"You can't get out into the country and walk five miles without
finding a victim of the fakers. The farmer has invested in bogus
mines, bogus oil wells, bogus stock and bogus other things, and not
only lost his money, but come to know that he was as good as robbed of
it. The villager has been trapped the same way. It has hardened their
hearts and given them the worst view of mankind. You can know nothing
of this by telling, nor of the ruin wrought until you get among the
people.
"Up to a year or so ago it was seldom that a farmer turned me down.
If he had nothing for me to do to earn a meal or lodging he would not
turn me away. He most always took me on trust and had no fear that I
was a rascal in disguise. It's all changed now. This last summer I
was paddling the hoof in Connecticut and Massachusetts, making a sort
of grand farewell tour, and it was hard work for me to even get a few
apples of the farmers. They used to be full of 'chin' and gossip.
They used to hold me for an hour in order to hear all the news. I
found them last summer sullen and sulky and calling to me from the
fields to move on. In other years the village landlord would set me at
work in the stables or with a pail of whitewash in some of the rooms,
and in that way I'd pay for my stay. I found a change there.