Now the government owes it to these men
to have money enough to pay them for
their work; and if there is not enough
money in circulation to pay to each man for
his honest and necessary work, then I say
that government is in league with crime.
It is trying to make defaulters of us. It has
a hundred ways of cheating us. When I
bought this farm and put the mortgage on
it, a day's work would bring twice the
results it will now. That is to say, the
total at the end of the year showed my
profits to be twice what they would be
now, even if the railway did not stand in
the way to rob us of more than we earn.
So that it will take just twice as many
days' work now to pay off this mortgage
as it would have done at the time it was
contracted. It's a conspiracy, I tell you!
Those Eastern capitalists make a science of
ruining us."

He got more eloquent as time went on,
and Annie, who had known him first as
rather a careless talker, was astonished at
the boldness of his language. But conver-
sation was a lost art with him. He no
longer talked. He harangued.

In the early spring Annie's baby was