to the cool of the evening,"
Laura Macpherson declared, as she led the way to the dining-room.

When the two came outside again the air off the prairie was delicious,
and there was promise of restfulness later in the black silence of the
June night that made them forget the nervous strain of the windy day.
The Macphersons had no problems that they could not talk over in the
shadowy stillness of that roomy porch on summer evenings.

York had been a bachelor boarder at the "Commercial Hotel and Garage"
for some years before the coming of his sister Laura, who was at once
his housekeeper, companion, and counselor. When he first went to the
hotel New Eden was in its infancy, and the raw beginnings of things were
especially underdone in this two-dollars-a-day, one-towel-a-week
establishment. It was through York that Junius Brutus Ponk had given up
an unprofitable real-estate business to become proprietor of the
Commercial Hotel--"and Gurrage" was added later with the advent of
automobiles, the "Gurrage" part being a really creditably equipped
livery for public service. By this change of occupation for Ponk, the
Macpherson Mortgage Company accomplished several things. It got rid of
an inefficient competitor whose very inefficiency would have made him a
more disagreeable enemy than a successful man would have been. Further,
it placed the ambitious little man where his talents could flourish
(flourish is the right word for J. B. Ponk), and it put into the growing
little town of New Eden a hotel with city comforts that brought business
to the town and added mightily to its reputation and respectability.

York Macpherson's business had grown with the town he had helped to
build. Long before other towns in this part of Kansas had dreamed it
possible for them, New Eden was lighted with electricity. Water-works
and a sewer system fore-ran cement sidewalks and a mile of paving, not
including the square around the court-house. And before any of these had
come the big stone school-house on the high ridge overlooking the Sage
Brush Valley for miles. That also was York Macpherson's task, which he
had carried out almost single-handed, and had the satisfaction of
bringing desirable taxpaying residents to live in New Eden who would
never have come but for the school advantages. Then Junius Brutus Ponk,
who had learned to couple with York, got himself elected to the board of
education and began to pay higher salaries to teachers than was