ick,
tick-a-tick-tick, tick-tick" of a telegraph-wire. Somebody must be in
there who at set times, like a Saint Serapion from his hermit cell,
might open this blank wall and speak in almost human tones. Just now the
solitude of the grave prevailed, save for that everlasting "tick-a-tick"
behind the wall.

When Jerry Swaim gripped her hands on the plow handles, there would be
no looking back. She persuaded herself that she wasn't going to die of
the jiggermaroos in the empty nothingness here. It would be very
different at New Eden, she was sure of that. And this York Macpherson
must be a nice old man, honest and easy-going, because he had never
realized any income from her big Kansas estate. She pictured York
easily--a short, bald-headed old gentleman with gray burnsides and
benevolent pale-blue eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses, driving a fat
sorrel nag to an easy-going old Rockaway buggy, carrying a gold-headed
cane given him by the Sunday-school. Jerry had seen his type all her
life in the business circles of Philadelphia and among the better-to-do
country-dwellers around "Eden."

At last it was only fifteen minutes till the Sage Brush train would be
due; then she could find comfort in her Pullman berth. She wondered what
Aunt Jerry and Eugene were doing now. She had slipped away from "Eden"
on her wild adventure in the early dawn. She had taken leave of Aunt
Jerry the night before. Old women need their beauty sleep in the
morning, even if foolish young things are breaking all the laws by
launching out to hunt their fortunes. Eugene had been hurriedly sent
away on Darby estate matters without the opportunity of a leave-taking,
two days before Jerry was ready to start for Kansas. Everything was
prearranged, evidently, to make this going a difficult one. So, without
a single good-by to speed her on her quest, the young girl had gone out
from a sheltering Eden of beauty and idleness. But the tears that had
dimmed her eyes came only when she left the lilac walk to the station to
slip around by Uncle Cornie's grave beside the green-coverleted
resting-places of Jim and Lesa Swaim.

"Maybe mother would glory in what I am doing, and father might say I had
the right stuff in me. And Uncle Cornie--'If a man went right with
himself'--Uncle Cornie might have said 'if a woman went right with
herself,' too. I'm going to put that meaning into his words, even if he
never seemed to think much of women. Oh, father! Oh, mother! You _li