“How is this lumber to be made available?” asked Ellison. “Cut and manufacture it yourself. You’ll find that a vast deal more profitable than painting pictures. You can see that this is one of the best situated towns in the West. The supply of lumber has always been inadequate for building purposes, and, in consequence, its prosperity has been retarded. Reduce the price by a full supply, and houses will go up as by magic, and the value of property rise in all directions. At present, you could not get over fifteen dollars an acre for your land if you were to throw it into market. But go to work and clear it gradually, sawing up the timber into building materials, and, in ten years, such will be the prosperity of the place, growing out of the very fact of a full supply of cheap lumber, that every acre will command fifty dollars.” The mind of the young man caught eagerly at this suggestion. He held long interviews with Claxton, who made estimates of various kinds for him, and gave him mathematics for every thing. They rode out to the land together, and there it was demonstrated, to a certainty, that at least seven hundred dollars worth of timber, instead of three hundred, could be obtained from every acre. Ellison saw himself worth his hundred thousand dollars, and as happy as such a realization of his hopes could make him. He went with Claxton to his mill, where the operation of every thing was fully explained to his most perfect satisfaction. Even in this enterprise a fortune was to be made, notwithstanding Claxton had no land of his own heavily timbered, and would have to pay at least two dollars for every log brought to his mill, which stood on the river bank. This site had been chosen because of the facilities it afforded for getting the raw material which could be floated down from above. Of all this the young man talked constantly to his wife, and with a degree of confidence and enthusiasm that half won her cooler and less sanguine mind over to his views. She did not, however, like Claxton. Her woman’s true instinct perceived the quality of his mind; and she therefore had little confidence in him. In suggesting this, her husband’s reply was, “I don’t take any thing on his recommendation. I look at facts and figures, and they cannot lie.” There was something unanswerable in this; yet it did not satisfy the mind of Clara. When Ellison talked to others of what was in his mind, some listened to what he said in silence; some shrugged their shoulders, and some said it wouldn’t do. He had been forewarned of this skepticism by Claxton, and was therefore prepared for it. He well understood that the people lacked true, far-seeing enterprise; were, in fact, half asleep! All objections, therefore, that were urged, rebounded from his mind without producing any rational impression.