“We got to afford it,” said Phin. “We're in this thing so deep now we can'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 all the wheat this country can grow to keep our big flourmills rannin'? When we own all the flour-mills in the country, it stands to reason we'll have 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 say we'd buy all the mills, because I thought you'd surely see fer yourself that 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 time you are. All I ask is, Why? That's all I ask—Why?”  

 “Well, sir,” explained Phineas, “if our bakery here puts up the price of bread, the outside bakeries will ship in bread, if we don't buy out the outside bakeries. An' once we start, we've got to buy out every bakery in the country. An' when we do that we've got to own all the mills, so no one else can get any flour to start bakin'. An' to keep anybody else from startin' mills, we've got to own all the wheat-belt. It's only right to be on the safe side, Eph.” Eph crossed his knees and smoked silently, nodding his head slowly the while. 

 “I dassay you're right, Phin,” he admitted at length; “but you ain't far-seein' enough. S'pose—just s'pose, fer instance—it come time to ship a lot o' flour from our mills to our bakeries, an' them lumber fellers 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 the time we needed cotton to run our cloth-mills to make sacks fer our flour—” He paused. “We would run our own cloth-mills, wouldn't we, Phin?” he asked. 

 “Surely, surely,” replied Phineas. 

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