* * * * *

Down the road, two miles from the Burton home, was the wayside church with its small and unpretentious organ, and this afternoon Paul had been pumping its wheezy bellows while the young woman who contributed the Sabbath music practised.  As he came out of the small building and took his way across the hills, Paul was exalted as he always was by music.

Once he had passed through the gates of dream, which swung wide to a key of sound, he wandered on, fancy led, until some actuality broke the spell, bringing him back with a shock and an inward sigh for the awakening.

But when he drew near the house, a footstep crackled in the underbrush, and Ham emerged from the woods.  As the elder boy came up, Paul, roused out of his dreams, gave a start and then fell into step.

“Been out there listenin’ to the leaves fallin’ again?” inquired Ham shortly.

“I’ve been pumping the organ.”  Paul’s reply was half-apologetic.

“You don’t think about much except music, do you, Paul?”

“Isn’t music all right?” For once the lad spoke almost aggressively in defense of his single enthusiasm.

“I wasn’t exactly finding fault, Paul.  Only, I don’t see much hope for a feller in this country that doesn’t think about anything else.  You’re in pretty much the same fix as an Esquimo that can’t be happy without flowers.  Grand opera doesn’t come as often as the circus, and some years the circus doesn’t come.  Listen!” He put one hand into his trousers’ pockets, and noisily rattled a handful of coins. “That music is understood everywhere.  Even in this God-forsaken place, they know how to dance to its tune.”

“Where did you get it?” For an instant Paul halted in his tracks and forgot his air-castles.  Money was so rare a thing in their narrow little world that even to his impracticability it partook of magic.

Yesterday Ham’s pockets had been as empty as his own and today there emanated from them the clash of silver—­not the tinkle of light nickels and dimes, but the substantial clatter of halves and dollars.

“I sold some lambs to Slivers Martin,” was the succinct reply, “and I got ten dollars for ’em.”

“Some lambs?” Paul’s face puckered with perplexity.  “But, Ham, you haven’t got any lambs.”

Ham laughed with a debonair indulgence.  “Sure I haven’t,” he cheerfully acquiesced, “but I’ve got the ten.”

Paul shook his head, baffled.  “I don’t see,” he persisted, “how you could sell something you didn’t have.”  They were drawing near the house now, and Ham stopped him in the road.

“Who sells more wheat than all us farmers, Paul?  Men in Wall street, don’t they?  And how much wheat do you suppose those fellers have got amongst the lot of them?  Not enough to feed a sick pigeon with.  I sold these lambs first—­for ten dollars.  Then I bought them off of Bill Heffers, an’ Henry Berry an’ Ben Best—­for seven dollars.”