"Say what they like," he held forth to Anderson and two other men across the rails one evening—"talk how they will about it, there's money to be made at farming. Let a man WORK and use his HEAD and know what to sow and when to sow it, and he MUST do well." (Anderson stroked his beard in grave silence; HE had had no wheat). "Why, once a farmer gets on at all he's the most independent man in the whole country."
"Yes! Once he DOES!" drawled one of the men,—a weird, withered fellow with a scraggy beard and a reflective turn of mind.
"Jusso," Dad went on, "but he must use his HEAD; it's all in th' head." (He tapped his own skull with his finger). "Where would I be now if I had n't used me head this last season?"
He paused for an answer. None came.
"I say," he continued, "it's a mistake to think nothing's to be made at farming, and any man" ("Come to supper, D—AD!"—'t was Sal's voice) "ought t' get on where there's land like this."
"LAND!" said the same man—"where IS it?"
"Where IS it?" Dad warmed up—"where IS N'T it? Is n't this land?" (Looking all round.) "Is n't the whole country land from one end to the other? And is there another country like it anywhere?"
"There is n't!" said the man.
"Is there any other country in th' WORLD" (Dad lifted his voice) "where a man, if he likes, can live" ("Dad, tea!") "without a shilling in his pocket and without doing a tap of work from one year's end to the other?"
Anderson did n't quite understand, and the weird man asked Dad if he meant "in gaol."