why not, after twenty years as a kind of resort for tourists and
pensioners?

Nevertheless, the truth is that this homestead with all its interior and
exterior furnishings costs more than the business is worth. Manufacturer
Brede, too, has put money into it, and that is why Mrs. Brede comes here
every year with her children, to get their dividends in board and lodging.


No wonder she has a house to herself; after all, it's her own house.

"It was a good place in the old days," says Mrs. Brede. "Travelers stopped
here and had a meal and a bed for the night; it cost nothing to run the
place then. But the tourist traffic has forced him to make improvements
and enlargements. You have to keep pace with development, and be as good
as other such places in the country; they're all competing. And probably
the master here is not the right man to carry on such an irregular and
capricious business; he has learned to like idleness too much, and lets
the farm take care of itself. But the two cotters are hard-working
fellows. They're nephews of his, and bit by bit they're buying the farm
from him and cultivating it. My husband often says it will end with the
cotters or their children buying this whole place of his, Paul's."

"How can the cotters get power to do that?"

"They work hard; they're peasants. They started in the forest with three
or four goats each, first one of them, then the other one, working down in
the village and coming home with food and money, and all the time clearing
their own ground. The goats grew more numerous, a cow was added, they
bought more virgin land, and they acquired still more livestock. They