Page:Anthony John (IA anthonyjohn00jero).pdf/233

 ing things in brake and cover that crouched so still while one passed by. There he would shout and scamper; and when he was tired his father would carry him on his shoulder. But in the long sad streets he was less talkative.

One day, walking through them, Anthony told him how, long ago, before the mean streets came, there had been green fields and flowers with a little river winding its way among the rocks and through deep woods.

"What made the streets come?" the child asked.

Riches had been discovered under the earth, so Anthony explained to him. Before this great discovery the people of the valley had lived in little cottages—just peasants, tilling their small farms, tending their flocks. A few hundred pounds would have bought them all up. Now it was calculated that the winding Wyndbeck flowed through the richest valley in all England.

"What are riches?" asked the child. "What do they do?"

Riches, his father explained to him, were what made people well off and happy.

"I see," said John. But he evidently did not, as his next question proved conclusively.

"Then are all the people happy who live here now?" he asked. They had passed about a score