“Well, that is about what they are asking of you, Mr. Craddock,” said Matthew, his cheeks red with the glow of the blood Uncle Cradd had called up in his enthusiastic heart.  “The new State secretary of agriculture has asked our firm to undertake negotiations for the purchase of Elmnest, for a recruiting station for the experts who are to take over the organizing of the farming interests in the Harpeth Valley, which is the central section of the State of Harpeth.  They offer three hundred dollars an acre for the whole tract of two hundred acres, despite the fact that some of it is worn almost to its subsoil.  They consider that as valuable, because they wish to give demonstrations and try experiments in land restoration, though very little of that is needed here in the valley.  It’s a pretty big thing, Mr. Craddock and Father William, sixty thousand dollars will provide all the—­”

“Did I understand that this proposition is put to us in the form of a demand of our Government upon our patriotism?” asked Uncle Cradd in a booming voice, while father only looked uncertain and ready to say, “With you, Cradd.”  I sat speechless for a moment, with a queer pain in my heart that I did not for the first second understand.

“Well, not exactly that, Mr. Craddock, but something like it in a—­” Matthew was beginning to say in a judicial way.

“That is enough, Matthew Berry, son of the friend of my youth.  If the United States needs Elmnest for national defenses, I am willing to give it up—­indeed insist on presenting it to the Government except for a small part of the sum mentioned, which is needed for the simple and declining lives of my brother William, Rufus, and me, and my niece Nancy.  Will you so convey our answer, William?”

“With you, Cradd,” came the devoted formula with which father slipped back finally into the dependence of his youth.

“Good, Mr. Craddock,” exclaimed Matthew, and I could see visions of Ann Craddock reclaimed from her farmer’s smock in a ball-gown upon the floor of the country club in the fleeting glance of triumph he gave me.  “Of course, about the price—­”

Then in that counsel of the mighty arose Ann Craddock, farm woman in the stronghold of her worn-out acres.

“Is it or is it not true, Uncle Cradd, that no deed to this property can be made without my consent?” I asked calmly.

“Why, yes, Nancy,” answered Uncle Cradd, indulgently.  “But this is a matter for your father and me to decide for you.  I am sure you cannot fail in patriotism, my child.”

“I don’t,” I answered.  “I am going to be more patriotic than any woman ever was before.  I am not going to sell my Grandmother’s rosebushes in their gardens or the acres that have nourished my family since its infancy in America long before this Evan Baldwin ever had any family, I feel sure, for sixty thousand dollars to go back and sit down in a corner with.  I am going to demonstrate to the United States what one woman can do in the way of nutriment production aided by one beautiful rooster and ten equally beautiful hens, and when they begin to take stock of the resources of this Government, we women of the Harpeth Valley will be there with our egg-baskets.  Just take that answer to your Mr. Evan Baldwin, Matthew Berry, and I’ll never forgive you for this insult.”