everything he had and instituted and ran the most inflammatory newspaper
in the South. He gloried in an attitude of non-reconstruction and died
when Phoebe was a year old. Her mother raised Phoebe by keeping boarders,
but failed to raise the mortgage on the family home. She died trying and
Phoebe has kept her own sleek little head above water since her sixteenth
year by reporting and editing Dimity Doings on the paper her father
founded. I think she has learned a pretty good swimming stroke by this
time. It is still a measure ahead of that of David Kildare and--"

"Oh, you _must_ help me make her take what would have been a fair price
for those lands, Major. I'm determined--I--I--" Caroline's voice faltered
but her head was well up. "I'm determined; but we'll talk of that later.
He bought the Cantrell land and divided it up into the first improved
city addition. Was it, was it 'carpetbagging'?" She flushed as she said
the word--"Was it pressure? Were the Cantrells in need?"

"Not for long, my dear, not for long! Mrs. Tom took that money and bought
cows for the east farm, ran a dairy in opposition to Matilda's and then
got her into a combine to ship gilt-edge to Cincinnati. I expected them
to skim the milky way any night and put a star brand of butter on the
market. They made a great deal of money and were proportionately hard to
manage. Young Tom inherits from his mother and makes paying combines in
stocks. Old Tom hasn't a thing to do but sit in the sun and spin tales
about battles he was and was not in. It wouldn't do to drag up that
pinched period of his life; he is too expansive now to be made to recall
it." The major smiled invitingly as if he had hopes of an interested
question that would turn the trend of the conversation, but Caroline
Darrah held herself sternly to the matter in hand.

"And you, I see a sale of half of your land at--"