"
"Plenty o' land to rent?" suggested someone.
"Yes, in terms that skin a man alive. More than that, farmin' ain't
so free a life as it used to be. This cattle-raisin' and butter-makin'
makes a nigger of a man. Binds him right down to the grindstone,
and he gets nothin' out of it-that's what rubs it in. He simply
wallers around in the manure for somebody else. I'd like to know
what a man's life is worth who lives as we do? How much higher is
it than the lives the niggers used to live?"
These brutally bald words made Howard thrill witb emotion like
some great tragic poem. A silence fell on the group.
"That's the God's truth, Grant," said young Cosgrove after a pause.
"A man like me is helpless," Grant was saying. "Just like a fly in a
pan of molasses. There ain't any escape for him. The more he tears
around, the more liable he is to rip his legs off."
"What can he do?"
The men listened in silence.
"Oh, come, don't talk politics all night!" cried Rose, breaking in.
"Come, let's have a dance. Where's that fiddle?"
"Fiddle!" cried Howard, glad of a chance to laugh. "Well, now!
Bring out that fiddle. Is it William's?"
"Yes, Pap's old fiddle.
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