"I know it," he said, "but I've never struck exactly the right
thing. This is what I could make a success of, and I would make a
good big one, you bet! Kate, I'll not go to town another night.
I'll stop all that." He drew the flask from his pocket and
smashed it against the closest tree. "And I'll stop all there
ever was of that, even to a glass of beer on a hot day; if you say
so, if you'll stand by me this once more, if I fail this time,
I'll never ask you again; honest, I won't."
"If I had money, I'd try it, keeping the building in my own name
and keeping the books myself; but I've none, and no way to get
any, as you know," she said. "I can see what could be done, but
I'm helpless."
"I'M NOT!" said George. "I've got it all worked out. You see I
was doing something useful with my head, if I wasn't always
plowing as fast as you thought I should. If you'll back me, if
you'll keep books, if you'll handle the money until she is paid
back, I know Aunt Ollie will sell enough of this land to build the
mill and buy the machinery. She could keep the house, and
orchard, and barn, and a big enough piece, say forty acres, to
live on and keep all of us in grub. She and Mother could move out
here -- she said the other day she was tired of town and getting
homesick -- and we could go to town to put the children in school,
and be on the job. I won't ever ask you and Mother to live
together again. Kate, will you go in with me? Will you talk to
Aunt Ollie? Will you let me show you, and explain, and prove to
you?"
"I won't be a party to anything that would even remotely threaten
to lose Aunt Ollie's money for her," she said.
"She's got nobody on earth but me. It's all mine in the end. Why
not let me have this wonderful chance with it? Kate, will you?"
he begged.
"I'll think about it," she conceded. "If I can study out a sure,
honourable way. I'll promise to think. Now go out there, and
hunt the last scrap of that glass; the children may cut their feet
in the morning."
Then Kate went in to bed. If she had looked from her window, she
might have seen George scratching matches and picking pieces of
glass from the grass. When he came to the bottom of the bottle
with upstanding, jagged edges, containing a few drops, he glanced
at her room, saw that she was undressing in the dark, and lifting
it, he poured the liquid on his tongue to the last drop that would
fall.