urned Red. "You give the
other three stockholders a good feed to-morrow and the thanks will
be up to you. Hello! There's the old lad now!" as a trumpet blast
rang out from the front porch. "It must take some practise to blow
your nose like that. I've heard Jackasses that could not bray in
the same class with that little old gent--come in. Come in! You
needn't sound the rally again."

Thus adjured the lawyer made his entrance, and Miss Mattie became
in due and involved course of law a stockholder in the Fairfield
Strawboard Mfg. Co.

Fairfield rose to activity like a very small giant refreshed.
Teams and their heavy loads kept the respectable dust in constant
commotion. A grist mill was added to the intended plant, thus
offering an inducement to the farmer to raise grain, and
incidentally straw, "So we can ketch 'em on both ends, too," as Red
put it.

The time seemed like enchantment to Miss Mattie. As a bringer of
the tidings, and a stockholder in the company, she had risen to be
a person of importance, with the result that she was even more
modestly shy than before, although in her heart she liked it; but
more delightful yet was the spirit of holiday activity which
inspired and pervaded the place.

Red had insisted on operating on the lines that are laid down with
railroad spikes in the Western communities; to patronise home
industries as much as possible. Therefore the machinery orders
went through Mr. Farrel, the blacksmith, initiating that worthy man
into the mysteries of making money without doing anything for it,
which seemed little less than a miracle to him. Everything that
could be bought through local people was obtained in that way. It
cost a trifle more, but it brought more money into the place, and
enabled the villagers to partake of the enlivenment, without the
feeling that it was a Barmecide feast. The post-mistress furnished
the paint, and it is painful to add that she tried to furnish a
number three paint for a number one price, arguing that she was a
poor, lone woman, struggling through an uncharitable world and that
the increased profit would do her considerable good--a view which
Red did not share. He would willingly have made her a present of
the difference, but he did not in the least intend to be choused
out of it by man nor woman. They had a very funny debate in
private, wherein the feminine tried to dominate the masculine
principle by sheer volubility and found to its disgu