"This one won't. It's a bargain-counter farm. A house and fifteen acres.

You can get it for six thousand dollars if you'll buy it to-day."

"All right; we'll take it," cried Mr. Ranny gaily. "Lead us to it."

The quest for the farm became so absorbing that the wild flowers were forgotten. The oftener they took the wrong road and had to start over, the keener they became to reach their destination.

"I believe it was a pipe-dream," said Mr. Ranny; "you never saw the place at all."

"Yes, I did! I'm not kidding you. It's a regular peach of a place for anybody that's got money to fix it up. Hold on a minute; this looks like the side lane. Do you mind walking the rest of the way?"

"Not if we get anywhere," said Mr. Ranny.

Their way led through a tangled thicket, across a log bridge, and up a steep hillside abloom from base to summit with early spring flowers. Down through the tender green leaves the sunshine poured, searching out many nooks and corners at which it would get no chance when the heavier foliage intervened.

"This is where the land begins," said Quin. "Did you ever see such bully old trees? Any time you wanted to sell off lots, you see, you could do it on this side, without touching the farm."

"Where's the house?" asked Mrs. Ranny.

"Right through here," said Quin, holding back the branches, "Now, ain't that a nice old place?"

His enthusiasm met with no response.

In the center of what had once been a clearing stood an old stone building, half smothered in a wilderness of weeds and sa.s.safras and cane, its one big chimney dreaming in the silence that seemed to have encompa.s.sed it for ages. The shutters hung disconsolate on their hinges, the window-panes were broken, the cornice sagged dejectedly.

Eleanor's heart sank. It was worse, far worse, than Papa Claude had described it, fit only for the birds and spiders and chipmunks that were already in possession. How Quin could ever for a moment have thought of selling such a place to the fastidious Bartletts was more than she could imagine.

But he was carrying the matter off with a high hand, in spite of the dismayed faces of his prospective buyers.

"Of course it needs a shave," he admitted, as he tore down a handful of trailing vines that barred the front door. "But you just wait till you get inside and see the big stone fireplace and the queer cupboards. Why, this house is historic! It's been here since pioneer days. Look out for the floor; it's a bit rotten along here."

"I don't think I'll come in," said Mrs. Ranny, holding up her skirts.

"What a funny little staircase!" cried Eleanor. "And what huge rooms! You _must_ come in, Aunt Flo, and see the fireplace."

"And look at the walls!" cried Quin. "You don't see walls like those these days. But you just wait till you get upstairs. You've got the surprise of your life coming to you."

"Outside's good enough for me," Mr. Ranny declared. "I want to take a look at that old apple orchard."

"I'll go upstairs with you!" said Eleanor. "Come on, Aunt Flo; let's see what it's like."

At the top of the steps they both gave an exclamation of delight. The house, hemmed in, in front, by its trees and underbrush, overlooked from its rear windows a valley of surpa.s.sing loveliness. For miles the eye could wander over orchards full of pink-and-white peach blossoms on leafless boughs, over farm-lands and woody s.p.a.ces full of floating clouds of white dogwood. Through the paneless windows came the warm spring air, full of the odor of tender growing things and the wholesome smell of the freshly upturned earth.

"Randolph Bartlett, come up here this instant!" called Mrs. Ranny. "It's the loveliest thing you ever saw!"

But Mr. Ranny was eagerly examining the remains of a somewhat extensive chicken farm.

"Go down and show him around," Eleanor advised Quin, with a glimmer of hope. "Aunt Flo and I will explore the rest of the house."

They not only explored, but in their imagination they remodeled it.

Eleanor, in spite of her daydreams, was a very practical little person, and, with her power of visualizing a scene for others as well as for herself, she soon made Mrs. Ranny see the place painted and clean, with rag rugs on the floors, quaint old mahogany furniture, tall bra.s.s candlesticks on the mantel, and gay chintz curtains at the windows.

Mrs. Ranny grew quite animated talking about it, and forgot the disturbing fact that she had not had a cigarette since dinner.

"Do you know," she said to Eleanor, as they came back to the window and looked down at the two men talking and gesticulating eagerly in the garden below, "I believe if Ranny had something like this to work with and play with, things would be different."

"Of course they would," Eleanor agreed eagerly--"for him and for you too.

Why don't you try it, Aunt Flo?"

"Oh, it would cost too much to put it in repair. But then, six thousand dollars is very little, isn't it? Ran spent that much for his big car."

"Yes; and he could _sell_ his big car. You'd lots rather have this than an extra motor. And we could get him interested in fixing the place up, and he could keep dogs and cows and things----"

"But what about his mother?"

"You wouldn't have to tell her. She will be going to Maine in June, and you and Uncle Ranny could be all settled by the time she comes home!"

Eleanor had forgotten all about Papa Claude in her eagerness to get Uncle Ranny his heart's desire.

"I believe we could do it!" Mrs. Ranny was saying. "The chief expense would be putting in a couple of bath-rooms and fixing up the floors. As for the furniture, I have all my mother's stuff packed away in the warehouse--nice, quaint old things that would suit this place perfectly."

"Oh, Aunt Flo, let's go down this minute and make Uncle Ranny buy it!"

Randolph Bartlett, whose powers of resistance were never strong, was already lending a willing ear to Quin's persuasive arguments, when Eleanor and Mrs. Ranny descended upon him in a whirlwind of enthusiasm.

They both talked at once, rushing him from one spot to another, vying with each other in pointing out the wonderful possibilities of the place.

"See here, is this a frame-up?" he asked laughingly. "You are not actually in earnest, Flo? You don't mean that you would consider the place seriously?"

"But I do. I never wanted anything so much in my life!"

Mr. Ranny looked at her in amazement. "And you mean you'd be willing to come out here and live four months in the year?"

"I mean, if we could get it fixed up right, I'd live here the year round.

We are only fifteen minutes from town, and all our friends live out this way."

"By George, I've almost a notion to try it!" Mr. Ranny's eyes were shining. "Do you believe I could pull it off, Quin? I've made such a darned fizzle of things in the past that I'm almost afraid to kick over the traces again."

"The trouble is, you've never given a big enough kick to get loose," said Quin. "Here's your chance to show 'em what you can do. I believe if you'd buy this place, and buckle down to knocking it into shape, you could have as pretty a little stock farm as there is in the State."

"That sounds mighty good to me!" said Mr. Ranny with the look of a prisoner who is promised a parole. "When do you have to give an answer?"

"My option is up at midnight."

"Good heaven! You don't mean to-night?"

"Yes, sir: not a minute later."

"I am afraid that settles it, as far as I'm concerned."

"No, it doesn't!" insisted Mrs. Ranny. "If you really want it, there is no reason you shouldn't have it. The ground alone is worth the price asked. Let the others go back to the car while you and I talk the matter over. It's the chance we've been looking for for ten years, and I'm not going to let it slip."