the Legislature to ask for the condemnation of the
property it needed, in the spring.

It seemed pretty well settled that the survey along the edge of the
Atterson Eighty would be the route selected. And, if that was the case,
why did Pepper not try to exercise his option?

Mr. Strickland had said that there was no way by which the real estate
man's hand could be forced; so they had to abide Pepper's pleasure.

"If we only knew we'd stay," said Hiram, "I'd cut a few well grown pine
trees, while I am cutting the firewood, have them dragged to the mill,
and saw the boards we shall need if we go into the celery business this
coming season."

"What do you want boards for?" demanded Henry, who chanced to be home
over Christmas, and was at the house.

"For bleaching. Saves time, room, and trouble. Banking celery, even with
a plow, is not alone old-fashioned, and cumbersome, but is apt to leave
the blanched celery much dirtier."

"But you'll need an awful lot of board for six acres, Hiram!" gasped
Henry.

"I don't know. I shall run the trenches four feet apart, and you mustn't
suppose, Henry, that I shall blanch all six acres at once. The boards
can be used over and over again."

"I didn't think of that," admitted his friend.

Henry was eagerly interested in his selected studies at the experiment
station and college, and Abel Pollock followed his son's work there with
growing approval, too.

"It does beat all," he admitted to Hiram, "what that boy has learned
already about practical things. Book-farming ain't all flapdoodle,
that's sure!"

So the year ended--quietly, peacefully, and with no little happiness
in the Atterson farmhouse, despite the cloud that overshadowed the
farm-title, and the doubts which faced them about the next season's
work.

They sat up on New Year's eve to see the old year out and the new in,
and had a merry evening although there were only the family. When the
distant whistles blew at midnight they went out upon the back porch to
listen.

It was a dark night, for thick clouds shrouded the stars. Only the
unbroken coverlet of snow (it had fallen that morning) aided them to see
about the empty fields.

In the far distance was the twinkle of a single light--that in an upper
chamber of the Pollock house. Dickersons' was mantled in shadow, and
those two houses were the only ones in sight of the Atterson place.

"And I was afraid when we came out here that I'd be dead of loneliness
in a