This marvel was discussed at considerable length; and almost with animation.  But presently there was a dog-fight over in the neighborhood of the blacksmith shop, and the visitors slid off their perch like so many turtles and strode to the battle-field with an interest bordering on eagerness.  The Squire remained, and read his letter.  Then he sighed, and sat long in meditation.  At intervals he said: 

“Missouri.  Missouri.  Well, well, well, everything is so uncertain.”

At last he said: 

“I believe I’ll do it.—­A man will just rot, here.  My house my yard, everything around me, in fact, shows’ that I am becoming one of these cattle—­and I used to be thrifty in other times.”

He was not more than thirty-five, but he had a worn look that made him seem older.  He left the stile, entered that part of his house which was the store, traded a quart of thick molasses for a coonskin and a cake of beeswax, to an old dame in linsey-woolsey, put his letter away, an went into the kitchen.  His wife was there, constructing some dried apple pies; a slovenly urchin of ten was dreaming over a rude weather-vane of his own contriving; his small sister, close upon four years of age, was sopping corn-bread in some gravy left in the bottom of a frying-pan and trying hard not to sop over a finger-mark that divided the pan through the middle—­for the other side belonged to the brother, whose musings made him forget his stomach for the moment; a negro woman was busy cooking, at a vast fire-place.  Shiftlessness and poverty reigned in the place.

“Nancy, I’ve made up my mind.  The world is done with me, and perhaps I ought to be done with it.  But no matter—­I can wait.  I am going to Missouri.  I won’t stay in this dead country and decay with it.  I’ve had it on my mind sometime.  I’m going to sell out here for whatever I can get, and buy a wagon and team and put you and the children in it and start.”

“Anywhere that suits you, suits me, Si.  And the children can’t be any worse off in Missouri than, they are here, I reckon.”

Motioning his wife to a private conference in their own room, Hawkins said:  “No, they’ll be better off.  I’ve looked out for them, Nancy,” and his face lighted.  “Do you see these papers?  Well, they are evidence that I have taken up Seventy-five Thousand Acres of Land in this county —­think what an enormous fortune it will be some day!  Why, Nancy, enormous don’t express it—­the word’s too tame!  I tell your Nancy——­”

“For goodness sake, Si——­”

“Wait, Nancy, wait—­let me finish—­I’ve been secretly bailing and fuming with this grand inspiration for weeks, and I must talk or I’ll burst!  I haven’t whispered to a soul—­not a word—­have had my countenance under lock and key, for fear it might drop something that would tell even these animals here how to discern the gold mine that’s glaring under their noses.  Now all that is necessary to hold this land and keep