"There's no gold to be picked up in the streets there, any more than
here," said the old woman, "and if there was, it would be no use to
you. Only suppose, now, that you had picked up all the gold you could
carry, and that you wanted to buy a loaf of bread with it. And suppose
you went into a baker's shop and chose even the smallest loaf of bread
you could find, and threw down a whole gold sovereign for it--aye, or
a hundred gold sovereigns. Would the baker sell you the bread for your
gold, do you think? Wouldn't he say to you: 'Go on out of this, for
the silly Irishman that you are! What for would I be giving you good
bread for that gold of yours, when I can pick up as much and as good
as that any minute here before my own door and keep my bread as well?'
If you could find gold in the street, it would be worth no more than
the stones that you find there."

"I don't know how that is, Mrs. O'Brien," said Peter, "but I can't see
why goold wouldn't be goold, wherever you could find it."

"It's not sensible," said John, "to be talkin' of findin' gold in the
streets, but there's a deal in what Peter says, for all that, and it's
often I've thought, too, that I'ld go to the States and be away from
all these throubles, if only we could save up the money to take us all
there. It's not any gold or any riches I'm thinkin' about, but what I
want to know, mother, is this: Could a man in the States, if he was
strong and if he worked hard--and if he didn't drink a great
deal--could he make enough to keep himself and his wife both, so that
she needn't work too hard--not so that she would sit idle, I don't
mean, but so that she needn't be doin' hard work and doin' it all the
time--could he do that?"

"That's the sensible and the honest talk," said his mother; "he could
do that. Those that do nothing get nothing, in the States the same as
anywhere else. But I've talked with them that know, and they tell me
that in the States those that will work are paid for their work, and
those that are strong and industrious and honest can keep their
families from want, and that's more than some can do here, God help
them!"

"It would be a great thing," said John, speaking slowly, as if he were
trying to make himself believe this dream of a land where a man's work
could make his wife and his children sure of a home and food--"a great
thing. And do you think, mother--but no, no--I suppose not--do you
think, if we was once there--do you think th