"You'll starve the two of us, that's all you'll do. Nobody else will stop work." The farmer turned to his wife. "Yes, they will. Everywhere a farmer is the same. He works the land. He reads the papers. He votes. He listens to the radio. He watches the television. Mostly, he works the land. Alone, with his own thoughts and ideas. He isn't any different in Maine than he is in Oregon. We've all stopped work. Now. This morning." "How about those across the ocean? Are they stopping, too? They're not going to feed up their soldiers? To kill us if we don't starve first? To--" "They stopped, too. A farmer is a farmer. Like a leaf on a tree. No matter on what tree in what country on whose land. A leaf is a leaf. A farmer's the same. A farmer is a farmer." "It won't work," the woman said dully. "Yes, it will." "They'll _make_ you work." "How? It's our own property." "They'll take it away from you." "Who'll work it then?" The woman rocked in her chair, her mouth quivering. "They'll get somebody." The farmer shook his head. "Too many people doing other things, like making shells and guns, like sitting in fox-holes or flying planes." The woman sat rocking, her hands together in her lap. "It won't work," she repeated. "It'll work," said the farmer. "Right _now_, it'll work. Yes, we've got milkers and shuckers, and we've got hatchers for the chickens. We've got tractors and combines and threshing machines. They're all mechanical, all right. But we don't have mechanical farmers, yet. The pumps, the tractors, the milkers don't work by themselves. In time, maybe. Not now. We're still ahead of them on that. It'll work." "Go out to the fields, Henry," his wife said, her voice like the sound of a worn phonograph record. "No," the farmer said, taking a pipe from his overalls. "I think instead, I'll just sit in the sun and watch the corn. Watch the birds on top of the barn, maybe. I'll fill my pipe and sit there and smoke and watch. And when I get sleepy, I'll sleep. After a while I might go see August Brown or Clyde Briggs or maybe Alfred Swanson. We'll sit and talk, about pleasant things, peaceful things. We'll wait." The farmer put the pipe between his teeth and walked to the door. He put on his straw hat, buttoned the sleeves of his blue shirt and stepped outside. His wife sat at the table, staring at nothing in the room. The farmer walked across the barnyard, listening to the sound of the chickens and the sound of the breeze going through the corn. Near the barn, he sat upon an old tree stump and filled his pipe with tobacco. He lit the pipe, cupping his hands, and sat there, smoking, the smoke spiraling up into the bright warm air. He took his pipe from his teeth and looked at it. "Pipe of peace," he said, laughing inside himself. The breeze was soft and the sun warm on his back. He sat there, smoking, feeling the quiet of the morning, the peace of the great sky above.