earnestly. "In eastern towns the change has already come. Factories are
being built and every one is going to work in the factories. It takes an
old man like me to see how that changes their lives. Some of the men stand
at one bench and do one thing not only for hours but for days and years.
There are signs hung up saying they mustn't talk. Some of them make more
money than they did before the factories came, but I tell you it's like
being in prison. What would you say if I told you all America, all you
fellows who talk so big about freedom, are going to be put in a prison, eh?

"And there's something else. In New York there are already a dozen men who
are worth a million dollars. Yes, sir, I tell you it's true, a million
dollars. What do you think of that, eh?"

Judge Hanby grew excited and, inspired by the absorbed attention of his
audience, talked of the sweep of events. In England, he explained, the
cities were constantly growing larger, and already almost every one either
worked in a factory or owned stock in a factory. "In New England it is
getting the same way fast," he explained. "The same thing'll happen here.
Farming'll be done with tools. Almost everything now done by hand'll be
done by machinery. Some'll grow rich and some poor. The thing is to get
educated, yes, sir, that's the thing, to get ready for what's coming. It's
the only way. The younger generation has got to be sharper and shrewder."

The words of the old man, who had been in many places and had seen men and
cities, were repeated in the streets of Bidwell. The blacksmith and the
wheelwright repeated his words when they stopped to exchange news of their
affairs before the post-office. Ben Peeler, the carpenter, who had been
saving money to buy a house and a small farm to which he could retire when
he became too old to climb about on the framework of buildings, used the
money instead to send his son to Cleveland to a new technical school. Steve