Part 82 (2/2)

Then he showed her the shaded reaches of his lake, still, starred with lilies, lying dark under the curving boughs of water maples, doubling the sheer height of flower-crowned cliffs.

She held his hand tighter as they wound upward, circling the crown of the hill that she might see the splendid range of outlook; and swinging smoothly down a little and out on the green stretch before the house.

Ella gasped with delight. Gray, rough and harmonious, hung with woodbine and wildgrape, broad-porched and wide-windowed, it faced the setting sun. She stood looking, looking, over the green miles of tumbling hills, to the blue billowy far-off peaks swimming in soft light.

”There's the house,” said Arnold, ”furnished--there's a view room built on--for you, dear; I did it myself. There's the hill--and the little lake and one waterfall all for us! And the spring, and the garden, and some very nice Italians. And it will earn--my Hill and Mill, about three or four thousand dollars a year--above _all_ expenses!”

”How perfectly splendid!” said Ella. ”But there's one thing you've left out!”

”What's that?” he asked, a little dashed.

”_You_!” she answered. ”Arnold Blake! My Poet!”

”Oh, I forgot,” he added, after some long still moments. ”I ought to ask you about this first. Jim Chamberlain says I can cover all these hills with chestnuts, fill this valley with people, string that little river with a row of mills, make breakfast for all the world--and be a Millionaire. Shall I?”

”For goodness sake--_No_!” said Ella. ”Millionaire, indeed? And spoil the most perfect piece of living I ever saw or heard of!”

Then there was a period of bliss, indeed there was enough to last indefinitely.

But one pleasure they missed. They never saw even the astonished face, much less the highly irritated mind, of old John Blake, when he first returned from his two years of travel. The worst of it was he had eaten the stuff all the way home-and liked it! They told him it was Chestnut Meal--but that meant nothing to him. Then he began to find the jingling advertis.e.m.e.nts in every magazine; things that ran in his head and annoyed him.

”When corn or rice no more are nice, When oatmeal seems to pall, When cream of wheat's no longer sweet And you abhor them all--”

”I do abhor them all!” the old man would vow, and take up a newspaper, only to read:

”Better than any food that grows Upon or in the ground, Strong, pure and sweet And good to eat Our tree-born nuts are found.”

”Bah!” said Mr. Blake, and tried another, which only showed him:

”Good for mother, good for brother, Good for child; As for father--well, rather!

He's just wild.”

He was. But the truth never dawned upon him till he came to this one:

”About my hut There grew a nut Nutritious; I could but feel 'Twould make a meal Delicious.

I had a Hill, I built a Mill Upon it.

And hour by hour I sought for power To run it.

To burn my trees Or try the breeze Seemed crazy; To use my arm Had little charm-- I'm lazy!

The nuts are here, But coal!--Quite dear We find it!

We have the stuff.

Where's power enough To grind it?

What force to find My nuts to grind?

I've found it!

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