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Updated: May 23, 2025
His scepter is not the rifle, but the hoe." For all his life, Asher Aydelot never forgot his mother's face, nor the sound of her low prophetic words on that moonlit night on the shadowy veranda of his childhood home. "You are right, mother. I don't want to fight any more. It must be the soil that is calling me back to the West, the big, big West! And I mean to go when the time comes.
"Well, he certainly can do more for his children than some of those who went to this war can do for their fathers," Francis Aydelot declared. "Suppose I was helpless and poor now, what could you do for me?" There was no attempt at reply, and the father went on: "I have prepared your work for you. You must begin it at once.
There were no forests to lay waste here, nor marshes to be drained. Instead, forests must be grown and waters conserved. What Francis Aydelot with the Clover Valley community had struggled to overcome on the Ohio frontier, his son, Asher, with other settlers now strove to develop in Kansas.
They must be servant some day." "Amen!" responded Asher Aydelot, and the Sabbath service ended. Two weeks later Darley Champers came again to the barren valley and met the settlers in the sod schoolhouse. Not a cloud had yet scarred the heavens, not a dewdrop had glistened in the morning sunlight. Clearly, August was outranking July as king of a season of glaring light and withering heat.
"I'll be in better shape inside of two days to tell you something definite. I wish Carey was here. Do you know where he got the money he loaned you?" "I never asked him," Leigh answered. "He borrowed it of Miss Jane Aydelot of Cloverdale, Ohio."
Francis Aydelot had crossed the Alleghanies and settled in Ohio in frontier days. Here his life, like his narrow, woods-bound farm, was clean and open but narrowed by surroundings and lack of opportunity. What had made for freedom and reform in his ancestors, in him became prejudice and stubborn will. Mrs. Aydelot was a broad-minded woman. Something of vision was in her clear gray eyes.
The mortgage for the loan was given to Horace Carey, as agreed upon between himself and Miss Jane Aydelot. "If Leigh knows it's Aydelot money she might feel like she's taking what should be Thaine's. Would the Aydelots feel the same if they knew it?" Miss Jane had asked. "The thing the Aydelots have never grieved for is this Ohio inheritance," Carey answered her.
The subdued tones of evening held all the scene, save where a group of tall sunflowers stood up to catch the last light of day full on their golden shields. "We are here at last, Mrs. Aydelot. Welcome to our neighborhood!" Asher said bravely as the team halted. Virginia sat still on the wagon seat, taking in the view of sunset sky and twilight prairie. "This is our home," she murmured.
The young artist involuntarily drew a deep breath that was half a sigh and stooped to pick up her fallen brushes. But she dropped them again with a glad cry. Far across the lake, in the leaf-checkered sunshine, Thaine Aydelot stood smiling at her. "Shall I stay here and spoil your landscape or come around and shake hands?" he called across to her.
I can begin now," Virginia said lightly. But for all her courage, she watched him drive away with a sob in her throat. In all the universe there was nothing save a glaring sunlight and an endless cringing of yellow, wind-threshed grass. Asher Aydelot had come here with half a dozen other young fellows, all of whom took up claims along Grass River.
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