After Breakfast He Went His Way, With A New Subject For Thought, And I,
Deserted In A Wilderness Of A Commercial Room, Took Out Some Paper And
Began To Write.
There was no sound but the steel scratch of a pen that
grew monotonous.
After a long time - some hours - of solitude, the door
opened and a gentleman entered with some luggage and a young woman
followed him. I gathered up my scribblings and put them away. The
gentleman took off his overcoat, and shining out of the breast pocket
was a bright revolver. I grew afraid, though, generally speaking, I am
too busy to think of being afraid. There was a trans-Atlantic look about
the gentleman, a Mississippi appearance about the too conspicuous
revolver, and, I admit, I thought of some Fenian leader and wondered
what Stephens was like. I heard the gentleman order lunch and afterward
he left the room.
When he returned he introduced himself as Mr. Smithwick. He was not at
all the kind of gentleman I had expected to see. By some perversity he
had become fixed in my imagination as a very tall gentleman with fair
curled hair. Now this was sheer foolishness, but it had a disastrous
effect on the interview. My mind, instead of gathering itself up into an
attitude for receiving information about the land question, would go off
wool-gathering in speculation whether this was the very Mr. Smithwick or
not. The gentleman said with all politeness that he was willing to give
me all the information in his power on any subject on which I wanted
information.
There is something not canny in the west. I had felt it before, but
never as I did then. I could not possibly disentangle my ideas enough to
be clear as to what information I did want. I was under some spell. I
could only look at Mr. Smithwick, wondering if he was he, and smile at
my own stupidity. Time passes quickly; the gentleman remained but about
an hour and a half at most, and he had to have luncheon out of that and
attend to some little business in town besides. Before I got to be
myself he was gone. We did talk a little about reclaiming bog land. He
put the cost per acre for trenching, laying stones in the drains, sand
and manure, at L21 per acre. Reclaiming bog land has been done by tenant
farmers all over the country, who were evicted afterward when they fell
behind in rent in the bad years, and did not get any compensation for
the land so reclaimed. Mr. Smithwick did not think the relief money in
all cases reached those for whom it was intended; believed it was partly
intercepted on the way. Did not have a high opinion of his countrymen of
the poorer class. Thought them a useless set who did not do the work of
their farms properly; did not even make a drain properly if done for
themselves; made it in a proper manner if made on another man's land,
because there he was overseen, and if he slighted his work he would not
get paid for it.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 121 of 208
Words from 61708 to 62240
of 107283