Then he noticed Jake, who had been to the settlement, crossing the clearing with some letters in his hand. He gave them to Mr. Oliver, who pulled his team up and sat still for some minutes reading them. After that he stepped out and walked toward the boys.
"You might take the team along, Harry, and put the kettle on the stove," he said. "We'll have supper as soon as it's ready."
Harry moved away and Mr. Oliver leaned against a neighboring stump with his eyes fixed thoughtfully on Frank.
"I've a letter from your mother," he said. "She wants to know if I'm satisfied with you." He paused a moment and added with a smile: "That's a question I think I can answer in the affirmative."
"Then," Mr. Oliver continued, "she goes into one or two other matters on which she seems to want my opinion. In the first place, somebody has offered to find you an opening in the office of a Philadelphia business firm. You'll have to decide about it, and it seems to me that the choice is rather a big one. You see, if you stay out here ranching two or three years it will probably spoil you for a business life in the eastern cities."
Frank thought hard for a minute or two. There was no doubt that ranching, when it included clearing land, as it generally seemed to do, was remarkably arduous work. In the case of a man with little money it evidently meant almost incessant toil, for it was only by persistent effort that one could chop and saw up the great trees and grub the stumps out. Still, he was growing fond of it, and, what was more, he was conscious that he was gaining a resolution and muscular vigor that in all probability he would never have acquired in the crowded cities.
Finally he looked up. "I don't think I would care to go back to them now," he said.
Mr. Oliver nodded gravely. "Your mother doesn't seem to think a great deal of this opening, but, on the other hand, you want to bear in mind that if you expect to make money in ranching you must be able to invest it. Raising cattle and fruit for sale is a trade, and a trader gets no more than a certain interest on his money and the wages which an equally capable managing clerk or foreman in the same profession would receive. There are few respectable businesses in which that interest is a very big one. As the result of this, the trader must be content with a little unless he has the money to earn him more."