"Can't you sell the farm or mortgage it?" suggested Fisher. Tom, Jr., gazed intently into the tree-tops, and, in so doing, led the others to ask what he was seeking. There was nothing unusual to be seen among the trees, and Mrs. Bays inquired:-- "What on earth are you looking for, Tom?" "I was looking to see if there was anybody roosting up there, waiting to buy this half-cleared old stump field." "Tom's right," said his father. "I fear a purchaser will be hard to find, and I don't know any one who would loan me three thousand dollars. If we can find the money, we'll try it. What do you say, Margarita?" Mrs. Bays was still inclined to be careful and prayerful. Since Rita had expressed to Billy Little her desire to remove to Indianapolis (on the day she bought the writing paper, which, by the way, she had never paid for) so vast a change had taken place within herself that she had changed her way of seeing nearly everything outside. Especially had she changed the point of view from which she saw the Indianapolis project, and she was now quite content to grow up "a ragweed or a mullein stalk," if she could grow in Dic's fields, and be cared for by his hand. I believe that when a woman loves a strong man and contemplates marriage with him, as she is apt to do, a comforting sense of his protecting care is no small part of her emotions. She may not consider the matter of her daily bread and raiment, but she feels that in the harbor of his love she will be safe from the manifold storms and harms that would otherwise beset her.