"Of course, he couldn't do anything with them. When a man's offered a big
price for his farm, he don't care whether it's by a secret emissary from
the Standard Oil or not; he's going to sell and get the better of the
other fellow if he can. Dryfoos couldn't keep the boom out of has own
family even. His wife was with him. She thought whatever he said and did
was just as right as if it had been thundered down from Sinai. But the
young folks were sceptical, especially the girls that had been away to
school. The boy that had been kept at home because he couldn't be spared
from helping his father manage the farm was more like him, but they
contrived to stir the boy up--with the hot end of the boom, too. So when
a fellow came along one day and offered old Dryfoos a cool hundred
thousand for his farm, it was all up with Dryfoos. He'd 'a' liked to 'a'
kept the offer to himself and not done anything about it, but his vanity
wouldn't let him do that; and when he let it out in his family the girls
outvoted him. They just made him sell.

"He wouldn't sell all. He kept about eighty acres that was off in some
piece by itself, but the three hundred that had the old brick house on
it, and the big barn--that went, and Dryfoos bought him a place in
Moffitt and moved into town to live on the interest of his money. Just
What he had scolded and ridiculed everybody else for doing. Well, they
say that at first he seemed like he would go crazy. He hadn't anything to
do. He took a fancy to that land-agent, and he used to go and set in his
office and ask him what he should do. 'I hain't got any horses, I hain't
got any cows, I hain't got any pigs, I hain't got any chickens. I hain't
got anything to do from sun-up to sun-down.' The fellow said the tears
used to run down the old fellow's cheeks, and if he hadn't been so busy
himself he believed he should 'a' cried, too. But most o' people thought
old Dryfoos was down in the mouth because he hadn't asked more for his