at popularity.

However, the memory of Emmett will be preserved to future generations as
the author of a song the common people love to sing.

* * * * *

"I have bought a farm."

The wife looked incredulous. The past four years Alfred had optioned as
many different farms, always dissuaded by the wife to give them up. In
fact, the wife did not show the husband's enthusiasm as to the bucolic
life.

"I've bought a farm: Bienville, a part of the old Goodrich tract ceded
to that family by the government for services in the Revolutionary War,
opposite 'high banks' on the Olentangy River, where the ruins of the old
fort are. It is a place of historic interest. The river, the best bass
stream in Ohio, skirts the east side of the farm. There's a lovely brook
running through the farm, and the largest virgin forest in the county.
Why, the timber in that woods will sell for more than I paid for the
whole farm. But I will not cut a single tree down, only an occasional
shell-bark hickory tree to smoke our meat. Uncle Jake always smoked his
meat with hickory wood and he cured the finest meat in Fayette County,
generally a little too salty; we must look out for that."

"The bottom land is a farm in itself. There are two orchards, an old one
and a young one. The old one is about run out and I'll cut it down when
the young one comes in. The wood will be fine to burn. Dry apple wood
makes the hottest fire."

"Dried apples? What are you talking about--burning dried apples?"

But Alfred was not to be interrupted. "The hill land is not so good but
I'll bring that up. I've bought a book on Liming Land. I won't have a
great deal of stock to begin with. It's my intention to begin with a
few of each species and breed up, that's the way Doctor Hartman does.

"The hill land is not productive now and the bottom land will have to
supply the farm until we get the hills tillable. There's only one thing
that troubles me. The bottoms overflow every time the river rises. As
you know, the Olentangy rises every time it rains."

"Well, for Heaven's sake, you haven't bought a farm like that, have you?
Now, Al, you are just like your father. Your mother often told me he
could make money but always had a plan to spend it and his investments
always proved failures. Why don't you let this farm business go? You've
got enough on your hands without a farm."

Alfred never noticed the interruption.

"Chickens are very prof