If you take the farm or not, I must bide on here in the old way. I must take up the life my mother lived and my grandmother, and hers before her. It is mine, forever, to live it that way — or die.”

“Why do you talk so?”

“God knows, but I can’t tell you. Thank you, suh. I will be right glad to rent you the farm. I’d a heap rather you had it than any one else I ever knew, for we care more for it than you would guess, but for the rest — no. I must bide and work till I die; only maybe I can save little Hoyle and give him a chance to learn something, for he never could work — being like he is.”

Thryng’s eyes danced with joy as he regarded her. “Hoyle is not going to be always as he is,