“It must be something that will bring me money,” chimed in Ned. “I shan’t work for nothing.”
“There are plenty of things that will bring you money,” replied George. “You can rent a piece of ground, fence it in and go to farming; or you can be a cattle or pig-raiser.”
“Pig-raiser!” exclaimed Ned, in great disgust.
“There’s money in it, I tell you. These post-oak belts that run across the state, afford the finest pasturage in the world—hundreds of bushels of acorns to the acre,—and all you would have to do would be to build you a little hut in some place that suited you, and call up your pigs twice a day and feed them a little corn, to keep them from straying away and going wild. If you want to make money without work,” added George, who knew very well that that was just what his cousin did want, “you can’t select a better business.”
“I’m not going to live among pigs!” declared Ned, emphatically. “That’s settled. If I had a herd of cattle like yours, I might take some interest in it.”
“You can get it, if you are willing to work for it, as I did.”
“That would take too long. If I go into any business, it must be something that will yield me immediate returns. I think the easiest thing I could do would be to put in fifty or a hundred acres of wheat. That is a crop that will require the least work.”
“Well, there is land enough at your disposal,” said George. “There are ten thousand acres in this ranche. But where are you going to get the money to fence your field?”
“I don’t see why I should fence it at all. Our own cattle (Ned and his father always spoke of the ranche, and everything belonging to it, as though it were their own property) will not trouble it, for I shall tell the herders to keep them at a distance.”
“But they couldn’t always do it. Besides, suppose some of the neighbors’ cattle should stray away from the herdsmen and trespass on your field: what would you do?”