?"

"Now you are shifting your ground," I said, "from the question of
personal satisfaction to that of duty. That concerns me, too. Let me ask
you: Isn't it important to society that this piece of earth be plowed
and cultivated?"

"Yes, but----"

"Isn't it honest and useful work?"

"Of course."

"Isn't it important that it shall not only be done, but well done?"

"Certainly."

"It takes all there is in a good man," I said, "to be a good farmer."

"But the point is," he argued, "might not the same faculties applied to
other things yield better and bigger results?"

"That is a problem, of course," I said. "I tried money-making once--in a
city--and I was unsuccessful and unhappy; here I am both successful and
happy. I suppose I was one of the young men who did the work while some
millionnaire drew the dividends." (I was cutting close, and I didn't
venture to look at him). "No doubt he had his houses and yachts and went
to Europe when he liked. I know I lived upstairs--back--where there
wasn't a tree to be seen, or a spear of green grass, or a hill, or a
brook: only smoke and chimneys and littered roofs. Lord be thanked for
my escape! Sometimes I think that Success has formed a silent conspiracy
against Youth. Success holds up a single glittering apple and bids Youth
strip and run for it; and Youth runs and Success still holds the apple."

John Starkweather said nothing.

"Yes," I said, "there are duties. We realise, we farmers, that we must
produce more than we ourselves can eat or wear or burn. We realise that
we are the foundation: we connect human life with the earth. We dig and
plant and produce, and having eaten at the first table ourselves, we
pass what is left to the bankers and millionnaires. Did you ever think,
stranger, that most of the wars of the world have been fought for the
control of this farmer's second table? Have you thought that the surplus
of wheat and corn and cotton is what the railroads are struggling to
carry? Upon our surplus run all the factories and mills; a little of it
gathered in cash makes a millionnaire. But we farmers, we sit back
comfortably after dinner, and joke with our wives and play with our
babies, and let all the rest of you fight for the crumbs that fall from
our abundant tables. If once we really cared and got up and shook
ourselves, and said to the maid: 'Here, child, don't waste the crusts:
gather 'em up and to-morrow we'll have a cottage pudding,' where in the
wo