He was in his early twenties then. His ambition had not yet centered about a definite purpose, and already it had met the worst enemy of ambition--love. It was a choice between his work and the girl. The girl won, and ten million fifty-cent Ford watches were lost to the world. "I've decided not to go back to Detroit," Henry announced to the family at breakfast one day. "I thought you'd come around to seeing it that way," his father said. "You can do better here in the long run than you can in the city. If you want to take care of the stock I'll let one of the men go and pay you his wages this winter." "All right," Henry said. His work as a machinist seemed to all of them only an episode, now definitely ended. He settled into the work of the farm as though he had never left it. Rising in the cold, lamp-lit mornings while the window panes showed only a square of darkness, sparkling with frost crystals, he built up the kitchen fire for Margaret. Then, with a lantern in his hand and milk pails clanking on his arm, plowed his way through the snow to the barns. A red streak was showing in the eastern horizon; buildings and fences, covered with snow, showed odd shapes in the gray dawn; his breath hung like smoke on the frosty air. Inside the barns the animals stirred; a horse stamped; a cow rose lumberingly; old Rover barked when he heard Henry's hand on the door fastening. Henry hung his lantern on a nail and set to work. He pitched down hay and huge forksful of straw; he measured out rations of bran and corn and oats; he milked the cows, stopping before he carried the brimming pails to the house to pour out some of the warm, sweet smelling milk for Rover and the cats. Back in the kitchen Margaret had set the table for breakfast. She was standing at the stove frying sausages and turning corn cakes. The other boys came tramping in from poultry yards and hog pens. They took turns at the tin washbasin set on a bench on the back porch, and then in to breakfast with hearty appetites. Afterward they husked corn in the big granaries, or shelled it, ready to take to mill; they cleaned the barn stalls, whitewashed the hen houses, sorted the apples in the cellar. In the shop Henry worked at the farm tools, sharpening the plows, refitting the harrows with teeth, oiling and cleaning the mowing machines. After supper, when he had finished the day's work, milked the cows again, filled the racks in the calves' yard with hay, spread deep beds of straw for the horses, seen that everything was snug and comfortable about the big barns, he saddled the little bay and rode six miles to the Bryant farm.