Big Poker Site hazard of new fortunes 38

from the Standard Oil or not; hes going to sell and get the better of the other fellow if he can. Dryfoos couldnt keep the boom out of has own family even. His wife was with him. She thought whatever he said and did was just as right as if it had been thundered down from Sinai. But the young folks were sceptical, especially the girls that had been away to school. The boy that had been kept at home because he couldnt be spared from helping his father manage the farm was more like him, but they contrived to stir the boy up--with the hot end of the boom, too. So when a fellow came along one day and offered old Dryfoos a cool hundred thousand for his farm, it was all up with Dryfoos. Hed a liked to a kept the offer to himself and not done anything about it, but his vanity wouldnt let him do that; and when he let it out in his family the girls outvoted him. They just made him sell. "He wouldnt sell all. He kept about eighty acres that was off in some piece by itself, but the three hundred that had the old brick house on it, and the big barn--that went, and Dryfoos bought him a place in Moffitt and moved into town to live on the interest of his money. Just What he had scolded and ridiculed everybody else for doing. Well, they say that at first he seemed like he would go crazy. He hadnt anything to do. He took a fancy to that land-agent, and he used to go and set in his office and ask him what he should do. I haint got any horses, I haint got any cows, I haint got any pigs, I haint got any chickens. I haint got anything to do from sun-up to sun-down. The fellow said the tears used to run down the old fellows cheeks, and if he hadnt been so busy himself he believed he should a cried, too. But most o people thought old Dryfoos was down in the mouth because he hadnt asked more for his farm, when he wanted to buy it back and found they held it at a hundred and fifty thousand. People couldnt believe he was just homesick and heartsick for the old place. Well, perhaps he was sorry he hadnt asked more; thats human nature, too. "After a while something happened. That land-agent used to tell Dryfoos to get out to Europe with his money and see life a little, or go and live in Washington, where he could be somebody; but Dryfoos wouldnt, and he kept listening to the talk there, and all of a sudden he caught on. He came into that fellows one day with a plan for cutting up the eighty acres hed kept into town lots; and hed got it all plotted out so-well, and had so many practical ideas about it, that the fellow was astonished. He went right in with him, as far as Dryfoos would let him, and glad of the chance; and they were working the thing for all it was worth when I struck Moffitt. Old Dryfoos wanted me to go out and see the Dryfoos & Hendry Addition--guess he thought maybe Id write it up; and he drove me out there himself. Well, it was funny to see a town made: streets driven through; two rows of shadetrees, hard and soft, planted; cellars dug and houses put up-regular Queen Anne style, too, with stained glass-all at once. Dryfoos apologized for the streets because they were hand-made; said they expected their street-making machine Tuesday, and then they intended to push things." Fulkerson enjoyed the effect of his picture on March for a moment, and then went on: "He was mighty intelligent, too, and he questioned me up about my business as sharp as I ever was questioned; seemed to kind of strike his fancy; I guess he wanted to find out if there was any money in it. He was making money, hand over hand, then; and he never stopped speculating and improving till hed scraped together three or four hundred thousand dollars, they said a million, but they like round numbers at Moffitt, and I guess half a million would lay over it comfortably and leave a few thousands to spare, probably. Then he came on to New York." Fulkerson struck a match against the ribbed side of the porcelain cup that held the matches in the

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