'll stay right here."

Mrs. Farnshaw gave a despairing, "Oh!" and covered her face with her hands
to strangle back her tears. Her one hope had been that poverty would
accomplish what the flax had failed to do.

"Why--I thought you said there'd be nothin' t' feed an' you'd have t',"
said a man whose shaggy whiskers had not seen a comb that year. "What'll
you do? You can't see things starve!"

"I thought you was strong for goin'. What'll you do with all your stock?"
another said, and all bent forward and waited for his answer as if he
could find a way out of the tangle for them.

"That's just it." Again he paused, enjoying the suspense that his silence
created. Mr. Farnshaw was not popular, but he had more stock than all his
simple neighbours put together and was conscious that money, or its
equivalent, had weight. "That's just it," he repeated to add emphasis to
his opinion. "What is a man to do? You folks that have nothin' but your
teams an' wagons can load th' family in an' get away. How'd I feel 'bout
th' time that I got t' th' Missouri River if I knowed all them hogs an'
cattle was layin' around here too weak t' get up cause they hadn't been
fed?"

He dropped his argument into the midst of them and then sat back and
enjoyed its effect. He had intended to go till ten minutes previous. The
argument sounded good to him now, however. It put him on a higher basis
with himself, in spite of the fact that it had only popped into his head
while he was clicking his knife blade. He conceived a new liking for
himself. "No, sir," he continued; "I'll stay by it."

"I don't see as your stayin' helps anything if you ain't got nothin' t'
feed," was the reiterated objection.

"Well," Mr. Farnshaw replied, careful not to look in his wife's direction,
"I was for goin' at first, but I've listened t' you folks an' I've come t'
th' conclusion that you ain't goin' t' better yourselves any. If you go
East, You'll have t' come back here in th' spring, or live on day's work
there--an'--an' I'll take my chances right here. It's a long lane that has
no turn. Grasshoppers can't stay always."

"What'll you do if all them eggs hatch out an' eat th' crops in th'
spring?" the new neighbour asked, determined to look on all sides of the
question before he decided to give up his recently purchased farm, and
glad of this opportunity to get the opinions of his fellow sufferers on
that particular phase of his unexpected calamity. "What'll you do wi