“Yes, and a big disadvantage. When I go East, Stedman calls me a typical Westerner, and when I come West they call me a Yankee—so there I am!”
“There’s no doubt of your being a Westerner.”
“I hope not. I believe in the West. I tell you, brother Garland, the West is the coming country. We ought to have a big magazine to develop the West. It’s absurd to suppose we’re going on always being tributary to the East!”
Garland laid down his pad and lifted his big fist in the air like a maul. His enthusiasm rose like a flood.
“Now you touch a great theme. You’re right, Field. The next ten years will see literary horizons change mightily. The West is dead sure to be in the game from this time on. A man can’t be out here a week without feeling the thrill of latent powers. The West is coming to its manhood. The West is the place for enthusiasm. Her history is making.”
Field took up the note. “I’ve got faith in it. I love New England for her heritage to you. I like her old stone walls and meadows, but when I get back West—well, I’m home, that’s all. My love for the West has got blood in it.”
Garland laughed in sudden perception of their earnestness. “We’re both talking like a couple of boomers. It might be characteristic, however, to apply the methods of the boomers of town lots to the development of art and literature. What say?”
“It can be done. It will come in the course of events.”
“In our enthusiasm we have skated away from the subject. You are forty-three, then—you realize there’s a lot of work before you, I hope.”