ile deep. The buildings were of no
value, the fences were ragged to a degree, but I coveted the land. It
was the vineyard of Naboth to me, and I planned its future with my
friend and accessory sitting by. I destroyed the estimable old lady's
house and barns, ran my ploughshares through her garden and flower beds,
and turned the home site into one great field of lusty corn, without so
much as saying by your leave. Thus does the greed of land grow upon one.
But in truth, I saw that I must have more land. My factory would require
more than ten thousand bushels of grain, with forage and green foods in
proportion, to meet its full capacity, and I could not hope to get so
much from the land then under cultivation. Again, in a few years--a very
few--the fifty acres of orchard would be no longer available for crops,
and this would still further reduce my tillable land. With the orchards
out of use, I should have but 124 acres for all crops other than hay. If
I could add this coveted 160, it would give me 250 acres of excellent
land for intensive farming.

"I should like it on this side of the road," said I, "but I suppose that
will have to do."

"What will have to do?" asked Kyrle.

"The 160 acres over there."

"You unconscionable wretch! Have you evicted the poor widow, and she on
her deathbed? For stiffening the neck and hardening the heart, commend
me to the close-to-nature life of the farmer. I wouldn't own a farm for
worlds. It risks one's immortality. Give me the wicked city for
pasturage--and a friend who will run a farm, at his own risk, and give
me the benefit of it."

CHAPTER XLVIII

MAIDS AND MALLARDS

We have so rarely entered our house with the reader that he knows little
of its domestic machinery. So much depends upon this machinery that one
must always take it into consideration when reckoning the pleasures and
even the comforts of life anywhere, and this is especially true in the
country. We have such a lot of people about that our servants cannot
sing the song of lonesomeness that makes dolor for most suburbanites.
They are "churched" as often as they wish, and we pay city wages; but
still it is not all clear sailing in this quarter of Polly's realm. I
fancy that we get on better than some of our neighbors; but we do not
brag, and I usually feel that I am smoking my pipe in a powder magazine.
There is something essentially wrong in the working-girl world, and I am
glad that I was not born to se