"Yes, Sir, we have just about a thousand acres here and we still own it,--and with no mortgage on it, I'm mighty glad to say. But, laws, the land is poor, and you can get all the land you want about here for ten dollars an acre. There comes Charles, now. He can tell you all about this country for more than twenty miles, I reckon. "Wilkes!" A negro servant answered the call, and took the horse as Charles West stopped at the side gate. "Wilkes was born here in slave times, nigh sixty years ago," she continued. "He is three years older than my son Charles. He has remained with us ever since the war, except for a few months when he went away one time just to see for sure that he was free and _could _go. But he came back mighty homesick and he'll want to stay here till he dies, I reckon. "Charles, this is Mr. Johnston, Percy Johnston, as he says; but he thinks he is no kin of General Joe or Albert Sidney. He's been looking at the land hereabout, but I don't think he'll want any of it after seeing the kind of crops we raise." With this introduction, the mother disappeared within the house, and Charles took her seat on the vine-covered veranda. "I feel that I owe an apology to you, Sir," said Percy, "for presenting myself here with bag and baggage, and asking to share the hospitality of your home, with no previous arrangements having been made; but by chance I met your friend, Doctor Goddard, on the train, and, in answer to my inquiry as to whom I could go to for correct information concerning the history and present condition and value of farm lands in this section of the country, he advised me to stop off at Blue Mound Station and consult with you. Had I known that you were to be in Montplain to-day, of course I should have gone directly there. Your mother very graciously consented to receive me as a belated summer boarder, a kindness which I greatly appreciate, I assure you. "My mother and I have a small farm in Illinois,--so small that it would be lost in such an estate as Westover, but the price of land is very high in the West at the present time; and I am really considering the question of selling our little forty-acre farm and purchasing two or three hundred acres in the East or South. My thought is that I might secure a farm that was once good land, but that has been run down to such an extent that it can be bought for perhaps ten or twenty dollars an acre. I should want the land to be nearly level so that it would not be difficult to prevent damage from surface washing. I should prefer, of course, to purchase where there is a good road and not more than five miles from a railway station. "If I secure such a farm, it would be my purpose to restore its fertility. If possible I should want to make the land at least as productive as it ever was, even in its virgin state."