have mentioned--was not Old Baumgartner's enemy.

In fact, they were tremendous friends. And it was by this
friendship--and one other thing which I mean to mention later--that Old
Baumgartner hoped, before he died, to attain the wish of his life, and
see, not only the Elysian pasture-field, but the whole of the adjoining
farm, with the line fences down, a part of his. The other thing I
promised to mention as an aid to this ambition--was Seffy. And, since
the said Sarah was of nearly the same age as Seffy, perhaps I need not
explain further, except to say that the only obstruction the old man
could see now to acquiring the title by marriage was--Seffy himself. He
was, and always had been, afraid of girls--especially such aggressive,
flirtatious, pretty and tempestuous girls as this Sarah.

These things, however, were hereditary with the girl. It was historical,
in fact, that, during the life of Sarah's good-looking father, so
importunate had been Old Baumgartner for the purchase of at least the
meadow--he could not have ventured more at that time--and so obstinate
had been the father of the present owner--(he had red hair precisely as
his daughter had)--that they had come to blows about it, to the
discomfiture of Old Baumgartner; and, afterward, they did not speak.
Yet, when the loafers at the store laughed, Baumgartner swore that he
would, nevertheless, have that pasture before he died.

But then, as if fate, too, were against him, the railroad was built, and
its station was placed so that the Pressel farm lay directly between it
and him, and of course the "life" went more and more in the direction
of the station--left him more and more "out of it"--and made him poorer
and poorer, and Pressel richer and richer. And, when the store laughed
at _that_, Baumgartner swore that he would possess half of the farm
before he died; and as Pressel and his wife died, and Seffy grew up, and
as he noticed the fondness of the little red-headed girl for his little
tow-headed boy, he added to his adjuration that he would be harrowing
that whole farm before _he_ died,--_without paying a cent for it_!

But both Seffy and Sally had grown to a marriageable age without
anything happening. Seffy had become inordinately shy, while the
coquettish Sally had accepted the attentions of Sam Pritz, the clerk at
the store, as an antagonist more worthy of her, and in a fashion which
sometimes made the father of Seffy swear and lose his temper--with