Lydia of the Pines | Page 6

to have quit it. It
looked like a mechanic could eat a farmer up, though, when I was a
young fellow. Now a little farm looks good enough to me. But on a
dollar and a half a day, I swan--" Amos sighed.
"Land's high around here," said Levine. "I understand Marshall sold
Eagle Farm for a hundred dollars an acre. Takes a sharp farmer to make
interest on a hundred an acre. Lord--when you think of the land on the
reservation twenty miles from here, just yelling for men to farm it and
nothing but a bunch of dirty Indians to take advantage of it."
"Look here, John," said Amos with sudden energy. "It's time that bunch
of Indians moved on and gave white men a chance. I wouldn't say a
word if they farmed the land, but such a lazy, lousy outfit!"
"There are more than you feel that way, Amos," replied Levine. "But it
would take an Act of Congress to do anything."
"Well, why not an Act of Congress, then? What's that bunch we sent
down to Washington doing?"
"Poor brutes of Indians," said John Levine, refilling his pipe. "I get
ugly about the reservation, yet I realize they've got first right to the
land."
"The man that can make best use of the land's got first right to it,"
insisted Amos. "That's what my ancestors believed two hundred and
fifty years ago when they settled in New Hampshire and put loopholes
under the eaves of their houses. Our farmhouse had loopholes like that.
Snow used to sift in through 'em on my bed when I was a kid."
Lydia, lying on her stomach on the couch, turning the leaves of "Tom
Sawyer," looked up with sudden interest.
"Daddy, let's go back there to live. I'd love to live in a house with

loopholes."
The two men laughed. "You should have been a boy, Lydia," said
Amos.
"A boy," sniffed Levine, "and who'd have mothered little Patience if
she'd been a boy?"
"That's right--yet, look at that litter on the desk in the parlor."
Both the men smiled while Lydia blushed.
"What are you going to do with that doll furniture, Lydia?" asked John
Levine.
"I'm going to make a doll house for little Patience, for Christmas."
Lydia gave an uncomfortable wriggle. "Don't talk about me so much."
"You're working a long way ahead," commented Amos. "That was your
mother's trait. I wish I'd had it. Though how I could look ahead on a
dollar and a half a day--Lydia, it's bedtime."
Lydia rose reluctantly, her book under her arm.
"Don't read upstairs, child," Amos went on; "go to bed and to sleep,
directly."
Lydia looked around for a safe place for the book and finally climbed
up on a chair and laid it on the top shelf of the sideboard. Then she
came back to her father's side and lifted her face for her good night
kiss.
"Good night, my child," said Amos.
"How about me," asked Levine. "Haven't you one to spare for a lonely
bachelor?"
He pulled Lydia to him and kissed her gently on the cheek. "If you
were ten years older and I were ten years younger--"

"Then we'd travel," said the child, with a happy giggle as she ran out of
the room.
There was silence for a moment, then John Levine said, "Too bad old
Lizzie is such a slob."
"I know it," replied Amos, "but she gets no wages, just stayed on after
nursing my wife. I can't afford to pay for decent help. And after all, she
does the rough work, and she's honest and fond of the children."
"Still Lydia ought to have a better chance. I wish you'd let me--" he
hesitated.
"Let you what?" asked Amos.
"Nothing. She'd better work out things her own way. She'll be getting
to notice things around the house as she grows older."
"It is the devil's own mess here," admitted Amos. "I'm going to move
next month. This place has got on my nerves."
"No, Daddy, no!" exclaimed Lydia.
Both men started as the little girl appeared in the kitchen door. "I came
down to put Florence Dombey to bed," she explained. "Oh, Daddy,
don't let's move again! Why, we've only been here two years."
"I've got to get into a place where I can have a garden," insisted Amos.
"If we go further out of town we can get more land for less rent."
"Oh, I don't want to move," wailed Lydia. "Seems to me we've always
been moving. Last time you said 'twas because you couldn't bear to stay
in the house where mother died. I don't see what excuse you've got this
time."
"Lydia, go to bed!" cried Amos.
Lydia retreated hastily into the kitchen and in