CHAPTER X

AGNES AND BOBBY DISCERN DIAMOND-STUDDED SPURS FOR THE LATTER

About the first of February the filling and grading were finished and the construction of the streets began, and the middle of March saw the final disappearance of everything, except that dark, eight-acre spot of Silas Trimmer's, which might remind one of the tract once known as the Westmarsh. In its place lay a broad, yellow checker-board, formed by intersecting streets of asphalt edged with cement pavements, and in the center, at the crossing of broad Burnit and Applerod Avenues, there arose, over a spot where once frogs had croaked and mosquitoes clustered in crowds, a pretty club-house, which was later to be donated to the suburb; and a great satisfaction fell upon the soul of Bobby Burnit like a benediction.

Also one Oliver P. Applerod added two full inches to his strut. He seldom came out to the scene of actual operations, for there was none there except workmen to see his frock-coat and silk hat; but occasionally, from a sense of duty inextricably mingled with self-assertiveness, he paid a visit of inspection, and upon one of these his eyes were confronted by a huge new board sign, visible for half a mile, that overlooked the Applerod Addition from the hills to the north. It bore but two words: "Trimmer's Addition." Applerod, holding his broadcloth tight about him to keep it from yellow contamination as a car rumbled by, looked and wiped his glasses and looked again, then, highly excited, he called Bobby to him.

"Why didn't you tell me of this?" he demanded, pointing to the sign.

Bobby, happy in sweater and high boots and liberal decorations of clay, only laughed.

"The sign went up only yesterday," he stated.

"But it is competition. Unfair competition! He is stealing our thunder," protested Applerod.

"He has a perfect right to lay out a subdivision if he wants," said Bobby. "But don't worry, Applerod. I've been over there and the thing is a joke. The tract is one-fourth the size of ours, it is uphill and downhill, only a little grading is being done, streets are cut through but not paved, and a few cheap board sidewalks are being put down. He's had to pay a lot more for his land than we have, and can not sell his lots any cheaper."

"There's no telling what Silas Trimmer will do," said Applerod, shaking his head.

"Nonsense," said Bobby; "there is no chance that people will pass by our lots and buy one of his."

Applerod walked away unconvinced. Had it been any one else than Silas Trimmer who had set up this opposition he would not have minded so much, but Applerod had come to have a mighty fear of John Burnit's ancient enemy, and presently he came back to Bobby more panic-stricken than ever.

"I'm going to sell my interest in the Applerod Addition the minute I find a buyer," he declared, "and I'd advise you to do the same."

"Don't be foolish," counseled Bobby, frowning. "You _can't_ lose."

"But man!" quavered Applerod. "I have four thousand dollars of my own cash, all I've been able to scrape together in a lifetime, tied up in this thing, and I _mustn't_ lose!"

Bobby regarded his father's old confidential clerk more in sorrow than in anger. He was not used to dealing with men of any age so utterly lacking in gameness.

"Four thousand," he repeated, then he looked across his big checker-board. "I'll give you ten thousand for it right now."

"What!" objected Applerod, aghast. "Why, Burnit, the work is nearly done and I have already in sight seventy-six thousand dollars of clear profit over my investment."

Bobby did not remind Applerod that his four thousand dollars represented only a trifling part of the investment required to yield this seventy-six thousand dollars' profit. Yet, after all, there was no flaw in Applerod's commercial reasoning.

"I didn't expect you to accept it," replied Bobby. "If you were determined to get out, however, you've had an offer of six thousand profit, with no risk."

"I'd be crazy," declared Applerod. "I can get a better price than that."

Bobby was thoughtful for an hour after Applerod had left him; then he hurried into the club-house and telephoned to Chalmers. This was in the forenoon. In the afternoon Applerod was served with an injunction based upon an indivisibility of interest, restraining him from disposing of his share; and in his anger he let it slip out that he had already been trying to open negotiations with Trimmer!

"Honestly, it hurts!" said Bobby wearily, telling of the incident to Agnes that night. "I didn't know there were so many unsportsmanlike people."

"I think that is precisely what your father wanted you to find out," she observed.

"I don't want to know it," protested Bobby. "I'd stay much happier to believe that everybody in the world was of the right sort."

She shook her head.

"No, Bobby," she said gently; "you have to know that there is the other kind, in order properly to appreciate truth and honor and loyalty."

"I could almost believe I was in a Sunday-school class," grinned Bobby. "No wonder it's snowing."

Agnes looked out of the window with a cry of delight. Those floating flakes were the very first snow of the season; but they were by no means the last. The winter, delayed, but apparently all the more violent for that very reason, burst suddenly upon the city, stopping the finishing touches on both suburban additions. Came rain and sleet and snow, and rain and sleet and snow again, then biting cold that sank deep into the ground and sealed it as if with a crust of iron. March, that had come in like a lamb, went out like a lion, and the lion raged through April and into May. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the belated winter passed away and the warm sun beat down upon the snow-clad hills and swept them clean. It penetrated into the valleys and turned them into rivulets, thousands of which poured into the river and swelled its banks brimming full. The streets of the Applerod Addition were quickly washed with their own white covering and dried, and immediately with this break-up began the great advertising campaign. The papers flamed with full-page and half-page announcements of the wonderful home-making opportunity; circulars were mailed to possible home-buyers by the hundred thousand; every street-car told of the bargain on striking cards; immense electric signs blazoned the project by night; sixteen-sheet posters were spread upon all the bill-boards, and every device known to expert advertising was requisitioned. Not one soul within the city or within a radius of fifty miles but had kept constantly before him the duty he owed to himself to purchase a lot in the marvelous Applerod Addition; and now indeed Oliver P. Applerod, reassured once more, began to reap the fruit of his life's ambitions as prospective buyers thronged to look at his frock-coat and silk hat.

June the first was set for the date of the "grand opening," and though it was not to be a month of roses, still the earth looked bright and gay as the time approached, and Bobby Burnit took Agnes out to view his coming triumph. This was upon a bright day toward the end of May, when those yellow squares were tempered to a golden green by the tender young grass that had been sown at the completion of the grading. She had made frequent visits with him through the winter, and now she gloried with him.

"It looks fine, Bobby," she confessed with glowing eyes. "Fine! It really seems as if you had won your spurs."

"Diamond-studded ones!" he exulted. "Why, Agnes, the office is besieged with requests for allotments. In spite of the fact that we have over eleven hundred lots for sale at an average price of six hundred dollars, we're not going to have enough to go around. The receipts will be fully seven hundred thousand dollars, and our complete disbursements, by the time we have sold out, will not amount to over two hundred and twenty-five thousand. Of course, I don't know--I haven't asked, and you wouldn't tell me if I did--just by what promises you are bound, but when I close up this deal you're going to marry me! That's flat!"

"You mustn't be too sure of anything in this world, Bobby," she warned him, but she turned upon him a smile that made her words but idle breath.