“You want to drain and tile. Plant high-grade stuff. You got to have a man on the place that knows what’s what, not this Rip Van Winkle we saw in the cabbage field. New horses. A wagon.” His eyes narrowed speculatively. Shrewd wrinkles radiated from their corners. “I betcha we'll see the day when you truck farmers will run into town with your stuff in big automobile wagons that will get you there in under an hour. It’s bound to come. The horse is doomed, that’s chust what.” Then, abruptly, “I will get you the horses, a bargain, at the yards.” He took out a long flat check book. He began writing in it with a pen that he took from his pocket—some sort of marvellous pen that seemed already filled with ink and that you unscrewed at the top and then screwed at the bottom. He squinted through his cigar smoke, the check book propped on his knee. He tore off the check with a clean rip. “For a starter,” he said. He held it out to Selina.
“There now!” exclaimed Julie, in triumphant satisfaction. That was more like it. Doing something.
But Selina did not take the check. She sat very still in her chair, her hands folded. “That isn’t the regular way,” she said.
August Hempel was screwing the top on his fountain pen again. “Regular way? for what?”
“I’m borrowing this money, not taking it. Oh, yes, I am! I couldn’t get along without it. I realize that now, after yesterday. Yesterday! But in five years—seven—I'll pay it back.” Then, at a half-
