“Look here,” I broke in, glad of a chance to express some of the things I had been thinking over for the last few months. “Look here, boy, do you realize what as a business proposition this village is? It’s a big unused plant in which thousands of dollars have been invested, and it’s lying idle next door to a market crying for its products. If you saw a big factory building all equipped and standing idle, with labor loafing around the doors, with its books filled with orders, you’d jump in, wouldn’t you? Well, that’s exactly what this village is. Small as it is, you’ve only to look at the assessor’s books to find that over a million dollars is invested here in lands and another half million in buildings. There are over eight hundred voters in town and not a hundred of them are making more than a bare living out of this investment. It’s safe to say that not a quarter of one per cent. is being made on this big capital. And yet within a team drive of us there’s a market so large that it’s bringing its produce at a profit some three thousand miles. It’s not only bringing it there, but it’s bringing it into this very town.” “But look here, Dad,” Dick interrupted, “you don’t own the town, you know.” “But I own part of it,” I said, “and I intend to help operate the rest.” “I don’t know how,” he said. “Besides it’s been tried and the business hasn’t paid.” “What about Dardoni?” I asked. “That’s so.” “I’m not going to undertake anything that isn’t being done to-day right under our noses. It’s as true as gospel preaching that these old-world pioneers are going to own this village and utilize to the fullest these opportunities unless we do ourselves. What is true here is true of all New England. That isn’t a cry of wolf when there is no wolf, either; it’s the sober truth. These fellows are going at their work right. It isn’t luck with them. You can’t say that New York is owned by Jews because Hebrews are a lucky race. They are the unluckiest race on the face of the earth. They own New York because they are a pioneer race. And because of this they are going to own more than New York if we Americans don’t wake up.” “By George, you’re right, Dad,” exclaimed Dick. “What is more, they deserve all they get. They’ve worked and sacrificed for every cent of it.” “Exactly as our ancestors did when they were adventurers in a new land,” I said. “It gets back again to the pioneer idea. This country with its institutions no longer belongs to the people who made it. It’s being made all over again and it belongs to those who are helping in the new making.” “Right! Right! But what you want to do is to get out and preach this. You’ve worked hard, Dad, and it’s time you had a rest.” “There’s been preaching enough, Dick,” I said, “and as for rest--a man doesn’t rest at my age by doing nothing.” “Then what’s your scheme?” “To make my own farm pay and then to help my neighbors make their farms pay.”