ay, "Oh, mother, I'm too muddy!" She didn't care how muddy he
was, and Aunt Melinda cared even less, apparently. Bessie and Sue had
evidently been crying; but Mary had not; and it was her hand on Jack's
arm that led him away, up the street, toward their gate.

"Oh, Jack!" she exclaimed, "I'm so proud! Did you ride fast? I'm glad
I can ride! I could have done it, too. It was splendid!"

"Molly," said Jack, "I don't mind telling you. The sorrel mare
galloped all the way, going and coming, up hill and down; and Molly, I
kept wishing and thinking every jump she gave,--wishing I was galloping
to New York, instead of to the Four Corners!

"Molly," he added quickly, "father gives it up and says I may go!"

CHAPTER VI.

OUT INTO THE WORLD.

Monday morning came, bright and sunshiny; and it hardly reached
Crofield before the people began to get up and look about them.

Jack went down to the river and did not get back very soon. His mind
was full of something besides the flood, and he did not linger long at
the mill.

But he looked long and hard at all the pieces of land below the mill,
down to Deacon Hawkins's line. He knew where that was, although the
fence was gone.

"The freshet didn't wash away a foot of it," he said. "I'll tell
father what Mr. Hammond said about selling it."

A pair of well-dressed men drove down from Main Street in a buggy and
halted near him.

"Brady," said one of these men, "the engineer is right. We can't
change the railroad line. We can say to the Crofield people that if
they'll give us the right of way through the village we'll build them a
new bridge. They'll do it. Right here's the spot for the station."

"Exactly," said the other man, "and the less we say about it the
better. Keep mum."

"That's just what I'll do, too," said Jack to himself, as they drove
away. "I don't know what they mean, but it'll come out some day."

Jack went home at once, and found the family at breakfast. After
breakfast his father went to the shop, and Jack followed him to speak
about the land purchase.

When Jack explained the miller's offer, Mr. Ogden went with him to see
Mr. Hammond. After a short interview, Mr. Ogden and Jack secured the
land in settlement of the amount already promised Jack, and of an old
debt owed by the miller to the blacksmith, and also in consideration of
their consenting to a previous sale of the trees for cash to the
Bannermans, who had made their offer t