rl they were
searching for back there along the road."

"Ah," said the elder.

"She had perfectly good reasons for running away," went on Grandma
Thorndyke, "and she is not going back to that man. He has no claim upon
her. He is not her guardian. He is only the man who married her
sister--and as I firmly believe, killed her!"

"I wouldn't say that," said the elder.

"Now I calculate," said Grandma Thorndyke, "and unless I am corrected I
shall so report--and I dare any one to correct me!--that this
child"--squeezing Virginia's hand--"had taken refuge at some dwelling
along the road, and that this morning--not later than this morning--as
Jacob drove along into Waterloo he overtook Virginia walking into town
where she was going to seek a position of some kind. So that you two
children were together not longer than from seven this morning until
just before church. You ought not to travel on the Sabbath!"

"No, ma'am," said I; for she was attacking me.

"Now we are poor," went on Grandma Thorndyke, "but we never have starved
a winter yet; and we want a child like you to comfort us, and to help
us--and we mustn't leave you as you are any longer. You must ride on
with Mr. Thorndyke and me."

This to Virginia--who stretched out her hands to me, and then buried her
face in them in Grandma Thorndyke's lap. She was crying so that she did
not hear me when I asked:

"Why can't we go on as we are? I've got a farm. I'll take care of her!"

"Children!" snorted grandma. "Babes in the wood!"

I think she told the elder in some way without words to take me off to
one side and talk to me; for he hummed and hawed, and asked me if I
wouldn't show him my horses. I told him that I was driving cows, and
went with him to see them. I now had six again, besides those I had left
with Mr. Westervelt back along the road toward Dubuque; and it took me
quite a while to explain to him how I had traded and traded along the
road, first my two horses for my first cows, and then always giving one
sound cow for two lame ones, until I had great riches for those days
in cattle.

He thought this wonderful, and said that I was a second Job; and had
every faculty for acquiring riches. I had actually made property while
moving, an operation that was so expensive that it bankrupted many
people. It was astonishing, he insisted; and began looking upon me with
more respect--making property being the thing in which he was weakest,
except for laying up tre