It became generally known, before Sunday came again, that Albert was to take the farm, and that Seth was to go to the city--known not only along the rough, lonesome road leading over the Burfield hills, which had once been a proud turnpike, with hospitable taverns at every league, and the rumbling of great coaches and the horn of the Postboy as echoes of its daily life of bustle and profit, and now was a solitary thoroughfare to no place in particular, with three or four gaunt old farmhouses, scowling in isolation, to the mile--not only on this road, and at the four corners below, but even at Thessaly people learned of the coming change as if by magic, and discussed it as a prime sensation. It need not be added that the story grew greatly in telling--grew too ponderous to remain an entity, and divided itself into several varying and, ultimately, fiercely conflicting sections. The Misses Cheesborough had the best authority for saying that Albert had acted in the most malignant and shameful manner, seizing the farm, and turning poor Seth out of doors, and it was more than a suspicion in their minds that the feeble old father would soon be railroaded off to an asylum. On the other hand, Miss Tabitha Wilcox, who by superior vigor and resource held her own very well against the combined Misses Cheesbrough, knew, absolutely _knew_, that Albert had behaved most handsomely, paying off all the mortgages, making a will in favor of John and Seth, and agreeing to send Seth to College, and what was more, Miss Tabitha would not be surprised, though some others might be, if the public-spirited Albert erected a new library building in Thessaly as a donation to the village. Between these two bold extremes there was room for many shades of variation in the story, and many original bents of speculation. Down at the cheese factory they even professed to have heard that a grand coal deposit had been surreptitiously discovered on the Fairchild farm, and that Albert was merely the agent of a syndicate of city speculators who would presently begin buying all the land roundabout. Old Elhanan Pratt did not credit this, but he did write to his son in Albany, a clerk in one of the departments, to find out if a charter for a railroad near Thessaly had been applied for. The worst of it was, neither John nor Seth would talk, and as for Albert, he had gone back to New York, leaving his wife behind. On the farm the fortnight following the funeral passed without event. In the lull of field labor which precedes haying time, there was not much for Seth to do. He went down to the river several times on solitary fishing trips; it seemed to him now that he was saying farewell not only to the one pastime which never failed him in interest or delight, but to the valley itself, and the river. How fond he was of the stream, and all its belongings!