rcey J. don't
waste any hot air tryin' to melt him. He tells the old guy plain and
simple who he is and what he's after.

"Dinna talk to me, Mon," says Ross. "I'm no sellin' the farm."

"May I ask your reasons?" says Mr. Sturgis.

Ross frowns at him a minute without sayin' a word. Then he pries the
stubby pipe out from the bristly whiskers and points a crooked finger
toward a little bunch of old apple trees on a low knoll.

"Yon's my reason, Mon," says he solemn. "Yon wee white stone. Three
bairns and the good wife lay under it. I'm no sae youthful mysel'.
And when it's time for me to go I'd be sleepin' peaceful, with none o'
your rattlin' trolley cars comin' near. That's why, Mon."

"Thank you, Mr. Ross," says Percey J. "I can appreciate your
sentiments. However, our line would run through the opposite side of
your farm, away over there. All we ask is a fifty-foot strip across
your----"

"You canna have it," says Ross decided, insertin' the pipe once more.

Which is where most of us would have weakened, I expect. Not Mr.
Sturgis.

"Just a moment, Friend Ross," says he. "I suppose you know I have the
P., B. & R. back of me, and it's more than likely that your neighbors
have said things about us. There is some ground for prejudice too.
Our recent stock deals look rather bad from the outside. There have
been other circumstances that are not in our favor. But I want to
assure you that this enterprise is a genuine, honest attempt to benefit
you and your community. It is my own. It is part of the general
policy of the road for which I am quite willing to be held largely
responsible. Why, I've had this project for a Palisades trolley road
in mind ever since I came on here a poor boy, twenty-odd years ago, and
took my first trip down the Hudson. This ought to be a rich,
prosperous country here. It isn't. A good electric line, such as I
propose to build, equipped with heavy passenger cars and running a
cheap freight service, would develop this section. It would open to
the public a hundred-mile trip that for scenic grandeur could be
equaled nowhere in this country. Are you going to stand in the way,
Mr. Ross, of an enterprise such as that?"

Yep, he was. He puffs away just as mulish as ever.

"Of course," goes on Percey, "it's nothing to you; but the one ambition
of my life has been to build this road. I want to do for this district
what some of our great railroad builders did for the big We