"What do you need?" he asked.

"Seventy-five hundred dollars in cash."

He smiled.

"Have a lawyer examine the abstract to the property, and if it is all
right come back to me."

In two days I was back. The title to the house was clear. He smiled
again, and handed me his check for the amount, with not a scratch of
the paper between us.

I suggested something of that sort to him.

"The important thing is to get the house," he said. "When that is done
and you have the deed to it and the papers all fixed up, you come back
and we'll fix up our little matter." And that is how it was done.

So into our present home we moved. We had a bigger and a better and a
costlier dwelling place. We were climbing upward. But we were also
beginning once more with just a house. Just a house--but founded on a
mighty purpose! It was to become home to us, even more dearly loved than
the one we were leaving.

For four years it has grown in our affections. Hope has been ours. We
have lived and laughed and sung and progressed.... But we have also wept
and grieved.