e bottom cleaned
up. Water-lilies would look better than cat-tails."

To my surprise, he did not assent. Instead, he set his foot on a boulder
and rested his arm upon his knee; looking into the clear water.

"Mr. Locke, I just about hate saying what I have to," he told me in his
sober, leisurely fashion. "I expect you won't like it; not at all.
Well--best said before you get deeper in. I can't see my way to make
farming this place pay."

I was bitterly disappointed. Even at the worst estimate of Vere, I had
imagined he would stick the thing out a little longer than this. Poor
Phillida's time of happiness should have lasted more than these few
weeks. But the call of New York, of the "lounge lizard's" ease and
unhealthy excitement had won already, it seemed. I said nothing at all.
The blow was too sore.

"There are too few acres of arable land, and they're used up," Vere was
continuing. "I've seen plenty of impoverished, run-out farms in New
England. You could pour money into the soil out of a gold pitcher these
five years to come, before it began to pay you back. And then your money
might better have been put anywhere in bank, for profit! I saw that, the
first week here. Since then I've been looking around for something
better to do."

"And have found it, of course," I said bitingly. "Or else you would be
drawing your salary as manager and saying nothing to me of all this!
Well, where does poor Phil go, and when?"

He turned his dark-curled head and regarded me with calm surprise.

"I didn't exactly know that my wife was going anywhere, Mr. Locke."

"What? You do not mean to leave the farm?"

"Not unless you're tired of our bargain. I've been calculating how to
make it pay. That won't be by planting corn and potatoes and taking a
wagon-load into town! If you think I'm wrong, call in any practical man
who knows this sort of business. We've got to think closer to win here.
That's why I'd like to set the lake to work instead of just prettying it
up."

"The lake, Vere? There isn't enough water-power over the dam to do any
more than run a toy, is there?"

He motioned me nearer to where he stood gazing down.

"Notice what kind of water this is, Mr. Locke? Brown like forest water,
sort of green-lighted because the bottom is like turf; neither mud nor
sand, but a kind of under-water moss? You see? It's pure and clean, with
a little fishy smell about it. Matter of fact, it is forest water! Comes
from way off yonder