eyville men I know who own hundreds of acres they never earned and they
won't improve so's to help others?"

"You're right there," a farmer sitting beside Asher Aydelot called out.
"We all know how Careyville got her start. It's kept some of us poor doing
it. I'll invest in Town Company stock right now."

Asher Aydelot turned toward the speaker in surprise.

"Jacobs helped you out as well as the rest of us in the drouth and
grasshopper time of seventy-four," he said. "What's your grievance against
him now?"

"Yes, and hung onto me like a leech of a Jew ever since," the man
muttered.

"Because you never paid either interest or principal. And Jacobs has
carried you along and waited your time," Asher asserted frankly.

But the farmer plunged into the discussion again, not realizing that his
grudge against Careyville was the outgrowth of his own shortcomings.

"Take this site right here in the middle of your neighborhood where you've
already got your church and your schoolhouse, and your graveyard,"
Champers declared. "Aydelot here gave part of it and Pryor Gaines the
rest. Gaines don't farm it any more himself, it's most too big a job for a
man of brains like him. And that quarter across the river that used to be
all sand, you own that now, Aydelot, don't you? What did you think of
doin' with it now?"

"I think I'll set it in alfalfa this fall," Asher replied.

"Yes, yes, now these two make the very site we want. You are lucky, for
you are ready right now to start things. How much stock do you want,
Aydelot, and how will you sell?"

As Asher listened he seemed to see the whole scheme of the town builder
bare itself before him, and he wondered at the credulity of his
neighbors.

"Gentlemen," he said, standing before them, "it is a hard thing to put
yourself against neighborhood sentiment and not seem to be selfish. But as
I was the first man in this valley and have known every man who settled
here since, I ought to be well enough known to you to need no certificate
of good moral character here. I offer no criticism on the proposition
before you. You are as capable of judging as I am. The end may show you
more capable, but I decline to buy stock, or to donate, or sell any land
for a townsite at the deep bend of Grass River. A man's freehold is his
own."

Asher's influence had led in Grass River affairs for years. But Darley
Champers had the crowd in the hollow of his paw tonight.

"How about Gaines?" he deman