I
could in our back garden, or take Perley's farm, and put it together,
and set men raising strawberries, than tramp round, asking for work,
with a feeling that it was taken from some one who had a better right,
who was a native of the soil."

"Then you have not lost your conscience?"

"I hope not. It is the same old story everywhere. What is to be done
about it?" and Jack knit his brows. "I have been going over the books
that I thought would help or let in a little light on the matter, but it
is a wisdom hard to get at. How to make more work in the world, how to
cheapen living, how to"--

"Bring about the millennium! What dead earnest you are in, Darcy!"

"Weren't you in earnest a moment ago, Maverick, when you talked about
the praying and the bread and broth?" said Jack with a great knot drawn
in his brow.

"Yes, Heaven knows. And some one must take hold of the thing who has
eyes to see, and brains, and--and money. You see, people have crowded
into cities and towns, and if they could be sent out somewhere! Why
don't we organize colonies or something of the sort? Now, there's
Florida. Living is cheap, and in such a climate there are fewer needs of
clothing and fuel. I have been wondering why the big dons in cities did
not gather up the poor they have been feeding at soup-houses and
everywhere, and send them out with some one to manage until they could
stand alone. There would be less diphtherias and fevers and starvation;
for that's its right name, Darcy. What can you do when one's system is
all run out with meal-mush, and weak tea that is half willow-leaves, and
such trash? There's Kilburn--he has had the name of being good to the
poor this winter because he has given them trust at his store. Such
stuff! I have looked into a few samples," and the expressive nostrils
curled in disgust. "He makes an enormous profit, for he sells the
poorest kind of goods to these people at the highest prices. Then he
manages to get hold of something, house or furniture, or maybe
clothes,--I don't know. He and Deacon Boyd--Darcy, how can a man honor
religion when these two men are its exponents? So good to the poor! Pah!
It makes me sick. Isn't there a cleaner air somewhere on God's earth?
Can't they be taken out of this?"

"If they could be! There must be one way out, Maverick: better, perhaps,
than going West where thousands are tramping about. And Heaven knows
they need a new factor in civilization down there!"

The young ey