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MRS. HAWKINS
(Eagerly.)
Go on Si. You can trust me.
HAWKINS
(Cautiously.)
Now all that's necessary to keep this land in the family is to pay the trifling taxes on it yearly—say five or ten dollars. The whole tract wouldn't fetch more than a third of a cent an acre now, but someday people will be glad to get it for twenty dollars—fifty dollars—a hundred dollars an acre! What would you say…
(Drops his voice and looks around.)
to a thousand dollars an acre?
MRS. HAWKINS
Oh! Si. Si. A thousand dollars an acre?
HAWKINS
Yes! And that ain't all neither, there's coal on our land, worlds of coal—
MRS. HAWKINS
Oh! Si. It makes me dizzy to hear you!
HAWKINS
And that ain't all neither! There's iron, Nancy, a whole mountain of iron on our land. You just wait till the Rail Roads and the Steam Boats come. You'll see! Or rather, they'll see, that's the main point. Why, Nancy, they'll ride in their Coaches, they'll live like Princes of the earth, they'll be courted and worshipped. Perhaps we'll have to drag along in toil and poverty, ah…well…one day! They will come to our old home and say "This little spot shall not be touched! This at least shall be sacred! For here our Father and our Mother toiled for us, and fought for us and laid the foundations of our future as enduring as the hills".
MRS. HAWKINS
You're a great, good, noble soul, Si Hawkins, and I'm an honored woman in being the Wife of such a man. You were out of your place among those groping dumb creatures of East Tennessee. I'd rather my body should starve and die, than your mind should hunger and wither away in that lonely land!
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