CHAPTER FOUR

by Ellis Parker Butler

　　When the two men had settled the treasurer question, they smoked awhilein silence, each lost in thought; and as they thought their browsclouded.

　　"Say, Eph," said Phineas at length, "what be you thinkin' that makes youlook so glum?" Eph shook his head sadly.

　　"I been lookin' ahead, Phin," he said--"'way ahead. An' I see a snag.I don't hold it ag'in' you, Phin; but the thing won't pan out.""What--what you run up ag'in', Eph?" asked Phineas, solicitously.

　　"Fruit," said Eph, dolefully. "Loads of it. Phin, what if we _do_ gatherin all the fruit that comes to town? Ain't there just dead loads an'loads o' fruit in these here United States? An' the minute we git toputtin' up the price, it'll git noised about, an' Dagos an' Guinnies'llpile in here with fruit an' cut under us." He sighed. "'Twas a goodbusiness while it lasted, Phin; but it didn't last long." Phineas layback on the grass and laughed long and squeakily.

　　"Is _that_ all the farther ahead you looked, Eph Deacon?" he asked whenhe had recovered his breath. "Any old fool ought to know that the secondyear we was in business we'd buy up all the fruit in the United States."

　　Eph's face cleared and he smiled again, but Phineas's face clouded.

　　"What worried me, Eph," he said, "was 'bout payin' sich high pricesfor fruit as them blame farmers would likely ask. Ner I won't stand it,neither. Will you?"

　　"Not by a blame sight, Phin," said Eph. "I won't let nobody downtrod me.But," he asked anxiously, "how you goin' to stop it?"

　　Phineas dug his heel in the soft turf.

　　"We got to buy out the farms," he announced decisively, "an' hire thefarmers to run 'em."

　　"Think we can afford it, Phin?" asked Eph. "We don't want to go puttin'our money into nothin' losing?"

　　"We got to afford it," said Phin. "We're in this thing so deep now wecan't go back. An' we'll need part o' the farms, anyhow, fer our wheat."

　　"Our wheat?" said Eph, puzzled. "Be we goin' to sell wheat, Phin?"

　　"Sell wheat?" said Phin, with disgust. "No such fools. Won't we need allthe wheat this country can grow to keep our big flourmills rannin'? Whenwe own all the flour-mills in the country, it stands to reason we'llhave to own all the wheat, don't it?"

　　Eph looked at his companion with open mouth.

　　"Mills!" he ejaculated. "What fer do we want to own all the mills?"

　　Phineas waved his hand in the air.

　　"'Tain't 'want to,'" he said decisively, "it's 'have to.' I didn't saywe'd buy all the mills, because I thought you'd surely see fer yourselfthat we'd have to buy them."

　　"Now, I ain't kickin', Phin," said Eph, in a conciliating tone;"if you say buy the mills, we'll buy 'em. I'm ready an' willin' any timeyou are. All I ask is, Why? That's all I ask--Why?"

　　"Well, sir," explained Phineas, "if our bakery here puts up the price ofbread, the outside bakeries will ship in bread, if we don't buy out theoutside bakeries. An' once we start, we've got to buy out every bakeryin the country. An' when we do that we've got to own all the mills, sono one else can get any flour to start bakin'. An' to keep anybody elsefrom startin' mills, we've got to own all the wheat-belt. It's onlyright to be on the safe side, Eph." Eph crossed his knees and smokedsilently, nodding his head slowly the while.

　　"I dassay you're right, Phin," he admitted at length; "but you ain'tfar-seein' enough. S'pose--just s'pose, fer instance--it come time toship a lot o' flour from our mills to our bakeries, an' them lumberfellers up North wouldn't furnish timber to supply our barrel-factories."

　　Phineas laughed.

　　"We'd use sacks," he said shortly.

　　"Well," said Eph, "s'pose--just s'pose, fer instance--that 'bout thetime we needed cotton to run our cloth-mills to make sacks fer ourflour--" He paused. "We would run our own cloth-mills, wouldn't we,Phin?" he asked.

　　"Surely, surely," replied Phineas.

　　"All right," continued Eph. "S'pose them cotton-growers down Southan' them timber-growers up North wouldn't let us have no cotton or notimber. What then?"

　　Phineas nodded that he comprehended the wisdom of the deduction.

　　"You're right, Eph," he said. "American Pie has got to buy out thetimber-belt an' the cotton-belt. I'm glad you thought of it. It showsyou take an interest in the business, even if you did interrup' me whenI was thinkin' on a mighty important point."

　　"What's that?" asked Eph. "We got to buy out the railroads," saidPhineas. "Once we own them, we can get proper freight rates."

　　"Ain't you afraid mebby some of them foreign countries 'll ship in flouror fruit or crackers?" asked Eph.

　　"How can they when we put the tariff up, like we will?" asked Phineas."Course, while we're buyin' up these other things, we've got to buy upCongress."

　　"Phin!" exclaimed Eph, suddenly, "we'll have a dickens of a tax-bill topay."

　　"We'll swear off our taxes," said Phineas, shortly.

　　Eph relapsed into meditation. "Why, Phin," he said at length, "we'llbe as good as bosses of these United States, won't we?"

　　"Surely we will," Phin replied.

　　"Do you suppose I'm doin' all this work an' takin' all this worry justfer the money? What do I care fer a few millions more or less, Eph, whenI've got millions an' millions? What I want is power. I want to havethis here nation so that when I say, 'Come!' it will come, an' when Isay, 'Go!' it will go, an' when I say, 'Dance!' it will dance."

　　He stood up and inflated his thin breast, and tapped it with hisforefinger.

　　"Eph," he said, "with this here American Pie Company goin', you an' mecan go an' say to them big trust men, 'Eat dirt,' an' they'll eat it an'be glad to git off so easy. We can--"

　　He paused and glanced up the road uneasily. He shaded his eyes andlooked closely at the distant figure of a stout woman who was waddlingin their direction.

　　"Skip!" he exclaimed; "here comes your wife!"