re quickly
than was its wont, Benjamin Parker did not notice, nor did he remark
upon the fact that she rarely introduced any subject of
conversation. Indeed, so entirely was his mind engrossed by
business, that it was impossible for him to have any realizing sense
of the true state of his wife's feelings.

Four years were past at Fairview, during which time Parker barely
managed to get sufficient out of his store to live upon; the greater
portion of his profits being represented by the figures on the
debtor side of his ledger. Many of these accounts were good, though
slow in being realized; but many more were hopelessly bad. He was
very far from being satisfied with the result. He lived, it is true,
and by carefully attending to his business could continue to live,
and it might be lay up a little; but this did not satisfy Benjamin
Parker. He wanted to be getting ahead in the world.

"Why don't you go to the West?" said an acquaintance, to whom he was
one day making complaint of his slow progress. "That is the country
where enterprise meets a just reward. If I were as young a man as
you are, you wouldn't catch me long in these parts. I would sell out
and buy five or six hundred acres of government land and settle down
as a farmer. In a few years you'd see me with property on my hands
worth looking at."

This set Parker to thinking and inquiring about the West. The idea
of becoming a substantial farmer, with broad acres covered with
grain and fields alive with stock, soon became predominant in his
mind, and he talked of little else at home or abroad. His wife said
nothing, but she thought almost as much on the subject as did her
husband. At length Benjamin Parker determined that he would remove
to Northern Indiana, more than a thousand miles away, upon a farm of
five hundred acres, that was offered to him at two dollars and a
half an acre. It was government land that had been taken up a year
or two before, and slightly improved by the erection of a log hut
and the clearing of a few acres, and now sold at one hundred per
cent. advance. Instead of first visiting the West and seeing the
location of the land that was offered to him, Parker was willing to
believe all that was said of its excellence and admirable location,
and weak enough to invest in it more than half of all he was worth.

The store at Fairview was sold out, and Mrs. Parker permitted to
spend a week with her sisters before parting with them, perhaps,
for