Adelaide was neither a girl nor a woman and yet at times she was both.  With the other children she was a child that still loved to romp and play with the rest, free as a bird.  Her mother, a sweet-faced woman, some years her husband’s junior, made sisters of all her daughters, the more naturally perhaps, because the grandmother was still so active and so interested in all phases of homemaking that she seemed mother to them all.  Adelaide’s two older sisters were married and her brother Charles, also older than herself, by three years, was a senior in college.  Adelaide had just finished her course in the Academy where the long service of a maiden aunt as a teacher had secured certain appreciated privileges, without which it is doubtful if both Charles and Adelaide could have been sent away to school at the same time.  A boy of fourteen and the eight-year old baby brother with two sisters between comprised the younger members of the family.

Miss Bowman, the teacher of the district school, also occupied a place at the table.  The evening meal was disposed of without delay, for there was something of greater importance to follow.  A musicale in the near-by country church had been in preparation and Percy heartily accepted an invitation to accompany the family to the evening’s entertainment.  Or rather he accompanied Mr. and Mrs. West and the grandmother, for all the children had walked the distance before the carriage arrived.

Without having specialized in music, nevertheless Percy had improved the frequent opportunities he had had, especially while at the university, and he had learned to appreciate quality in the musical world.  Consequently he was not a little surprised and greatly pleased to sit and listen to a class of music that he had never before heard rendered in country places; but, as he listened for Adelaide’s singing in chorus, duet, and solo, he found himself wondering whether the eye or the voice more clearly revealed the soul.

“It seemed like the old times,” said the grandmother, with something like a sigh, as she took her place in the carriage.  “If our land was only like it used to be! but it’s become so mighty poor our children can’t have many advantages these days.  The Harcourt’s and Staunton’s whom you met are descendants of ancestors once well known in this state.”

“It seems to me that the land need not have grown poor,” said Percy.  “If the land was once productive, its fertility ought to be maintained by the return of the essential materials removed in crops or destroyed by cultivation.  Surely land need not become poor; but of course I know too little about this land to suggest at the present time what method could best be adopted for its improvement.”

“We can tell you what the best method is,” she quickly replied.  “Just put on plenty of ordinary farm fertilizer, but, laws, we don’t have enough to cover fifty acres a year.”