to do, and the girls would be ten times as outbreakin' without her.
I hope you ain't thinkin' o' turnin' her off, Jacob?"

Dryfoos did not think it necessary to answer such a question. "It's all
Fulkerson, Fulkerson, Fulkerson. It seems to me that Fulkerson about runs
this family. He brought Mrs. Mandel, and he brought that Beaton, and he
brought that Boston fellow! I guess I give him a dose, though; and I'll
learn Fulkerson that he can't have everything his own way. I don't want
anybody to help me spend my money. I made it, and I can manage it. I
guess Mr. Fulkerson can bear a little watching now. He's been travelling
pretty free, and he's got the notion he's driving, maybe. I'm a-going to
look after that book a little myself."

"You'll kill yourself, Jacob," said his wife, "tryin' to do so many
things. And what is it all fur? I don't see as we're better off, any, for
all the money. It's just as much care as it used to be when we was all
there on the farm together. I wisht we could go back, Ja--"

"We can't go back!" shouted the old man, fiercely. "There's no farm any
more to go back to. The fields is full of gas-wells and oil-wells and
hell-holes generally; the house is tore down, and the barn's goin'--"

"The barn!" gasped the old woman. "Oh, my!"

"If I was to give all I'm worth this minute, we couldn't go back to the
farm, any more than them girls in there could go back and be little
children. I don't say we're any better off, for the money. I've got more
of it now than I ever had; and there's no end to the luck; it pours in.
But I feel like I was tied hand and foot. I don't know which way to move;
I don't know what's best to do about anything. The money don't seem to
buy anything but more and more care and trouble. We got a big house that
we ain't at home in; and we got a lot of hired girls round under our feet
that hinder and don't help. Our children don't mind us, and we got no
friends or neighbors. But it had to be. I couldn't help but sell the
farm, and we can't go back to it, for it ain't there. So don't you say
anything more about it, 'Liz'beth."

"Pore Jacob!" said his wife. "Well, I woon't, dear."

IV

It was clear to Beaton that Dryfoos distrusted him; and the fact
heightened his pleasure in Christine's liking for him. He was as sure of
this as he was of the other, though he was not so sure of any reason for
his pleasure in it. She had her charm; the charm of wildness to which a
certain wil