y.

"When he was talking with mother. He told her Laddie would be 'wasted'
farming----"

"Wasted?"

"That's what he said. Mother told him you had always farmed and you
were a 'power in this community.' She told him about what you did,
because you wanted to, and what you COULD do if you chose, about
holding office, you know, and that seemed to make him think heaps more
of you, so I thought it would be a good thing for him to know about the
Crusaders too, and I ran and got the crest. I THOUGHT it would
help----"

"And so it will," said mother. "They constantly make the best showing
they can, we might as well, too. The trouble is they got more than
they expected. They thought they could look down on us, and patronize
us, if they came near at all; when they found we were quite as well
educated as they, had as much land, could hold prominent offices if we
chose, and had the right to that bauble, they veered to the other
extreme. Now they seem to demand that we quit work----"

"Move to the city, 'sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam,'" suggested
father.

"Exactly!" said mother. "They'll have to find out we are running our
own business; but I'm sorry it fell to Laddie to show them. You could
have done it better. It will come out all right. The Princess is not
going to lose a man like Laddie on account of how he makes his money."

"Don't be too confident," said father. "With people of their stripe,
how much money a man can earn, and at what occupation, constitute the
whole of life."

She wasn't too confident. Yesterday she had been so happy she almost
flew. To-day she kept things going, and sang a lot, but nearly every
time you looked at her you could see her lips draw tight, a frown cross
her forehead, and her head shake. Pretty soon we heard a racket on the
road, so we went out. There was Laddie with the matched team of
carriage horses and a plow. Now, in dreadfully busy times, father let
Ned and Jo work a little, but not very much. They were not plow
horses; they were roadsters. They liked to prance, and bow their necks
and dance to the carriage. It shamed them to be hitched to a plow.
They drooped their heads and slunk along like dogs caught sucking eggs.
But they were a sight on the landscape. They were lean and slender and
yet round too, matched dapple gray on flank and side, with long
snow-white manes and tails. No wonder mother didn't want them to work.
Laddie had reached through the ga