52 THE FAT OF THE LAND 
« Well, that’s good! How much will it cost 
to get them out?” 
« About five cents apiece. A couple of smart 
fellows can make good wages at that price.” 
“Good. We will save thirteen cents each. 
They will cost $93 instead of $333. I don’t 
know everything yet,-do I, Thompson?” 
«“ You learn easy, I reckon.” 
«Keep your eyes and ears open, and if yeu 
find any one who can do this job, let him have 
it, for we are going to be too busy with other 
things at present. It’s time for me to be off. I 
cannot be out again till Thursday, for I must 
find a man, a woman, and a team of horses and 
all that goes with them. J’ll see you on the 8th 
at any rate.” 
I was dead tired when I reached home; but 
there wasn’t a grain of depression in my fatigue, 
— rather a sense of elation. I felt that for the 
first time in thirty years real things were doing 
and I was having a hand in them. The fatigue 
was the same old tire that used to come after a 
hard day on my father’s farm, and the sense was 
so suggestive of youth that I could not help feel- 
ing younger. I have never gotten away from the 
faith that the real seed of life lies hidden in the 
soil; that the man who gives it a chance to 
germinate is a benefactor, and that things done 
in connection with land are about the only real 
things. I have grown younger, stronger, happier, 
with each year of personal contact with the soil. 
