“The time has come,” he said, instead of biting off a plug, “and come long ago, when the farmers with any guts in them at all must lay their heads together here the same as in other places and find out where their bread would be best buttered, so that feeble individuals like myself, with small incomes and heavy responsibilities, should not have to look after people that the merchant is bent on starving to death—and then be called a thief for their pains.”