The second girl, Susan, followed two short years later. By this time the father had pushed into the management of the Jackson Street Railway, and had seen to it that the persistent dummy duly puffed and creaked through Newtown, a cheap suburb he had plotted out around the cotton mill to the north. Absorption in this scarcely left him time to regret the second daughter; he accepted the fact as a matter of course; he did not waste regret upon a thing he could not change. Then came Pelham, the first boy. Mary never forgot the days of packed happiness when she sang over his crinkly head, in the creaky yellow rocker that had been her mother's. They had been waiting for him so long,--the father was so boyishly happy and proud of the wrinkled pink bundle that her mother put in his arms for a precious moment, even before Mary had seen her son,--somehow making a man child seemed a big achievement. And he had been her boy from the first; the fourth baby, fat little Hollis, never touched her strung heart chords as did the earlier son. They were indeed lovely children, Mary was fond of telling herself. But they were a constant drain upon her time and attention, and upon Paul's bank account. Sheer desire to accomplish had driven him at first; with the coming of the boys, he had to buckle down for their sakes. The renewed vigor of his enterprise lengthened the reach of his dealings. Among the real estate men throughout the state who measured themselves against him, he found none shrewder or more alert than an Adamsville operator, old Nathaniel Guild. This man, interested in some state grants, stopped at the Jackson Hotel while the legislature was in session, and thus met Paul. The local operator felt the calculating scrutiny of the other during all of an all-day barbecue and junket taken by the law-makers at Tallulah Shoals. Evidently satisfied at last, on the ride in the elder man leaned over, and said with hesitating gravity, "You've been to Adamsville?" "Why, yes.... Not only pleasure trips; we handle lots out Hazelton way." Guild waved this aside. "An excrescence. Have you noticed the mountain--the one west of the city?" "Recently I've only been there on business----" The gray eyes narrowed and sparkled. "I'm talking business. There's land for sale there, that will quadruple in value in ten years. The development must be in that direction,--that is, for the first-class residence section. I've got a little to invest; I want some one to go in with me. What do you say?" "I like to watch my money. I'm tied up here----" "Come to the iron city: it needs iron men." Appraising admiration spoke in his glance. "I think you'd fit. Why, man, Jackson hasn't added a thousand people in forty years; Adamsville has fifty thousand now, to your five."