"It seems to me that the land need not have grown poor," said
Percy. "If the land was once productive, its fertility ought to be
maintained by the return of the essential materials removed in crops
or destroyed by cultivation. Surely land need not become poor; but
of course I know too little about this land to suggest at the
present time what method could best be adopted for its improvement."

"We can tell you what the best method is," she quickly replied.
"Just put on plenty of ordinary farm fertilizer, but, laws, we don't
have enough to cover fifty acres a year."

For a time each seemed lost in thought, or listening to the husband
and wife who sat in the front seat quietly talking of the evening's
performances. Percy recognized some of the names they mentioned as
belonging to persons to whom he had been presented at the church. It
gradually dawned upon him that he had spent the evening with the
aristocracy of the Blue Mound neighborhood. Culture, refinement, and
poverty were the chief characteristics of the people who had been
assembled.

"It need not have been," he repeated to himself; "surely, it need
not have been, "and then he wondered if these were not much sadder
words than the oft repeated "it might have been."

"May I ask where your people came from, Mrs. West?" he questioned.

"Where we came from?" she repeated, "I don't quite understand."

"Excuse me," said Percy, "but in the West it is so common to ask