r that heeds him and his neighbors not a whit.

All this insults his conservatism. The old way was the established order
of the universe: to change it is fairly impious. What is the good of all
this fuss and fury? That fifty-story building they tell about, in their
big city--what is it but another Tower of Babel? And these silly,
stuck-up strangers who brag and brag about "modern improvements"--what
are they, under their fine manners and fine clothes? Hirelings all.
Shrewdly he observes them in their relations to each other.--

"Each man is some man's servant; every soul
Is by some other's presence quite discrowned."

Proudly he contrasts his ragged self: he who never has acknowledged a
superior, never has taken an order from living man, save as a patriot in
time of war. And he turns upon his heel.

Yet, before he can fairly credit it as a reality, the lands around his
own home are bought up by corporations. All about him, slash, crash, go
the devastating forces. His old neighbors vanish. New and unwelcome ones
swarm in. He is crowded, but ignored. His hard-earned patrimony is
robbed of all that made it precious: its home-like seclusion,
independence, dignity. He sells out, and moves away to some uninvaded
place where he "will not be bothered."

"I don't like these improve_ments_," said an old mountaineer to me.
"Some calls them 'progress,' and says they put money to circulatin'. So
they do; but _who gits it_?"

There is a class of highlanders more sanguine, more adaptable, that
welcomes all outsiders who come with skill and capital to develop their
country. Many of these are shrewd traders in merchandise or in real
estate, or they are capable foremen who can handle native labor much
better than any strangers could. Such men naturally profit by the
change.

Others, deluded by what seems easy money, sell their little homesteads
for just enough cash to set them up as laborers in town or camp. Being
untrained to any trade, they can get only the lowest wages, which are
quickly dissipated in rent and in foods that formerly they raised for
themselves. Unused to continuous labor, they irk under its discipline,
drop out, and fall into desultory habits. Meantime false ambitions
arise, especially among the womenfolk. Store credit soon runs such a
family in debt.

"When I was a young man," said one of my neighbors, "the traders never
thought of bringin' meal in here. If a man run out of meal, why, he was
_out_, and