THE SEARCH AND FINDING. 31 



palpable conquests. The owner had planted his farm 

 to vegetables not an acre of it but bristled with 

 some marketable crop ; nearness to the city had war 

 ranted it, and &quot; there was money in the business.&quot; 

 To talk with such a man about comparative views, or 

 situations, would have been to talk French with him. 

 An unknown advertiser had demanded the very fea 

 tures embraced in his farm; there they were sea 

 enough, brook, wood, and slope. If I wished them 

 enough to pay his price, I could have them. He felt 

 quite sure that I should find nothing that came nearer 

 the mark, and he argued the matter with a strenuous, 

 earnest vehemence, that fairly enchained my atten 

 tion ; and while my admiring aspect seemed to yield 

 assent to every presentation he made of the subject, 

 and while, as in the case of the red-bearded German, 

 there was a sort of magnetism that bound me to outer 

 acquiescence, at the same time all my inner feeling 

 was kindled into open revolt against the man s pre 

 sumption, and his turnips, and his lines of cabbages, 

 and his poplars, and near breadth of sea. 



He did not sell to me ; but I have no doubt that 

 he sold ; I have no doubt that he made money by his 

 turnips, and more money by the sale of his land ; and 

 it would not surprise me to see him some day, if I go 

 in that direction, speaker of the house of representa 

 tives in the State of Iowa, or Minnesota. There are 



