come."

Lou was pacing the floor. "But how do you KNOW that land is going
to go up enough to pay the mortgages and--"

"And make us rich besides?" Alexandra put in firmly. "I can't
explain that, Lou. You'll have to take my word for it. I KNOW,
that's all. When you drive about over the country you can feel it
coming."

Oscar had been sitting with his head lowered, his hands hanging
between his knees. "But we can't work so much land," he said
dully, as if he were talking to himself. "We can't even try. It
would just lie there and we'd work ourselves to death." He sighed,
and laid his calloused fist on the table.

Alexandra's eyes filled with tears. She put her hand on his
shoulder. "You poor boy, you won't have to work it. The men in
town who are buying up other people's land don't try to farm it.
They are the men to watch, in a new country. Let's try to do
like the shrewd ones, and not like these stupid fellows. I don't
want you boys always to have to work like this. I want you to be
independent, and Emil to go to school."

Lou held his head as if it were splitting. "Everybody will say we
are crazy. It must be crazy, or everybody would be doing it."

"If they were, we wouldn't have much chance. No, Lou, I was talking
about that with the smart young man who is raising the new kind
of clover. He says the right thing is usually just what everybody