you will want to get better
machinery," she had said. "That will make the work much easier, and you
will be able to do it more quickly too, and with less help than if you
stuck to the old-fashioned way."

"I'm going to take your advice in everything about running this farm,
Miss Mercer," Mrs. Pratt had replied. "You've certainly shown that you
know what you're talking about so far."

"Take a trip down to my father's farm some time, Mrs. Pratt, and they'll
be glad to show you everything they have there, I know. My father is
very anxious for all the farmers in his neighborhood to profit by any
help they can get. The only trouble is that a good many of them seem to
feel that he is interfering with them."

"Well, if they're as stupid as that, it serves them right to keep on
losing money, Miss Mercer."

"But it's natural, after all. You see they've run their farms their own
way all their lives, and it's the way they learned from their fathers.
So it isn't very strange that they're apt to feel that they know more,
from all that practice and experiment, than city people who are farming
scientifically."

"Does your father enjoy farming?"

"He says he does--and it's a curious thing that he makes that farm pay
its way, even allowing for a whole lot of things he does that aren't
really necessary. That's what proves, you see, that his theories are
right--they pay.

"Of course, he could afford to lose money on it, and you can't make a
whole lot of those farmers in our neighborhood believe that he doesn't.
So now he is having the books of the farm fixed up so that any of the
farmers around can see them, and find out for themselves how things are
run."

Tired as the girls of the Camp Fire had been, the night before, they
were wonderfully refreshed by their night's sleep. The weather was much
more pleasant than it had been, and a brisk wind had driven off much of
the smoke that still remained when they reached the Pratt farm as a
reminder of the scourge of fire. So the conditions for walking were
good, and Eleanor Mercer set a round, swinging pace as they started off.

"I'll really be glad to get out of this burned district. It's awfully
gloomy, isn't it, Bessie?" said Dolly.

"Yes, especially when you realize what it means to the people who live
in the path of the fire," answered Bessie. "Seeing the Pratts as they
were when we came up has given me an altogether new idea of these forest
fires."

"Yes. That's what I mean