." Len really worked violently for a time; he rode
his bicycle back and forth tirelessly. He married, and moved out into
the Estates, and he personally superintended the work that went on
there. Streets and plots were laid out, trees planted, the fresh muddy
roads were edged with pyramids of brown sewer pipes.

The financial outlay was enormous, unforeseen. Taxes went up, sidewalks
crumbled back into the grass again, the four or five unfenced little
wooden houses that were erected and occupied added to the general
effect of forlornness. The Estates were mortgaged, and to the old
mortgage on the homestead another was added.

Len took Martie out to see the place. Slim little trees were bending in
a sharp April wind; a small woman at the back of one of the small
houses was taking whipping clothes from a line. The streets were deep
in mud; Martie smiled as she read the crossposts: "High Street," "Maple
Avenue," and "Sunset Avenue." Here and there a sign "Sold" embellished
a barren half-acre.

"You've really done wonders, Len," she said encouragingly. "And of
course there's nothing like LAND for making money!"

"Oh, there's a barrel of money in it," he answered dubiously, kicking a
lump of dirt at his feet. They had left the little car at a
comparatively dry crossing, and were walking about. "We've put in a
hundred more trees this year, and I think we'll start another house
pretty soon." And when they got back in the car, his face flushed from
vigorous cranking, he added, "I talked Pa into getting the car; it
makes it look as if we were making money!"

"Of course it does," Martie said amiably. She thought her own thoughts.

Lydia had nothing but praise for Len; he had worked like a Trojan, she
said. And Pa had been wonderfully patient and good about the whole
thing.

"Pa was telling me the other day that he could have gotten ever so much
money for this place, if he had had it levelled the time the whole town
was," Lydia said, in her curious tone that was triumphantly
complaining, one day.

"I wonder what it's worth, as it stands," mused Martie.

"Oh, Martie, I don't know! I don't know anything about it; he just
happened to say that!"

It was later on this same day that Martie went in to see Miss Fanny,
and put her elbows on the desk, resting her troubled face in her hands.

"Miss Fanny, sometimes I despair! Heaven knows I have had hard knocks
enough, and yet I never learn," she burst out. "Seven years ago I used