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with forced joviality.] Well, anyway, you’ve got to promise to let me step in when I’ve made my pile; and I’ll make it down there, I’m certain; and it won’t take me long, either.

—I’ve no doubt you will with your determination.

—I’ll be able to pay off all the mortgages you can raise! Still, a mortgage isn’t such a bad thing at that—it makes a place heaps easier to sell—and you may want to cut loose from this farm some day—come down and join me in Buenos Aires, that’s the ticket.

—If I had only myself to consider

—Yes, I suppose they wouldn’t want to come. [After a pause.] It’s too bad Pa couldn’t have lived to see things through. [With feeling.] It cut me up a lot—hearing he was dead. Tell me about it. You didn’t say much in your letter.

—[Evasively.] He’s at peace, Andy. It’ll only make you feel bad to talk of it.

—He never—softened up, did he—about me, I mean?

—He never understood, that’s a kinder way of putting it. He does now.

—[After a pause.] You’ve forgotten all about what—caused me to go, haven’t you Rob? [ nods hut keeps his face averted.] I was a slushier damn fool in those days than you were. But it was an act of Providence I did go. It opened my eyes to how I’d been fooling myself. Why, I’d for-