I see in it the meeting together of the farmers who live
too much apart from the rest of the world."

"I believe," she cried with lifted hand, "I believe this is the
greatest movement of the farmer in the history of the world. It is a
movement against unjust discrimination, no doubt, but it has another
side to me, a poetic side, I call it. The farmer is a free citizen of a
great republic, it is true; but he is a _Solitary_ free citizen. He
lives alone too much. He meets his fellow-men too little. His dull
life, his hard work, make it almost impossible to keep his better
nature uppermost. The work of the grange is a social work." She was
supported by generous applause.

"It is not to antagonize town and country. The work of the grange to me
is not political. Keep politics out of it, or it will destroy you. Use
it to bring yourselves together. Let it furnish you with pleasant
hours. Establish your agencies, if you can, but I care more for
meetings like this. I care more for the poetry there is in having
Flora, and Ceres, and Pomona brought into the farmer's home."

Her great brown eyes glowed as she spoke and her lifted head thrilled
those who sat near enough to see the emotion that was in the lines of
her face. The sun struck through the trees, that swayed in masses
overhead, dappling the upturned faces with light and shade. The leaves
under the tread of the wind rustled softly, and the soaring hawk looked
down curiously as he drifted above the grove, like a fleck of cloud.

On Bradley, standing there alone, there fell something mysterious, like
a light. Something whiter and more penetrating than the sunlight. As he
listened, something stirred within him, a vast longing, a hopeless
ambition, nameless as it was strange. His bronzed face paled and he
breathed heavily. His eyes absorbed every detail of the girl's face and
figure. There was wonder in his eyes at her girlish face, and something
like awe at her powerful diction and her impersonal emotion. She stood
there like an incarnation of the great dream-world that lay beyond his
horizon, the world of poets and singers in the far realms of light and
luxury.

"I have a dream of what is coming," she said in conclusion, and her
voice had a prophetic ring. "I see a time when the farmer will not need
to live in a cabin on a lonely farm. I see the farmers coming together
in groups. I see them with time to read, and time to visit with their
fellows. I see them enjoying lect