Ray Stannard Baker

“ But I enjoy the Starkweather place and as I look in from the road, I sometimes think to myself with satisfaction: "Here is this rich man who has paid his thousands to make the beauty which I pass and take for nothing—and having taken, leave as much behind." ”

“ I couldn't let John Starkweather, or any other man, get away with the conviction that a millionnaire is better than a farmer. "Moreover," I said, "think of the position of the millionnaire. He spends his time playing not with life, but with the symbols of life, whether cash or houses. ”

“ Friend, I am not all farmer. I, too, am a person; I am different and curious. I am full of red blood, I like people, all sorts of people; if you are not interested in me, at least I am intensely interested in you. ”

“ We realise that we are the foundation: we connect human life with the earth. We dig and plant and produce, and having eaten at the first table ourselves, we pass what is left to the bankers and millionnaires. Did you ever think, stranger, that most of the wars of the world have been fought for the control of this farmer's second table? Have you thought that the surplus of wheat and corn and cotton is what the railroads are struggling to carry? Upon our surplus run all the factories and mills; a little of it gathered in cash makes a millionnaire. ”

“ Any day the symbols may change; a little war may happen along, there may be a defective flue or a western breeze, or even a panic because the farmers aren't scattering as many crumbs as usual (they call it crop failure, but I've noticed that the farmers still continue to have plenty to eat) and then what happens to your millionnaire? Not knowing how to produce anything himself, he would starve to death if there were not always, somewhere, a farmer to take him up to the table."
"You're making a strong case," laughed John Starkweather. ”

“ John Starkweather's face was a study!
"Did you ever grease a wagon?" I asked him genially.
"Never," he said.
"There's more of an art in it than you think," I said, and as I worked I talked to him of the lore of axle-grease and showed him exactly how to put it on—neither too much nor too little, and so that it would distribute itself evenly when the wheel was replaced.
"There's a right way of doing everything," I observed.
"That's so," said John Starkweather: "if I could only get workmen that believed it."
By that time I could see that he was beginning to be interested. ”

“ I stood there a moment and looked up the hill at him, and I felt that profound curiosity which every one of us feels every day of his life to know something of the inner impulses which stir his nearest neighbour. I should have liked to know John Starkweather; but I thought to myself as I have thought so many times how surely one comes finally to imitate his surroundings. A farmer grows to be a part of his farm ”

“ What more artificial than a house, or a barn, or a fence? And the greater and more formal the house, the more formal indeed must be the nearer natural environments. Perhaps the hand of man might well have been less evident in developing the surroundings of the Starkweather home—for art, dealing with nature, is so often too accomplished! ”

“ I asked, "to start in to be a millionnaire?"
He chuckled:
"Well, that's one way of putting it. Hitch your wagon to a star; but begin by making a few dollars more a year than you spend. When I began--" he stopped short with an amused smile, remembering that I did not know who he was.
"Of course," I said, "I understand that."
"A man must begin small"—he was on pleasant ground—"and anywhere he likes, a few dollars here, a few there. He must work hard, he must save, he must be both bold and cautious. ”

“ I suppose I seem to them as a partridge squatting among dry grass and leaves, so like the grass and leaves as to be invisible. We all come to be marked upon by nature and dismissed—how carelessly!—as genera or species. And is it not the primal struggle of man to escape classification, to form new differentiations? ”

“ It is simply wonderful what a leverage upon society a few acres of land, a cow, a pig or two, and a span of horses gives a man. I'm ridiculously independent. I'd be the hardest sort of a man to dislodge or crush. ”

“ My appetite is perfect, and I have plenty of food to gratify it. I sleep every night like a boy, for I haven't a trouble in this world to disturb me. I enjoy the mornings here in the country: and the evenings are pleasant. ”

“ I know a man who began when he was about your age with total assets of ten dollars and a good digestion. He's now considered a fairly wealthy man. He has a home in the city, a place in the country, and he goes to Europe when he likes. He has so arranged his affairs that young men do most of the work and he draws the dividends—and all in a little more than twenty years. ”