re will be any quantity
of potatoes and cabbage and beans."

"And yet people starved everywhere, and it seemed to me that the
farmers were the worst off of all."

"They farmed to make money, not to live, and they had no control over
the markets. They had to sell or build barns. It is only Dives who can
afford to tear down the old ones and build greater. It was easier for
them to sell cheap to a man who took their wheat and held it until it
could be sold back to them as dear flour. They were eaten up with
mortgages and pests and interest. Have you noticed that there are
almost no insects here, not even flies and mosquitoes? They were never
so bad in the mountains, and apparently they have been wiped out with
the rest."

"Truly, Adam," she said, "speaking just of the physical part of it,
would you regret this year?"

He stood up and stretched out his arms, a splendid type of manhood,
smooth-shaven, with clear-cut features, bronzed, square-shouldered,
and powerful.

"Oh, you are magnificent!" she cried involuntarily. "It has done you
good, great good. You are twice the man you were in strength and
health and resource; and if only we had been cast away on an island,
knowing we were sure to be rescued some day soon, I should not be
sorry at all."

He colored and answered frankly: "Without the mental strain, I should
not regret this year. Sometimes, when I am sure it is a dream, and
that presently we shall waken, I can't help wondering whether we shall
not wish we had fretted less and enjoyed it more. When I come to think
of it, I believe it is the first time since I was a child that ways
and means have not troubled me. It was a good thing to work as we
have, to keep our minds employed, but now that we are sure that
starvation is five or six years away, we might as well drop the old,
headlong rush to get more than we need. That has been the trouble ever
since men began to make history. It was the same thing,--power,
conquest, riches, everything; too much to eat, too much to drink, too
much to wear--"

"Well, you can't say that of us," said Robin ruefully, looking down at
her made-over gown.

"Well, perhaps not, and I don't mean that there ever was a time when
there was a general surfeit, but I mean that was the tendency. There
would have been plenty for all, if part had not taken more than their
share; as for the other part who had not enough, they only longed for
the opportunity to simulate their unwise betters.