rposed Dr.
Maverick.

"I have a fancy they do not come much faster than they are called,"
returned Jack dryly. "See what we have been doing around here. The small
outlying farms have been bought up by speculators, cut up, destroyed for
farming purposes. Their owners with families of children had to go
somewhere. 'Come to the mills and factories,' was shouted in their ears,
and they came. Now they are here, depending on their labor for bread,
and Eastman will bring fifty or a hundred more from Coldbridge; and in
the spring, if there is any difficulty, some more will come. The old
ones cannot go back to their farms if they would. Their fertile gardens
lie cut up into waste squares, their fruit-trees have been despoiled:
they must starve here, or tramp to some other crowded town, and perhaps
starve there. Will your farmer take in half a dozen hands at a moment's
notice? Can they put themselves down in any country place, and go to
work?"

Maverick studied Jack intently, and then gave a low whistle.

"Upon my word, Darcy, you _have_ been going over the subject. Take the
stump. And of course you go against capital?"

"No, I don't," returned Jack shortly. "Only it does seem to me that
there ought to be some place where capital and labor could strike hands.
It appears to me, both have been to blame. We cannot condemn men for
crowding into cities, when there has been a steady call for them. We do
blame them for not laying up a little money against a rainy day; but
many of them have. Look at the cottages that have been sold to
workingmen. Look at the bank savings. To-day, perhaps, as many poor men
could pay their whole indebtedness, according to the ratio, as the rich.
But we fly at the laboring classes, when it is only human nature
cropping out. Your millionnaire puts his money into whatever he thinks
will bring him the greatest return; your poor man puts his capital, his
capacity, health, and strength, where it will earn him the most money."

"Well, I don't see but they are both right enough," said Maverick. "And
unless you are running over into communistic ideas"--

"I am not," was the decisive reply. "Some one much wiser than I said,
ages ago, 'He among you that will not work, let him not eat:' yet," with
a humorous laugh, "if the rule were strictly enforced, there would more
than one go hungry, I'm thinking. The great consolation would be that
the right man would suffer, not the innocent and guiltless."

"I really do