“Not of putting those people off the island?”
“Sure! That's what I'm here for. I'm state agent on pauper affairs, acting for the Governor and Council.”
“You say the state is back of this?” demanded Mayo, incredulously.
“Certainly! It's a matter that the state was obliged to take up. State has bought that island from the real heirs, has ordered off those squatters, and we shall burn down their shacks and clear the land up. Of course, we allow heads of families some cash for their houses, if you can call 'em houses. That's under the law regulating squatter improvements. But improvements is a polite word for the buildings on that island. It is going to cost us good money to clear up for that New York party who has made an offer to the state—he's going to use the island for a summer estate.”
He flicked the ashes from his cigar and broke in on Mayo's indignant retort.
“It had to be done, sir. They have intermarried till a good many of the children are fools. The men are breaking into summer cottages, after the owners leave in the fall. They steal everything on the main that isn't nailed down. They have set false beacons in the winter, and have wrecked coasters. Every little while some city newspaper has written them up as wild men, and it has given the state a bad name. We're going to break up the nest.”
“But where will they go?”
“Fools to the state school for the feeble-minded, cripples to the poorhouse. The able-bodied will have to get out and go to work at something honest.”
“But, look here, my dear sir! Those poor devils are starting out with too much of a handicap. After three generations on that island they don't know how to get a living on the main.”
“That's their own lookout, not the state's! State doesn't guarantee to give shiftless folks a living.”