“How do you mean?”
“Why, I mean that but for this great river system it would have taken a hundred or more years longer than it did to settle this vastest valley on earth and build it up into great, populous states that produce the best part of the world’s food supply.”
“Go on, please,” said Will Moreraud, speaking the eager desire of all.
“You see,” said Ed, “in order to settle a country and bring it into cultivation, you must have some way of getting into it, and still more, you must have some way of getting the things it produces out of it, so as to sell them to people that need them. Nobody would have taken the trouble to raise the produce we now have on board this boat, for instance,—the hay, grain, flour, apples, cornmeal, onions, potatoes, and the rest,—if there had been no way of sending the things away and selling them somewhere. Unless there is a market within reach, nobody will produce more of anything than he can himself use.”
“Oh, I see,” said Irv. “That’s why I don’t think more than I do. I’ve no market for my crop of thoughts.”
“You’re mistaken there,” said Constant, who was slow of speech and usually had little to say. “There’s always a market for thoughts.”
“Where?”
“Right around you. What did we go into this flatboat business for except to be with Ed? He can’t do half as much as any one of us at an oar, or at anything else except thinking, and yet we would never have come on this voyage—”
“Oh, dry up!” said Ed, seeing the compliment that was impending. “I was going to say—”
“And so was I going to say,” said Constant; “and, in fact, I am going to say. What I’m going to say is that there isn’t a fellow here who would be here but for you, Ed. There isn’t a fellow here that wouldn’t be glad to do all of your share of the work, if Phil would let him, just for the sake of hearing what you think. Anyhow, that’s why Constant Thiebaud is a member of this crew.”