ed of ready money to finance some foolish
venture of his son, had leased a good part of Clark's Field to some
speculative builders, who had covered that portion of the old pasture
that bordered the South Road with a leprous growth of cheap stores,
which brought in a fair return. The leases ran up to the new century.
Just why this precise term for the gambling venture had been chosen
probably only the lawyers who made the arrangement could say. Possibly
old Samuel had superstitious reasons for not pledging the family
expectation beyond the present century. He may have thought that the
turn of the century would bring about some profound change in the
customs and habits of society that the family could take advantage of.
At any rate, so it was. And it was not many years now to the close of
the century when Clark's Field would be released to its original owners
with all its shabby encumbrances.

The field had gained enormously in value and importance in men's eyes
these last years. The city of B---- had eaten far into the country,
creating prosperous appendages in the way of modern suburbs for twenty
miles and more from Alton, and there was much talk of its annexing the
old town to itself, which it accomplished not long after. Those were the
days of the "greater" everything, the worship of size. Alton in fact was
now a city itself of no mean size, and the shallow stream of water that
nominally divided it from B---- was a mere boundary line. As men had
multiplied upon this spot of earth, needing land for dwelling and
business, envious eyes had been cast upon the Field, the last large
"undeveloped" tract anywhere near the great city. Men who were skillful
in such real estate "deals," greedy and ingenious in the various ways of
turning civic growth to private profit, were figuring upon the
possibility of getting hold of Clark's Field, when the short leases
expired, and after making the necessary "improvements" cutting it up for
sale. They saw fat profits in the transaction. Men needed it for their
lives; the community needed it for its growing corporate life. And yet
it was "tied up" with a legal disability--left largely useless and
waste. It looked as if when the legal spell was finally broken, as it
must be, and the land so long unprofitable and idle should be
apportioned to these human needs, it would be neither the Clarks nor the
community that would derive benefit from it,--certainly not the people
who would live upon it,