is is Aydelot soil. It
couldn't belong to anybody else. I never would sell a foot of it to
Cloverdale to let the town build this way. I'd as soon sell to a Thaine
from Virginia as I'd sell to that town."

He waved a hand toward the fields shut in by heavy woodlands, where the
shadows were already black. After a moment he continued:

"Everything is settled for you, Asher. I've been pretty careful and lucky,
too, in some ways. The men who didn't go to war had the big chances at
money making, you know. While you were off fighting, I was improving the
time here. I've done it fairly, though. I never dodged a law in my life,
nor met a man into whose eyes I couldn't look squarely."

As he spoke, the blood left Asher's cheeks and his face grew gray under
the tan.

"Father, do you think a man who fights for his country is to be accounted
below the man who stays at home and makes money?"

"Well, he certainly can do more for his children than some of those who
went to this war can do for their fathers," Francis Aydelot declared.
"Suppose I was helpless and poor now, what could you do for me?"

There was no attempt at reply, and the father went on: "I have prepared
your work for you. You must begin it at once. Years ago Cloverdale set up
a hotel, a poor enough tavern even for those days, but it robbed me of the
patronage this house had before that time, and I had to go to farming.
Every kind of drudgery I've had to do here. Cutting down forests, and
draining swamps is a back-breaking business. I never could forgive the
founders for stopping by Clover Creek, when they might have gone twenty
miles further on where a town was needed and left me here. But that's all
past now. I've improved the time. I have a good share of stock in the bank
and I own the only hotel in Cloverdale. I closed with Shirley as soon as I
heard you were coming home. Shirley's getting old, and since Jim has gone
there's no one to help him and take his place later, so he sold at a very
good figure. He had to sell for some reason, I believe. The Shirleys are
having some family trouble that I don't understand nor care about. You've
always been a sort of idol in the town anyhow. Now that you are to go into
the Shirley House as proprietor I suppose Cloverdale will take it as a
dispensation of Providence in their favor, and you can live like a
gentleman."

"But, father, I've always liked the country best. Don't you remember how
Jim Shirley was always out here i