answered her and took up my sewing. At
that moment and from that moment I cast myself into the whole whirl of
activities in Goodloets and gave myself no more time or strength for
self-communion. I was fleeing, and from what I dared not know.

And it was a busy month that stretched from August through September.
Nickols said it would be his last fling at the old town and he proposed
to leave his mark on its mossy sides. And he did.

In the first place money was pouring into little old Goodloets from
three huge sources. The little one-horse tannery down by the river
beyond the Settlement doubled, tripled and then quadrupled its capacity
and next to it the little old saddle and harness factory in which Mr.
Cockrell and old Mr. Sproul had been making saddles and harness since
the days of the Confederacy, did the same and sent out consignment after
consignment of saddles and bridles which were paid for in huge checks of
Russian origin which almost paralyzed the Goodloets Bank and Trust
Company and which worked pale Clive Harvey into the night until he
managed to get young Henry Thornton in to assist him. His salary was
raised three times until it was large enough to harbor Bessie and any
number of small editions of them both, only she preferred to drink and
dance and joy-ride with Hugh Payne, who could not have supported such a
flowering by his own effort to have saved his own life and soul.

And then to burden poor Clive still further, Hampton Dibrell and Mr.
Thornton hastily built huge pens over by the railroad and in these
assembled hundreds and thousands of mules to be shipped through to
France, which brought in return a steady stream of French francs to be
translated into American dollars. Still further, Billy and Mark and
Cliff, with Nickols' assistance, and the telegraph system, speculated in
War Brides down on Wall Street until their individual bank accounts
began to mount to giddy sums. Father and Mr. Sproul and more of the
other men did likewise and Buford Cunningham got some spectacular
returns from copper in Canada that Billy said would make Mrs. Buford
Cunningham try to buy the Country Club outright for a summer home. And
while there was prosperity in the Town the Settlement also had its
share. Wages rose higher and higher and many of the women went to work
at the machines in the saddle factory, leaving the care of the children
to the old dames, which resulted in an added pandemonium in the
Settlement streets