in you. I expect your own way of life suits you best." Mrs.
Ericson had dropped into a blandly agreeable tone which Nils well
remembered. It seemed to amuse him a good deal and his white
teeth flashed behind his pipe. His mother's strategies had
always diverted him, even when he was a boy--they were so flimsy
and patent, so illy proportioned to her vigor and force.
"They've been waiting to see which way I'd jump," he reflected.
He felt that Mrs. Ericson was pondering his case deeply as she
sat clicking her needles.

"I don't suppose you've ever got used to steady work," she went on
presently. "Men ain't apt to if they roam around too long. It's
a pity you didn't come back the year after the World's Fair. Your
father picked up a good bit of land cheap then, in the hard times,
and I expect maybe he'd have give you a farm. it's too bad you put
off comin' back so long, for I always thought he meant to do
something by you."

Nils laughed and shook the ashes out of his pipe. "I'd have
missed a lot if I had come back then. But I'm sorry I didn't get
back to see father."

"Well, I suppose we have to miss things at one end or the
other. Perhaps you are as well satisfied with your own doings,
now, as you'd have been with a farm," said Mrs. Ericson
reassuringly.

"Land's a good thing to have," Nils commented, as he lit
another match and sheltered it with his hand.