“That’s a purty vine,” he observed, “too bad it has to die.” “It ain’t agoin’ to die,” said the chief. “We’re agoin’ to save it. Where’s that there big lard kettle we bed around here? See ef it’s inside the hedge.” Tom foraged behind the hedge and brought a battered tin can. The chief dug carefully about the roots of the vine, in a good-sized circle, dug it deeply and neatly and together they lifted the roots of the vine with the earth firmly about it, and fitted it into the lard kettle. “Now, we’ll hev to work it so’s this here don’t git disturbed when we move her,” said the chief. Tom found a bit of board and some nails among their tools behind the hedge, and made a little shelf on the side of the building upon which they set the can, nailing it firmly to the house so that it would not be disturbed. Then with deep satisfaction the two set about preparing the building for its removal. CHAPTER IX Joyce had walked for three blocks in frantic haste with sinking heart before she saw any land that looked at all promising. They were all smug dwellings with beautiful lawns about them, and she had sense enough to know that people who lived in houses of that kind wanted their lawns to themselves, and could not be persuaded to sell or rent even a foot for any such sum as she could offer. But the turn of the next block brought in sight a row of neat stores and just beyond an old-fashioned house set back from the street built of field stone that looked as if it had stood there years before the little new town had ever been heard of. It was neat and trim with a wide piazza the length of the front, and tall spruce and hemlock trees standing in a friendly group about it. There was a street running across between it and the stores, and on this side yard there was a bright garden of flowers and a grassy place with two maple trees just far enough apart to let her little house in, and here Joyce paused and looked with longing eyes. If only she could get permission to put her house here. If she could have it between those maples, with the right to use the side gate! And there was an outside faucet with a hose attached. They might let her get water there--! She stood for several minutes taking in the whole situation. It would be nice to have the protection of a house near by provided nice people lived there. It would be around at the back of the house so the owners would not need to feel they were losing any of their own front yard, or privacy, and it was near enough to the street so that she would feel she had a spot of her own. It was like Joyce not to hunt up any land agent and try to find a place in the conventional way but to just fasten her eyes upon the desirable spot and then go after it.