Then Carr led Thompson away through the woods again, and
presently took him across another stretch of stumps where men were
drilling and blasting out the roots of the ravished trees, on to fields
where grain and grass and root crops were ripening in the September sun,
and at last by another cluster of houses to the bank of the river again.
Here Carr sat down on a log, and began to fill a pipe.
"Well," he said, "what do you think of it?"
"For eighteen months' work you have made an astonishing amount of
headway," Thompson observed. "This is hard land to clear."
"Yes," Carr admitted. "But it's rich land--all alluvial, this whole
valley. Anything that can be grown in this latitude will grow like a
village scandal here."
He lighted his pipe.
"I tried high living and it didn't agree with me," Carr said abruptly.
"I have tried a variety of things since I left the North, and none of
them has seemed worth while. I'm not a philanthropist. I hate
charitable projects. They're so damned unscientific--don't you think
so?"
Thompson nodded.
"You know that about the time you left, discharged soldiers were
beginning to drift back," Carr continued. "Drift is about the word. The
cripples of war will be taken care of.
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