"You use only one part of cement, Ruth," corrected her cousin, "and two of sand and four of gravel." Bob glanced up quickly at this clear statement of the facts, and for the first time looked directly into the brown eyes of Edith Atwood. XIV RUTH AND THE STRAW STACK The Monday morning's mail brought them notice that the cement drain tile had arrived in town. They found it cheaper to buy this from a firm that made a specialty of tile rather than try to make them, and, more important still, a letter had been received by Tony saying his wife would arrive on the ten o'clock train; so it was decided that work should be suspended on the hen house for the morning and that Tony and Bob should take the car and drive in to meet the train, while Joe Williams would take the team and bring out the tile and some new seed corn that he was getting for the spring planting--a new variety that John White had persuaded him to try. At eight-thirty work on the hen house was suspended, the car gotten out and cleaned, Bob changed his clothes, and Tony, with as much of the dirt removed as possible--smiling and happy--got into the car and drove to the station. They arrived just a few minutes before the train, Bob remaining in the car while Tony went around the station to meet his wife, as she alighted from the train. [Illustration: EVERY BOY THAT RAN AWAY FROM THE FARM AND MANY THAT ARE STILL THERE CAN TELL OF THE DAYS WASTED ON REPAIRS TO WOODEN FENCES AND CLEANING OUT FENCE ROWS. YOU WILL ALWAYS FIND A PROSPEROUS FARMER BEHIND A NEAT WIRE FENCE ON PERMANENT CONCRETE POSTS.] A few minutes later Bob's ears were greeted by the sound of animated conversation in a foreign tongue, not a word of which was intelligible to him, but every word of which seemed to please the speakers. A little later Tony came around the corner of the station, a huge suitcase under each arm, followed by a rather good-looking woman of medium height, and, like Tony, a true type of sunny Italy. She was dressed much better than Bob had expected to find her, and when Tony said, "This-a my wife, Mr. Bob," he was surprised to hear her say in very good English: "I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Williams," letting her gaze fall as she greeted him. As soon as Bob had recovered from his surprise, he jumped down from the seat, opened the door of the tonneau and helped her into the car, an act of courtesy which the smiling eyes of Tony quickly acknowledged. One of the suitcases was put on the empty front seat of the car and the other was placed on end between Tony and his wife in the tonneau, and then they started for the farm.