hat morning. Mr. Hammond seemed
very glad to make the sale upon these terms, as he was in need of ready
money.

When Jack returned to his father's shop, he remembered the men he had
seen at the river, and he told his father what they had said.

"Station?--right of way?" exclaimed Mr. Ogden. "That's the new
railroad through Mertonville. They'll use up that land, and we won't
get a cent. Well, it didn't cost anything. I'd about given up
collecting that bill."

Later that day, Jack came in to dinner with a smile on his face. It
was the old smile, too; a smile of good-humored self-confidence, which
flickered over his lips from side to side, and twisted them, and shut
his mouth tight. Just as he was about to speak, his father took a
long, neatly folded paper out of his coat pocket and laid it on the
table.

"Look at that, Jack," he said; "and show it to your mother."

"Warranty deed!" exclaimed Jack, reading the print on the outside.
"Father! you didn't turn it over to me, did you? Mother, it's to John
Ogden, Jr.!"

"Oh, John--" she began and stopped.

"Why, my dear," laughed the blacksmith, cheerfully, "it's his gravel,
not mine. I'll hold it for him, for a while, but it is Jack's whenever
I chose to record that deed."

"I'm afraid I couldn't farm it there," said Jack; and then the smile on
his face flickered fast. "But I knew Father wanted that land."

"It isn't worth much, but it's a beginning," said Mary. "I'd like to
own something or other, or to go somewhere."

"Well, Molly," answered Jack, smiling, "you can go to Mertonville.
Livermore says there's a team here, horses and open carriage. It came
over on Friday. The driver has cleared out, and somebody must take
them home, and he wants me to drive over. Can't I take Molly, Mother?"

"You'd have to walk back," said his father, "but that's nothing much.
It's less than nine miles--"

"Father," said Jack, "you said, last night, I needn't come back to
Crofield, right away. And Mertonville's nine miles nearer the city--"

"And a good many times nine miles yet to go," exclaimed the blacksmith;
but then he added, smiling: "Go ahead, Jack. I do believe that if any
boy can get there, you can."

"I'll do it somehow," said Jack, with a determined nod.

"Of course you will," said Mary.

Jack felt as if circumstances were changing pretty fast, so far as he
was concerned; and so did Mary, for she had about given up all hope of
seeing her friends in