CHAPTER I. CONCERNING THE ATKINSONS
It was five o'clock in the afternoon of a day in July, 1897 when the
Forrest brothers arrived in the well-sheltered yard of the Atkinson Farm,
situated in the southern spur of the line of hills which traverses the
central part of the province of Manitoba and which reaches down to within
ten miles of the great cross valley of the Assiniboine. The place was
twenty miles or so distant from the small city of Stockton, which formed
the centre of the famous wheat-district on both banks of the river; west
of the farm, a small town called Fisher Landing could be reached by a
drive of from five to six miles.
Somehow, perhaps by their air of being well-kept without being new,
the buildings surrounding the yard gave it the appearance of being a
place where a quiet, comfortable, and unhurried life was being lived.
Thus the white-painted house to the west, though a full two story structure,
seemed to recline rather than to loom; its horizontal dimensions being
in excess of the perpendicular ones. It was surrounded by a roomy, screened-in
veranda furnished with lounging chairs and tables of wicker work.
The brothers, though the Forrest place was less than a mile away, straight
north, had come in a buggy. In front of the large red barn, opposite
the house, Roland Atkinson, aged fifteen, twin brother of Kenneth, relieved
them of their horse.
"Never mind, Art," he said to the younger one who, on alighting, reached
for the traces to unhook them. "I've overalls on. Go right in. You'll
find father in the parlor, I believe." And he nodded to Jim, the older
brother.
Arthur and James Alvin were strangely unlike each other, Arthur, the
younger, being typically rural; James Alvin as typically urban. As a
matter of fact James Alvin, or Jim, as he was called by everybody, had,
for the first time in six years, only just come "home" after having spent
a lustrum1 in
foreign parts, chiefly in the large
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centres of California. Arthur was the smaller of the two; and though
he was not bad-looking, he was eclipsed by his brother's imposing figure
and flawless elegance. Jim was distinctly handsome.
The two brothers crossed the yard to the house and, Arthur leading,
entered as if they were at home. As a matter of fact, the invitation
to spend the evening and to have supper with the Atkinsons had been given
partly in honour of James Alvin who had not been seen in the district
for so long a time. Partly, however, it was due to the fact that Jane
Atkinson, the only daughter of the Atkinsons, six or seven years older
than the twins, had arrived home from the east where she had attended
college. She had, in the past, been a playmate of the brothers; yes,
being of exactly the same age as Arthur, she had gone to school with
him before she had been sent to town.
Mr. Atkinson was indeed in the parlor. He was a medium-sized man, spare
and slim, active as in the prime of life. His narrow head, covered with
short, grey hair, showed the delicate features and small, appressed ears
of a race of Englishmen used through generations to a life of useful
self-control; his face, enlivened by quick, grey eyes, was divided by
a short moustache, once dark-brown, now also tinged with grey. His movements
were quick and conveyed, in his address to others, the impression of
a studied courtesy. He had little, in his person, of the pioneer, nothing
of him in his clothes. He might have been a professional man in a city.
His speech was careful and precise. Whoever, having previously known
his two sons, the twins, met him for the first time, was greatly struck
by the fact that such a father should have such children; for one thing,
there was the great difference in the matter of size; for though Mr.
Atkinson was not exactly small, he carried himself as if he were; and
his two sons were distinctly overgrown.
The Forrest brothers shook hands and said a few words suitable to the
occasion. Mr. Atkinson had just invited them to be seated when Mrs. Atkinson
entered, tall, florid, good-looking, in spite of greying
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hair, and above all, overbearing. The appearance of the boys was
explained.
"Hello, Arthur," she greeted. "I'm glad you came. And this is Jim,
the prodigal son? Well, we are glad to see you once more in these parts
and hope we'll see more of you."
Her appearance accounted for various things. Physically preponderant,
she dwarfed her husband. Her manner, just a trifle underbred, betrayed
that, in the house, she considered herself the mistress. She was one
of those women who, in men averse to a life of conflict, call forth a
continual exercise of diplomacy and tact.
She was the daughter of a physician, born and raised in a small town
of the Ottawa valley. Her speech exhibited some English mannerisms -
the roll of the o, for instance picked up on a trip to the British Isles
and the channel Islands made a decade ago. Her husband, in her presence,
seemed to withdraw into his reserves; he became strangely immobile, as
if, in entering a room, he wished to give the other person, without saying
anything, the precedence.
She was still in the room, chatting away without sitting down, when,
as if to underline her side of the household, the twins entered, Roland
and Kenneth, laughing, noisy, pushing each other. Both were in overalls
as they had come from the stable.
Mrs. Atkinson glanced at them, sharply.
"Yes," Kenneth sang out, "I know, mother. Never mind. We'll strip that
off in a minute. Art's a farmer himself."
Mrs. Atkinson smiled. "Very well, then. Run along, boys."
They disappeared, laughing, noisy, pushing each other.
"Sit down, Arthur. Sit down, Jim," Mrs. Atkinson went on. "And how
is Miss Marlowe?" She sat down herself.
Miss Marlowe was the old, maiden aunt of the Forrest brothers who kept
house for Arthur.
The conversation proceeded along conventional lines, with that artificial
liveliness which disguises the lack of real interest.
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The parlor in which they were, large and roomy, betrayed by every feature
that it was in constant use. Cushions were largely in evidence, attesting
a love of comfort in keeping with English traditions. Three large floor-lamps
shed their light, mellowed by silken shades, over the deep arm-chairs
and a couch in the corner. Although it was still daylight outside, the
heavy curtains were drawn, as if to mark off this interior from the surrounding
world of wooded hills and fields crossed by sloughs.
Arthur who, as was natural under the circumstances, found himself somewhat
outside of things - he being a neighbour in constant touch with the Atkinsons,
was just wondering where Jane might be, for he had not seen her since
her return from the east, when the slide-doors in the west wall of the
room were pushed apart.
Like an apparition, the figure of a girl appeared in the opening. For
a moment she stood there, surveying the room; when her eye met her father's,
the ghost of a smile flitted over her features.
Jim and Arthur both looked at her. Both, almost noticeably, caught
their breath.
What, in her appearance and its effect on the beholder, made itself
felt first of all, was perhaps the impression that here stood a person
marked by fate. She merely needed to show herself in order to involve
even the most indifferent looker-on in a partisanship for or against:
he either liked her or disliked her profoundly; the reason being that,
at this stage of her life, Jane Atkinson seemed to be whatever she was
self-consciously. Perhaps this was no more than an impression; every
one of her movements seemed to be a pose held for a moment in order to
allow it to take effect. A second point, noticed almost as soon as the
first, so as to blend with it, consisted in the immediate knowledge,
intuitive and in no way inferred, that this girl reacted to such things
as entered her experience more deeply, more passionately than the average
person, and that, therefore, her destiny could not but be tragic. She
was a personality.
page 5
Only after these two impressions had been absorbed and, as it were,
tasted on the tongue for a moment, was it possible to look at her critically.
She was rather tall and, though exquisitely formed, not exactly slender.
Without imposing herself, as her mother did, she yet reminded of that
mother. Her hair, almost smooth, but not quite, was coal-black, and so
were her large eyes in which, however, the whites were prominent through
their ivory tint. Her face, with a fine, straight nose and a well-formed
mouth, was almost pallidly white; her lips, a scarlet red, showing in
the centre, between the curves, splendid teeth of the ivory tint in the
corners of her eyes. Her body was enfolded in a loose white gown of embroidered
batiste reaching down to the floor; its lines were relieved by a wide
sash of pale, greyed blue. She wore a large, blood-red rose pinned to
her bosom.
And, once your attention had been drawn to her appearance and its physical
details, you found certain things to wonder at. It seemed strange to
find in a being apparently so mature an almost conscious and defensive
virginity - a virginity which could not forget itself, which seemed to
be almost ostentatious. Sometimes it seemed as if she were composing
the features of her face for effect; the curve of her lips, for instance,
or the carriage of her head. At such moments, a frown seemed to flit,
not over her forehead, but in it, or through it, below the skin. It seemed
strange, also, to find a self-contained tragical consciousness in that
face, as of a presence within her, of something ruling her, some sovereign
principle which, in other people, could have existed only as an admixture
to other, more trivial things. She seemed, within her, to carry life
as a separate entity: as the vesta carried the flame.
She looked to be fully twenty-five years old; but you knew the moment
you saw her that she looked older than she was. She was one of those
rare people who, for a decade or two, hardly change in appearance, once
they have reached a certain development. In thinking of her
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and, once you had met her, you would not help thinking of her - you
might wonder how it was that this girl, with her at least striking,
perhaps captivating appearance, should have lived to such a full, physical
maturity without having been mated. Perhaps she was repelled by things
masculine, fated to become an old maid? Or was she created to receive
rather than to give? Or, finally, to dominate rather than to be ruled?
If you inclined towards the latter view, reflecting perhaps that she
was the daughter of her mother, you yet were troubled by the suspicion
that probably you were profoundly deceived.
At the precise moment when her brothers, the twins, re-entered, divested
of their overalls, behind Jim and Arthur who both had risen she stepped
forward to extend a long, slender hand in greeting to the guests of the
evening. Once more, as she greeted Arthur, that hidden, adumbrated,
intimate smile flitted over her features with which, half a minute ago,
her eye had lighted on that of her father. When she turned to Jim, it
was replaced by another smile, that of conventional courtesy. Yet, as
she stepped back, her look seemed to cling for a moment to Jim's, as
if surprised by something which she had not expected.
Behind her, a short, fat woman appeared in the other room and caught
Mrs. Atkinson's eye. At her mother's nod, Jane turned, saw Mrs. Hall
who assisted in the kitchen, and said, "I'll go, mother."
But Mrs. Atkinson had risen. "No, my dear. You stay. This is a young
people's night." And she followed Mrs. Hall through the dining room without
closing the slide-doors.
Jane sat down on the lounge near her father's chair.
Mr. Atkinson turned to Jim. "So you've been visiting with our good
neighbours to the south?"
"Yes ," Jim said. "I've been in California for the last few years."
"Well," Mr. Atkinson asked, "tell me, how did you find the Yankee?"
Kenneth laughed from the door where he still stood with his brother
- his mother's laugh. "Dad's on his favourite subject."
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Jim smiled. "He's busy as usual."
Mr. Atkinson who had laughed at his son's remark became serious again. "Too
busy to live," he nodded. "Does it get him anywhere?"
"Well," Jim hesitated, "they know how to go at a thing."
"No doubt," Mr. Atkinson agreed. "As you say, they know at least how
to keep themselves busy. They call us slow. But I sometimes wonder whether
we don't get more out of life after all."
"Their standard of living is higher."
The twins crowed. "Now you're getting it, dad!" - "Dad, you've met
your match this time!"
Mr. Atkinson laughed. Jane smiled. Mr. Atkinson, looking at Arthur,
nodded his head to the twins. "At their favourite pastime, are they not?
Baiting father."
Everybody laughed.
Then Mr. Atkinson turned back to Jim. "The point, to my mind, is this.
Not so much, whether their material living is better than ours; perhaps
it is; they have greater wealth - though they have the poor with them
as much as we; but whether their life, in a deeper sense, is of a higher
type; whether the price they pay for their physical well-being, in the
time and energy spent on it, in the vitality which it costs them, is
less than it is with us; so as to leave a greater margin for other things."
Jim pondered that. Even the boys seemed to hang on his answer. "Perhaps
not. But they get an immense amount of enjoyment out of business."
"No doubt," Mr. Atkinson agreed. "But is the enjoyment of as high or
as pure a type, intellectually and morally, as that which we, of the
older civilisations, extract from our intercourse with books, let me
say, or with nature, or with the past."
"Well," Jim said, "I have a great deal to say for them; I believe they
have much to teach us. I can't express it, perhaps..."
"I think I know what you mean. They are reconstructing the foundations,
page 8
the ground-work of life, on a higher level."
"Yes," Jim said, "I believe that is it."
"There, dad," one of the twins exclaimed, "now you've given the answer
to your question yourself."
Again Mr. Atkinson laughed, with a look at the boys who were still
standing at the door. Then he shook his head. "But a true standard of
life is not measured by the distance above ground of the foundation;
it is measured by the distance from that foundation to the roof overhead."
Jane shot a quick glance at him, penetrated by her smile.
He was intensely serious as he proceeded. "Not by the ease or abundance
with which we make our material living; but by the height to which our
thought soars above it."
During the whole conversation which, for another half hour, continued
to follow the same channel, Jane allowed her glance to rove from one
to the other of the five males engaged in debate. In this debate she
did not actively take part; but her look betrayed that she was weighing
and evaluating what was being said on both sides. Nothing needed to be
said to prove that between her and her father there was a bond of sympathy
stronger than that commonly existing between parent and child.
Then, coming with the effect of a re-intrusion of reality into the
world of the spirit, the slide-doors to the adjoining dining room - which
was now as brightly lighted as the parlor - were pushed fully aside;
and Mrs. Atkinson invited the assembly to enter for dinner.
A few minutes were taken up by the transfer. Mrs. Atkinson placed Jim
to her left and Arthur to her right. Next to Jim followed Kenneth and
Roland; next to Arthur, Jane. Mr. Atkinson sat opposite his wife, at
the foot of the table, where he carved.
Grace was said; and then the conversation revived along the same lines,
now taken part in by Mrs. Atkinson.
"Yes," she said. "A most interesting question. What is your opinion,
page 9
Jim?"
"I personally," said Jim, "like the United States. People seem to be
more alive, there."
"Quite so," Mrs. Atkinson agreed, flattening out opposition.
"They are more advanced. There is less of make-shift there."
"Oh," Mrs. Atkinson exclaimed, "but I do like make-shifts. Not to be
baffled by a difficulty. To find a way out. Always and without hesitation."
Jane smiled.
For once Arthur spoke. "Then we have it over the United States. Especially
in our western attempts at universal education."
"What have you to object to our education?" Mrs. Atkinson asked.
"Well," Arthur said, hesitating and embarrassed, "I have tried, during
the last few years, to delve a little along certain lines. It seems to
me that we attempt too much; so that even in our high schools we give
no more than a smattering of anything."
"But," Mrs. Atkinson said very seriously, "it seems to me that a smattering
in many things is just what we colonials need."
To her consternation, everybody around the table laughed.
"Quite a bon mot!" her husband said, catching his daughter's eye.
"But permit me," Mrs. Atkinson protested. "Permit me, Sidney! I frankly
acknowledge that I find it impossible to keep informed as to all the
new discoveries and inventions; but I do like popular magazines and summaries.
They give a smattering."
"Yes," Mr. Atkinson agreed. "They do that. And mostly it is a smattering
of misinformation misunderstood. That is another point against the Americans
with their five-foot shelves of the world's best books and their correspondence
courses. The next thing they'll do is to connect all homes by telephone
to some central station where lectures will be given, disseminating a
smattering of all knowledge throughout the country. They are more colonial,
in that respect, than we are. You might almost call them provincial."
page 10
"And a good thing that would be," Mrs. Atkinson said, not unamiably.
"I wish that scheme of yours would be carried out. I'd listen in every
night."
"Such knowledge," said her husband, "if it could be called by that
name, would be a barren thing, my dear."
Jim had been playing with his knife. "Of course," he said, "I know
only the west of the United States, Mrs. Atkinson. Naturally, things
are rather more advanced in the east. What you said about make-shifts
reminds me of a letter I recently had from a friend who went to New York.
He described a street scene. A man, it seems, in crossing a crowded thoroughfare,
had been knocked down by a street-car and was pinned under it. My friend,
fresh from the Canadian west, was ready to take his coat off and to start
demolishing the side of the car in order to free the man. He was prevented
from doing so and merely laughed at for his pains. The traffic was held
up for five minutes; the passengers in the car were asked to vacate it.
Then a huge motor truck appeared, with a derrick mounted on top; and
that derrick lifted one end of the street-car up till the man could be
removed. No make-shift there."
Kenneth and Roland had followed the story with glittering eyes; such
evidence of a material civilisation filled them with enthusiasm.
But their father was shaking his head. "Pardon me, Jim. Don't you think
your friend was fibbing?"
Jim hesitated. "To tell the truth, I don't. I find that sort of thing
altogether admirable. That is specialisation. Those who have carefully
studied street-car accidents will naturally be able to effect a rescue
vastly more speedily and less wastefully than it can be effected by any
mere make-shifts."
He had hardly ceased speaking when the twins began to crow, Mrs. Atkinson,
strangely, chiming in. "Come on, now, dad, " Roland said, laughing. "Acknowledge
for once that you were on the wrong track this time!"
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Jane, Jim, Arthur, and Mr. Atkinson himself burst out laughing.
For a moment confusion ruled. Nobody could have said any longer with
whom the honours rested in this verbal tussle; nor did anyone care to
establish the fact.
The conversation drifted into more indifferent channels.
Repeatedly, during the meal, Mrs. Hall had appeared from the kitchen,
to exchange plates or to serve new dishes. At last Mrs. Atkinson, however,
went herself to look to the dessert. Cake plates and fruit dishes were
stacked in front of Mr. Atkinson; his wife placed the large, cut-glass
bowl filled with sliced pine-apple, to his left.
"Don't wait for me, please," she said. "I'll be in again directly."
Mr. Atkinson dished out the fruit.
Jane turned to him. "Father!" she said with a look to the fruit dishes.
For, still absorbed in his thoughts, he had absent-mindedly begun to
place the sliced pine-apple on the cake plates on which the fruit dishes
were to stand. He, perceiving his mistake, laughed ruefully. "There won't
be room for the cream!" he said.
Roland, seeing his distress, tried to comfort him. Doesn't matter,
dad."
"Not a bit!" Kenneth seconded.
"Your mother won't think so!" Mr. Atkinson said.
And indeed, that moment his wife, re-entering, exclaimed, "Sidney!"
No more was said; but an air of embarrassment had fallen over the company.
When, an hour or so later, the re-adjournment to the parlor had taken
place, Jim had the strange feeling as if he had been sitting through
dinner under the probing, searching eye of the girl. In the dining room,
Jane and her mother helped Mrs. Hall to clear the table.
"Do you smoke, Jim?" Mr. Atkinson asked, producing a box of expensive
Egyptian cigarettes. "This happens to be my birth-day. I'll
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never see the easy side of fifty again. The boys gave me these for
a present. I am partial to them." And he withdrew with Jim to the veranda
where the last of daylight still lingered.
Arthur remained alone with the twins. Mr. Atkinson knew that he did
not smoke. They talked of the farm and its work.
Then Kenneth said enthusiastically. "I wish I'd seen as much of the
world as your brother."
And Roland added in a whisper, "I'm going to ship across that line
to the south as soon as I can."
"You bet," Kenneth said.
After awhile all assembled once more in the parlor. But they had hardly
taken their seats when the dogs in the yard began to bark; a moment later,
there was a knock at the outside door.
One of the twins slipped out. In the parlor, a general silence fell,
for everybody was listening, trying to make out who the late caller was.
Then Roland opened the door.
"Walk right in, Mr. Wortleby."
Mr. Atkinson rose, "Oh, it's you, Wortleby, is it?" he said, shaking
hands.
The new-comer glanced about at the circle of faces. "You've company," he
said. "No, I won't stay. I just dropped in on account of that school
business, A-A-Hatkinson."
He was medium-sized, of burly build, with a small, irregular moustache
in a round, red face. His movements were exaggeratedly apologetic; his
speech, as exaggeratedly incisive. He was unmistakably English, more
so than Mr. Atkinson even, though of an altogether different type. He
dropped his h's and, more strikingly, inserted one here and there after
having vainly endeavoured to pronounce a word beginning with a vowel
without it. Whenever he did so, he gave the impression as if, in finally
pronouncing the word - with its "h" all the more conspicuous for his
previous attempts to suppress it - he were pounding the fist of one hand
into the hollow palm of the other. He was
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of the peasant type and one of the most successful of the second
generation of settlers in the district, those who had followed the "remittance-men" of
whom Mr. Atkinson was the last survivor. Mr. Atkinson treated him with
a hardly noticeable shade of condescension. He was introduced to Jim.
Mrs. Atkinson urged him to stay and to sit down. "We must have your
opinion on the topic of the evening, Mr. Wortleby. My husband and Mr.
Forrest have been debating the relative merits of Canada and the United
States."
Instantly Mr. Wortleby dropped his air of embarrassment. Every muscle
in his body was taut. He bristled. "Hit's well known where Hi stand,
madam," he said. "Hi'll fight hannexation to the last drop. Did Hi ear
right? "As Goliath found a defender in Mr. Forrest?"
Everybody laughed; for he exaggerated his pugnacity to the point where
it became a parody of itself.
Jim turned to him with a smile. "The topic was really not so much Canada
versus the United States as material civilisation against - I hardly
know what."
Again Mr. Wortleby bristled. "Hi'm your man," he exclaimed. "Hi'm willing
to die on the battle-field." He was still standing. Mr. Atkinson touched
him on the shoulder and pointed to a chair. "Just a moment. Hi won't
take up the centre of the floor. But Hi'll stand - 'ére, hif you want
- till I've delivered myself of some of my a-a- hammunition." And he
assumed an oratorical attitude, balancing himself on the balls of his
feet, rising on tiptoe and coming down on his heels whenever he wanted
to give special emphasis to a word. "Ladies and Gentlemen, - the other
day one of those fellows called at my place, one of those - drummers,
I think they're called across the line. That man, Hi hassure you, had
the gift. 'E-'ad-the-gift! And he had the cheek. I was working in the
shop, and so I didn't mind. Hi-was-going-to' ear what he had to say.
I like to listen to that breed once in awhile and to con-found them,
yes, con-found them.
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So I went on with my work and let him talk. And what, do you think,
he wanted to sell me? Mark my word. He wanted to sell me a car. A gasoline
buggy. He was a clever chap, I must say. He talked for an hour at the
very least. And he knew his business, I'll admit, Before he had talked
himself out of breath, I seemed to understand that contraption from
radiator to tail-light. I can still explain it to you, I believe. Well,
hat last he stopped; and he laughed. 'Mr. Wortleby,' he said, 'you
can't hafford to be without the thing. The farmer needs a car even
more than the towns-man. I could talk on about its advantages till
Hi'm hout of gas.' At that I fixed my heye on 'is, hand, stepping forward,
like that." Mr. Wortleby jumped into the centre of the room, and, raising
the fist of his right hand high into the air, brought it down, at the
climax, into the palm of his left with a thump. "Hi said to 'im, 'Whenever
you're out of gas, let me know. Hi'll give you a kick in the carburetor.'"
Under general laughter Jim rose. "Mr. Wortleby," he said, "you intimated
that you were my man. I believe I am yours. Before another decade has
gone by, you'll be sitting behind a wheel and stepping on the gas yourself.
And, what is more, I am the man who is going to sell you your car."
What with Mr. Wortleby's laughter and the twins' applause, there was
an uproar.
Mr. Atkinson, from his corner, spoke up. "You know, Wortleby, I shouldn't
be surprised if Jim made that boast good."
To everybody's amazement, Mr. Wortleby veered around, said "Neither
should Hi," and sat down.
Naturally enough, the conversation turned, for awhile, to the new possibilities
in transportation which were just opening up at the time. Mr. Atkinson
held that it was a mere craze; and that crazes are bound to pass.
"It may be a craze," Jim said. "But it won't pass. At least not till
it has borne me to the crest like a wave."
page 15
That, for a moment seemed to put a stop to the discussion .
Then, unexpectedly, Mr. Wortleby struck a serious note. "It isn't a
question between Canada and the U.S.A.; it isn't even a question between
material civilisation and something else. I'll tell you what I think
is at the bottom of it. It is a question between rural and urban life."
"Hear, hear!" Mr. Atkinson said.
"It's this way," Mr. Wortleby went on. "More and more people press
into the cities and towns. It's an easier life there; a more varied life;
a life full of little entertainments and little thrills. In order to
live they must exert their ingenuity. They invent such a thing as a telephone.
Naturally, more and more people want it, once it has been invented. It
absorbs the available labour and cries for more. The city and the town
offer opportunities. The rush away from the land is a-a-haccelerated
in turn. And meanwhile, no matter what the economists say, the farmer's
got to feed the whole bunch." And, abandoning his serious note, shrugging
his shoulders and almost dancing on the balls of his feet, "Big industry's
a huge hole in the ground. And people jump in; and they'll go on jumping
in till they, refilled the hole."
This brought the burst of laughter on which the speaker had counted.
"What will become of the farmer?" Mr. Atkinson asked.
"There'll be less and less farmers till it comes to the point of famine.
Then the price of grain will soar; and there will be a rush for the land."
"Well," Mr. Atkinson said, "before it comes to that, the farmer will
go on a buyer's strike."
"No," Mr. Wortleby exclaimed, laughing and rising once more. "For,
as a buyer, the farmer is just as crazy as all the rest."
This led to the breaking up of the company.
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