It was the sullen inertia of the mob, conscious of power. Men did not care whether they worked at all. If they chose to work, mills and factories would pay them enough in three days to permit them to remain idle the remainder of the week. No farmer could pay the swollen wages demanded for field labour, and survive financially. Every village was full of idle louts who sneered at offered employment. Fruit rotted in orchards, grain remained uncut, cattle stood neglected. The great American loafer leered at the situation. The very name of Labour stank. It stinks still. The Great American Ass has made the term a stench in the nostrils of civilisation. * * * * * The next year mills and factories began to lay off labour. Odell and Lister scraped together a few sulky field hands, mainly incompetents, men who had spent all their wages. Fields were sullenly tilled, crops gathered, cattle cared for. Except for profiteers, reaction had set in. War profligacy, asinine finance, crushing taxes already were doing their work. Rather than pay for feed, farmers sold their stock. The demand for pork started everybody hog-raising. Prices fell; loss followed. Then stagnation. It was the bitter aftermath of war--the deluge. Dead water. Only one star of hope glimmered over the waste,--the New Administration. * * * * * Spring was a month early that year. Odell, at sixty, unimpaired by pie and the great American frying pan, his gaitered legs planted sturdily in the new grass, looked out over his domain and chewed a clover stem. “I ain’t afraid,” he said to Lister. “I’m going the hull hog. Every acre.” “Where’s your help?” remonstrated Lister. “I got ’em.” “Some on ’em is quitters. They’ll lay down on yeh, Elmer.” Odell spat out the clover stem: “Every acre, Ed!” he repeated. “And six cows on test.” “We ain’t got the help----” “Six cows,” growled Odell; “White Lady, Snow Queen, Silver Maid, Thistledown, Milkweed Lass, and Whitewater Lily.... I gotta make money. I’m aimin’ to and I’m a-going to. I got four sons. And that’s that!” “Elmer----” “Awright. I know all what you gonna say, Ed. But where does it get you to go around with a face a foot long? How’s things to start unless somebody starts ’em? Awright, prices is bad. You can’t sell a pure-breed caaf in this dinged country. There isn’t no market for a fancy heifer. Everybody’s breedin’ Holsteins ’n’sloshin’ around after grades. Awright; nobody wants Guernsey quality; everybody wants Holstein bulk ’n’watery milk ’n’everything. I know. And my answer is, _every acre_, Ed; and six cows on test; and higher prices on every danged caaf that’s dropped. “If I sell a heifer it’s a favour to be paid for through the nose. And I feed every bull-caaf and no vealin’ this year. Enough hogs to turn out till October; not another danged snout! If the Bank don’t see me through I’ll blow it up. Now, g’wan and make your plans.”