"Once I lived in Paris. To me, at my trade of wigmaker, comes the man Duer, of the Scioto Company, dealers in land American. I am then of the restlessness of youth. To work at a living is a matter uninteresting. That horror of all horrors--the Reign of Terror--approaches." He glared fiercely and made a gesture of cutting his throat. "To escape its mad mob of hungry-driven guillotinists I seek a land where successful revolutionists like the Americans enjoy liberty restrained." His whole quivering body expressed utter fear resulting from the "freedom" of the French Revolution. "When the Scioto Company's agent offers us land in this saner Republic so prosperous, scores of us small tradesmen give him our savings in exchange for paper titles to New World estates. Gladly we leave that disturbed kingdom. Gladly we come to this." Here the little man danced a few steps of derision, jeered at his own cabin, and snapped his fingers at the landscape. "Land is a good thing," declared practical Doby. "You got land, didn't you?" "By the truth, no! Our titles, you understand, are of a badness unbelievable. We are ruined. Swindle is the name of it. Voyaging through discomforts numerous and cuisine scant, by ocean, by forest, by mountain, by stream, in that long ago, we have arrived." He raised his eyebrows in a grimace. "The land is not ours, but that of another. Like lambs we are shorn by that Duer American. We cannot pluck sugar from the trees of maple as is promised us. We cannot light the candles of the barberry-bush as is also promised. To live we must have agriculture. Agriculture is an art. We know it not. For me, I am a wigmaker. That is my art. Behold!" He threw out ten fingers to cover the case. "In ignorance of agriculture we starve; we freeze. Some die. Some wander away." Doby sat down beside him to express sympathy. Mr. Holman gave his whole attention to the tale. "Seeing us about to perish, the United States, in pity, gives us this land. It is the French Grant, in that year of the famine which is worse than all other bad times, of the date 1790." "How many acres?" asked Doby, who every day talked about land values with all sorts of emigrants. "Of the number of forty thousand." "Forty thousand acres make a big grant," cried Doby, much relieved by his country's bit of justice toward these men. "A large colony can live well on that much land." "Ha!" shrugged Ol' Pap Soisson. "With that we take courage. By day we learn the so necessary agriculture. By night we fiddle, step to measure, sing the 'Marseillaise.' On Sunday, to preserve respect to ourselves and to honor the Virgin, we say a mass and make a toilette of fashionable attire." Doby stared. "Do you mean to tell me that you dressed up in your city wigs and furbelows? In the wilderness?" he demanded.