vast majority living from the soil proved that there was in these pursuits no easy or speedy road to fortune.  Therefore we must part reluctantly with every penny, and let a dollar go for only the essentials to the modest success now accepted as all we could naturally expect.  We had explored the settled States, and even the Territories, in fancy; we had talked over nearly every industry from cotton and sugarcane planting to a sheep-ranch.  I encouraged all this, for it was so much education out of school-hours; yet all, even Merton, eventually agreed with me that we had better not go far away, but seek a place near schools, markets, churches, and well inside of civilization.

“See here, youngsters, you forget the most important crop of all that I must cultivate,” I said one evening.

“What is that?” they cried in chorus.

“A crop of boys and girls.  You may think that my mind is chiefly on corn and potatoes.  Not at all.  It is chiefly on you; and for your sakes mamma and I decided to go to the country.”

At last, in reply to my inquiries and my answers to advertisements, I received the following letter:—­

Maizeville, N.Y.  March 1st, ’83

Robert Durham, Esq.

Dear Sir

I have a place that will suit you I think.  It can be bought at about the figure you name.  Come to see it.  I shan’t crack it up, but want you to judge for yourself.

Resp’y John Jones

I had been to see two or three places that had been “cracked up” so highly that my wife thought it better to close the bargain at once before some one else secured the prize—­and I had come back disgusted in each instance.

“The soul of wit” was in John Jones’s letter.  There was also a downright directness which hit the mark, and I wrote that I would go to Maizeville in the course of the following week.

CHAPTER VI

A BLUFF FRIEND

The almanac had announced spring; nature appeared quite unaware of the fact, but, so far as we were concerned, the almanac was right.  Spring was the era of hope, of change, and hope was growing in our hearts like “Jack’s bean,” in spite of lowering wintry skies.  We were as eager as robins, sojourning in the south, to take our flight northward.

My duties to my employers had ceased the 1st of March:  I had secured tenants who would take possession of our rooms as soon as we should leave them; and now every spare moment was given to studying the problem of country living and to preparations for departure.  I obtained illustrated catalogues from several dealers in seeds, and we pored over them every evening.  At first they bewildered us with their long lists of varieties, while the glowing descriptions of new kinds of vegetables just being introduced awakened in us something of a gambling spirit.

“How fortunate it is,” exclaimed my wife, “that we are going to the country just as the vegetable marvels were discovered!  Why, Robert, if half of what is said is true, we shall make our fortunes.”