Yet, notwithstanding the fertility of the Shefelah, its rich fields and olive groves, its plentiful and well-watered pasture lands, the farmers in the entire section, had to live from hand to mouth. Though they labored hard at their toil, they were, in fact, poor and unable to lay aside anything for a rainy day. It was very difficult to become reconciled to such a condition of affairs. No one seemed interested enough to fathom the reason for it, except a certain young peasant, named Micah, who had a home in the town of Moresheth, and was the proud possessor of several well-paying olive groves and vineyards in the vicinity. Micah's interest in the population was aroused, one day, when the widow of one of his neighbors came to him for advice. Her husband had owned a farm, adjoining one of Micah's pastures, on which there was a heavy mortgage. Now that the head of the family was gone, the merchant in Jerusalem, who held the mortgage, threatened to eject the widow and the children, because they could neither pay the amount borrowed nor the interest due thereon. The sturdy young peasant, brought up in a home of severe simplicity, where gentleness and kindness were taught and practiced, pitied the woman and her children in their sad plight and loaned her the needed interest payment to stave off ejection from her home. Thereafter, he looked after her family until the oldest son was able to manage his own affairs. Talking to some of his day-laborers he discovered a very amazing situation. He found that most of them had, at one time or another, owned their farms, but had lost possession of them through lawsuits, in which mortgage holders from Jerusalem had involved them, or through unjust treatment on the part of tax collectors and corrupt judges. More amazing still was the knowledge that, all through the Shefelah, the majority of vineyards and olive groves were not owned by those who cultivated them, at all, but that they formed the vast estates of the princes and wealthy men of Jerusalem. The beautiful and fertile Shefelah, then, was not the habitation of happy and contented tillers of the soil, who sang at their tasks and prided themselves upon their independence! It was in the heavy grip of a _land trust_, controlled by the great interests in the capital! This knowledge caused Micah to enter upon his investigations with greater interest and deeper feeling. He discovered that the nobility and the rich were fattening upon the sweat and toil of the rural and working population. A farmer thrown into debt was sure to lose his acres, and a wage earner, having no possessions that could be taken from him, was sure to lose his liberty. Widows and orphans were quickly robbed of their inheritances by the greedy land-grabbers of the metropolis, aided by a corrupt judiciary.