"Asher, it is Aydelot tradition to be determined and self-willed, and the bitterness against Jerome Thaine and his descendants has never left the blood--till now." She stroked his hair lovingwise, as mothers will ever do. "Do you suppose father will ever change?" "I don't believe he will. We have talked of this many times, and he will listen to nothing else. He grows more set in his notions as we all do with years, unless--" "Well, you don't, mother. Unless what?" Asher asked. "Unless we think broadly as the years broaden out toward old age. But, Asher, what are your plans?" "I'm afraid I have none yet. You know I was a farmer boy until I was fifteen, a soldier boy till I was nineteen, a college student for two years, and a Plains scout for two years more. Tell me, mother, what does all this fit me for? Not for a tavern in a town of less than a thousand people." He sat waiting, his elbow resting on his knee, his chin supported by his closed hand. "Asher, when you left school and went out West, I foresaw what has happened tonight," Mrs. Aydelot began. "I tried to prepare your father for it, but he would not listen, would not understand. He doesn't yet. He never will. But I do. You will not stay in Ohio always, because you do not fit in here now. Newer states keep calling you westward, westward. This was frontier when we came here in the thirties; we belong here. But, sooner or later, you will put your life into the building of the West. Something--the War or the Plains, or may be this Virginia Thaine, has left you too big for prejudice. You will go sometime where there is room to think and live as you believe." "Mother, may I go? I dream of it night and day. I'm so cramped here. The woods are in my way. I can't see a mile. I want to see to the edge of the world, as I can on the prairies. A man can win a kingdom out there." He was facing her now, his whole countenance aglow with bright anticipation. "There is only one way to win that kingdom," Mrs. Aydelot declared. "The man who takes hold of the plow-handles is the man who will really conquer the prairies. His scepter is not the rifle, but the hoe." For all his life, Asher Aydelot never forgot his mother's face, nor the sound of her low prophetic words on that moonlit night on the shadowy veranda of his childhood home. "You are right, mother. I don't want to fight any more. It must be the soil that is calling me back to the West, the big, big West! And I mean to go when the time comes. I hope it will come soon, and I know you will give me your blessing then." His mother's hands were pressed lovingly upon his forehead, as he leaned against her knee. "My blessing, and more than mine. The blessing of Moses to Asher of old, as well. 'Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be. The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.'"