Ten Thousand a Year 261 



tenant is usually a very careless man in the house 

 set apart for his use. Windows get broken; doors 

 get off the hinges; queer things accumulate in 

 corners; weeds grow about the house, and the 

 whole place has a shiftless appearance. Just how 

 Neville managed to prevent all this was his secret. 

 ''I put the responsibility on the other man, ** would 

 have been his explanation. He supplied an attrac- 

 tive house and expected the man and his family to 

 keep it so. He was always willing to make neces- 

 sary repairs, to paper, paint, and to improve so far 

 as was reasonable. His spirit was contagious and 

 all who worked for him or with him caught it and 

 carried it into their work. 



Yet he found many critics. Some complained 

 of his hrusquerie and independence, of his insist- 

 ence on petty details, of his being unnecessarily 

 particular, of his exacting the pound of flesh; of 

 his secret relations with commission houses, rail- 

 road presidents, politicians, farming-tool agents; 

 of his prosperity. I think that at heart the trouble 

 with Neville was that nobody else in the Valley 

 knew just how to do as he did. Year after year, for 

 upwards of half a century, he prospered. He never 

 seemed anxious to get rich, yet he was truly the 

 richest man in the Valley. He never volunteered 

 advice, yet no man was asked for more. He never 

 commented on his neighbors* omissions or commis- 

 sions as fruit-growers, yet all the Valley kept an 

 eye on his procedure. He never made a speech in 

 public, never would accept office, and only towards 



