|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: "Gentlemen," says Tucker, "The railroad is ten miles long. There don't
any train run on it except when the crew goes out in the pines and
gathers enough lightwood knots to get up steam. A long time ago, when
times was good, the net earnings used to run as high as eighteen
dollars a week. Colonel Rockingham's land has been sold for taxes
thirteen times. There hasn't been a peach crop in this part of Georgia
for two years. The wet spring killed the watermelons. Nobody around
here has money enough to buy fertilizer; and land is so poor the corn
crop failed and there wasn't enough grass to support the rabbits. All
the people have had to eat in this section for over a year is hog and
hominy, and--"
|
