she tried to preserve.  For her forefathers had never been mere guardians of things gone by.  Always they had been pioneers.  That house had not been old to them, but a thrilling new adventure.  Their old homes they had left behind, far down in the valleys to the east.  And even those valley homes had been new to the rugged men come over the sea.  Would Edith ever understand?  Would she see that for herself the new must emerge from her children, from the ideas, desires and plans already teeming in their minds?  Would she show keen interest, sympathy?  Would she be able to keep her hold?

In the seat behind her mother, Betsy was sitting with Bruce in her lap, looking over a picture book.  Quietly Roger watched the girl.

“What are you going to be?” he asked.  “A woman’s college president, a surgeon or a senator?  And what will your mother think of you then?”

They changed cars, and on a train made up of antiquated coaches they wound through a side valley, down which rushing and tumbling came the river that bore Roger’s name.  He went into the smoking car, and presently George joined him there.  George did not yet smoke, (with his elders), but he had bought a package of gum and he was chewing absorbedly.  Plainly the lad was excited over the great existence which he saw opening close ahead.  Roger glanced at the boy’s broad shoulders, noticed the eager lines of his jaw, looked down at his enormous hands, unformed as yet, ungainly; but in them was a hungriness that caused a glow in Roger’s breast.  One more of the family starting out.

“It’s all going to depend on you,” Roger gravely counseled.  “Your whole life will depend on the start you make.  Either you’re going to settle down, like so many of your neighbors up there, or you’re going to hustle, plan out your day, keep on with your studies and go to college—­the State Agricultural College, I mean.  In short, keep up to date, my boy, and become in time a big figure in farming.”

“I’m going to do it,” George replied.  His grandfather glanced again at his face, so scowling, so determined.  And a gleam of compassion and yearning came for a moment in Roger’s eyes.  His heavy hand lay on George’s knee.

“That’s right, son,” he grunted.  “Make the family proud of you.  I’ll do all I can to help you start.  My business is picking up, thank God, and I’ll be able to back you now.  I’ll stay up here a good part of the summer.  We’ve both of us got a lot to learn—­and not only from books—­we want to remember we’ve plenty to learn from the neighbors, too.  Take old Dave Royce, for instance, who when all is said and done has worked our farm for twenty odd years and never once run me into debt.”

“But, Gee!” demurred George.  “He’s so ’way out of date!”

“I know he is, son, but we’ve got to go slow.”  And Roger’s look passed furtively along the faces in the car.  “We don’t want to forget,” he warned, “that this is still New England.  Every new idea we have we want to go easy with, snake it in.”