"You're not losing it, you dear boy, nor am I really losing anything. The truth is, that in New York both of us, hard though we worked, were longing for an entirely luxurious, self-indulgent future, and your uncle's will was all that saved us from ourselves. You always were perfection, to my eyes, but I wish you could see for yourself what improvements half a year of this new life have made for you." "Allow me to return the compliment, though no one could imagine a more adorable woman than you were when I married you. So long as I am you and you are me--" Then words became inadequate to further estimate and appreciation of the changes wrought by half a year of life at "the fag-end of nowhere--the jumping-off place of the world," as Philip had called Claybanks the first time he saw it by daylight. XXII--SOME WAYS OF THE WEST CALEB and the corn-meal sailed for Europe, but first Caleb wired the address of a firm that would do the fair thing with a car-load of walnut stumps. Miss Truett's brother Harold arrived at Claybanks soon afterward, and when he learned accidentally that Philip wished some walnut stumps extracted and that the land was stoneless, he offered to do the work quickly and cheaply, and his devices so impressed occasional beholders, accustomed to burning and digging as the only means of removing stumps, that the young man soon made several stump-extracting contracts, for which he was to be paid--in land. Meanwhile, from the back of Philip's horse he studied the swamp lands near the town; then he went over the ground with a level, and afterward reported to Philip that for the trifling sum of three thousand dollars, added to right of way for a main ditch, which the farmers should be glad to give free of cost, the swamp lands might be converted into dry, rich farming land. "This county couldn't raise three thousand dollars in cash," Philip replied, "even if you could guarantee that the main ditch would flow liquid gold." "If that is the case," said the young man, who had nothing to lose and everything to gain, "and as labor and farm tools are almost the only requirements,--except some cash for my services,--why not form an association of all the owners of swamp lands, determine the share of each in the cost, according to the amount of benefit he'll get, and let all, if they wish, pay in labor at a specified day-price per man, team, plough, or scraper, and go to work at once? Such things have been done. A farmer who hasn't enough working force on his place can generally hire a helper or two, on credit, against crop-selling time. This is just the time to do it, too; for a lot of farmers in the vicinity who have swamp land will have nothing especial to do, now that their winter wheat is cut, till the thrashing machine comes to them, and others are through with heavy work until corn ripens." "I begin to see daylight," said Philip. "But, young man, how did you get all these practical wrinkles in New York?"