of Peter Lamb. He wrote to his mother he was in the army, and then that
was the end of it. She keeps on writing once a week, and the letters come
back stamped 'not found.' I guess he's wandering somewhere."

"Like enough. I went to see her last week, but I could not give her any
comfort. She couldn't have a worse thing happen than for Peter to come
home."

"Well, Captain John, when you come to have babies of your own, you'll
find mothers are a curious kind of animal."

"Mothers!" laughed John. "I hope there won't be more than one. Now, I
really must go."

"Oh, just one more real bit of news. Lawyer Swallow's wife was here
yesterday with another man to settle up her husband's business."

"Is he dead?"

"They say so, but you can't believe everything you hear. Now, don't
hurry. What most killed Swallow was just this: He hated Pole like poison,
and when he got a five hundred dollar mortgage-grip on Pole's pasture
meadow, he kept that butcher-man real uneasy. When you were all away,
Swallow began to squeeze--what those lawyers call 'foreclose.' It's
just some lawyer word for robbery."

"It's pretty bad, Mrs. Crocker, but two people are waiting for you and
this isn't exactly Government business."

"Got to hear the end, Captain."

"I suppose so--what next?" Dixy wondered why the spur touched him even
lightly.

"Pole, he told Mrs. Penhallow all about it, and she wasn't as glad to
help her meat-man as she was to bother Swallow, so she took over the
mortgage. When the Squire first came home from Washington and wasn't like
he was later, she told him, of course. Now everybody knows Pole's ways,
and so the Squire he says to me--he was awful amused--'Mrs. Crocker, I
asked Mrs. Penhallow how Pole was going to pay her.' She said she did put
that at Pole, and he said it wouldn't take long to eat up that debt at
Grey Pine. He wouldn't have dared to speak like that to your aunt if she
hadn't got to be so meek-like, what with war and bother." By this time
Dixy was with reason displeased and so restless that Mrs. Crocker let the
reins drop, but as John Penhallow rode away she cried, "The price of
meats at Grey Pine has been going up ever since, until Miss Leila--" The
rest was lost to the Captain. He rode away laughing as he reflected on
what share of Pole's debt he was to devour.

CHAPTER XXXI

The bustle and folly of a rummage-sale was once in every two or three
years a frolic altogether pleasant to quiet Westways.