"It's just the idea," she replied. "I never thought of it like this
before--right on a person." She sighed. "Of course it will be nice,
Calvin."

He sat below her with an arm across her slim knees. "I'm going to dig
right into the truck patch; there's a parcel of poles cut for the
beans. It won't be much the first year; but wait and we'll show people
how to live." He repeated his vision in connection with the present
Alderwith holdings.

"I wonder will we ever be rich like the senator?"

"Certainly," he answered with calm conviction. "A man couldn't be
shiftless with you to do for, Hannah. He'd be obliged to have
everything the best."

"It'll take a long while though," she continued.

"We will have to put in some hard licks," he admitted. "But we are
young; we've got a life to do it in."

"A man has, but I don't know about girls. It seems like they get old
faster; and then things--silk dresses don't do them any good. How would
ma look in fashionable clothes!"

"You won't have to wait that long," he assured her. "Your father has
never hurt himself about the place, there's no money in sheep; and as
for Hosmer--you know well as me that he is nothing outside of the bank
and his own comfort. Store clothes is Hosmer all through."