10 THE FARMER OF TO-MORROW 



janitor. And a paternal automatism extracts 

 its tithes by a process at once so complex and 

 so lulling that it borders on the mystic. He 

 is not even enumerated as a "tax-payer." He 

 buys bread by the pound, potatoes by the 

 quart and eggs by the ounce, and milk, signed, 

 sealed and delivered in glass. Every time he 

 expends one dollar for food, thirty-five cents of 

 it is edible, and sixty-five cents goes for wrap- 

 ping paper and string, interstate commerce, 

 and demurrage. Jeremiah is a consumer. 



But Jeremiah dreams of the days of his 

 youth: of the wood pile, the evening chores, 

 the frozen pump, apples that have never 

 known a feather-duster, and the great shadowy 

 barn with its fragrant haymow and its row 

 of soft-eyed placid cows. Jeremiah and Mary 

 they met and married in a boarding house 

 take the subway to Van Cortlandt Park or 

 the ferry boat to Staten Island every Sunday 

 to walk on the grass. The lure of the land is 

 in their souls, and they wear rubber heels on 

 their shoes. 



A remote, an almost hypothetical aunt 

 names them in her will. This opens a door 

 because in all his years of toil he has been 

 spending so much in bringing his food from 



