young fellow. Now a little farm looks good enough to me. But on a
dollar and a half a day, I swan--" Amos sighed.

"Land's high around here," said Levine. "I understand Marshall sold
Eagle Farm for a hundred dollars an acre. Takes a sharp farmer to make
interest on a hundred an acre. Lord--when you think of the land on the
reservation twenty miles from here, just yelling for men to farm it and
nothing but a bunch of dirty Indians to take advantage of it."

"Look here, John," said Amos with sudden energy. "It's time that bunch
of Indians moved on and gave white men a chance. I wouldn't say a word
if they farmed the land, but such a lazy, lousy outfit!"

"There are more than you feel that way, Amos," replied Levine. "But it
would take an Act of Congress to do anything."

"Well, why not an Act of Congress, then? What's that bunch we sent
down to Washington doing?"

"Poor brutes of Indians," said John Levine, refilling his pipe. "I get
ugly about the reservation, yet I realize they've got first right to
the land."

"The man that can make best use of the land's got first right to it,"
insisted Amos. "That's what my ancestors believed two hundred and
fifty years ago when they settled in New Hampshire and put loopholes
under the eaves of their houses. Our farmhouse had loopholes like
that. Snow used to sift in through 'em on my bed when I was a kid."

Lydia, lying on her stomach on the couch, turning the leaves of "Tom