"Right after they decided," said Gramp, "they couldn't fight a war."
"That's right," said Adams.
"It's pretty hard to fight a war," said Gramnp, "when there's nothing you can aim at."
"You mean the cities," said Adams.
"Sure," said Granip, "and there's a funny thing about it. Wave all the atom bombs you wanted to and you couldn't scare them out. But give them cheap land and family planes and they scattered just like so many dadburned rabbits."
***
John I. Webster was striding up the broad stone steps of the city hall when the walking scarecrow carrying a rifle under his arm caught up with him and stopped him.
"Howdy, Mr. Webster," said the scarecrow.
Webster stared, then recognition crinkled his face.
"It's Levi," he said. "How are things going, Levi?"
Levi Lewis grinned with snagged teeth. "Fair to middling. Gardens are coming along and the young rabbits are getting to be good eating."
"You aren't getting mixed up in any of the hell raising that's being laid to the houses?" asked Webster.
"No, sir," declared Levi. "Ain't none of us Squatters mixed up in any wrong-doing. We're law-abiding God-fearing people, we are. Only reason we're there is we can't make a living no place else. And us living in them places other people up and left ain't harming no one. Police are just blaming us for the thievery and other things that's going on, knowing we can't protect ourselves. They're making us the goats."
"I'm glad to hear that," said Webster. "The chief wants to burn the houses."
"If he tries that," said Levi, "he'll run against something he ain't counting on. They run us off our farms with this tank farming of theirs but they ain't going to run us any farther."
He spat across the steps.
"Wouldn't happen you might have some jingling money on you?" he asked. "I'm fresh out of cartridges and with them rabbits coming up-"
Webster thrust his fingers into a vest pocket, pulled out a half dollar.
Levi grinned. "That's obliging of you, Mr. Webster. I'll bring a mess of squirrels, come fall."
The Squatter touched his hat with two fingers and retreated down the steps, sun glinting on the rifle barrel. Webster turned up the steps again.
The city council session already was in full swing when he walked into the chamber.
Police Chief Jim Maxwell was standing by the table and Mayor Paul Carter was talking.
"Don't you think you may be acting a bit hastily, Jim, in urging such a course of action with the houses?"
"No, I don't," declared the chief. "Except for a couple of dozen or so, none of those houses are occupied by their rightful owners, or rather, their original owners. Every one of them belongs to the city now through tax forfeiture. And they are nothing but an eyesore and a menace. They have no value. Not even salvage value. Wood? We don't use wood any more. Plastics are better. Stone? We use steel instead of stone. Not a single one of those houses have any material of marketable value.
"And in the meantime they are becoming the haunts of petty criminals and undesirable elements. Grown up with vegetation as the residential sections are, they make a perfect hideout for all types of criminals. A man commits a crime and heads straight for the houses — once there he's safe, for I could send a thousand men in there and he could elude them all.
"They aren't worth the expense of tearing down. And yet they are, if not a menace, at least a nuisance. We should get rid of them and fire is the cheapest, quickest way. We'd use all precautions."
'What about the legal angle?" asked the mayor.
"I checked into that. A man has a right to destroy his own property in any way he may see fit so long as it endangers no one else's. The same law, I suppose, would apply to a municipality."
Alderman Thomas Griffin sprang to his feet.
"You'd alienate a lot of people," he declared. "You'd be burning down a lot of old homesteads. People still have some sentimental attachments-"
"If they cared for them," snapped the chief, "why didn't they pay the taxes, and take care of them? Why did they go running off to the country, just leaving the houses standing. Ask Webster here. He can tell you what success he had trying to interest the people in their ancestral homes."
"You're talking about that Old Home Week farce," said Griffin. "It failed. Of course, it failed. Webster spread it on so thick that they gagged on it. That's what a Chamber of Commerce mentality always does."
Alderman Forrest King spoke up angrily. "There's nothing wrong with a Chamber of Commerce, Griffin. Simply because you failed in business is no reason…"
Griffin ignored him. "The day of high pressure is over, gentlemen. The day of high pressure is gone forever. Ballyhoo is something that is dead and buried.
"The day when you could have tall-corn days or dollar days or dream up some fake celebration and deck the place up with bunting and pull in big crowds that were ready to spend money is past these many years. Only you fellows don't seem to know it.
"The success of such stunts as that was its appeal to mob psychology and civic loyalty. You can't have civic loyalty with a city dying on its feet. You can't appeal to mob psychology when there is no mob-when every man, or nearly every man has the solitude of forty acres."
"Gentlemen," pleaded the mayor. "Gentlemen, this is distinctly out of order."
King sputtered into life, walloped the table.
"No, let's have it out. Webster is over there. Perhaps he can tell us what he thinks."
Webster stirred uncomfortably. "I scarcely believe," he said, "I have anything to say."
"Forget it," snapped Griffin and sat down.
But King still stood, his face crimson, his mouth trembling with anger.
"Webster!" he shouted.
Webster shook his head. "You came here with one of your big ideas," shouted King. "You were going to lay it before the council. Step up, man, and speak your piece."
Webster rose slowly, grim-lipped.
"Perhaps you're too thick-skulled," he told King, "to know why I resent the way you have behaved."
King gasped, then exploded. "Thick-skulled! You would say that to me. We've worked together and I've helped you. You've never called me that before… you've-"
"I've never called you that before," said Webster levelly. "Naturally not. I wanted to keep my job."
"Well, you haven't got a job," roared King. "From this minute on, you haven't got a job."
"Shut up," said Webster.
King stared at him, bewildered, as if someone had slapped him across the face.
"And sit down," said Webster, and his voice bit through the room like a sharp-edged knife.
King's knees caved beneath him and he sat down abruptly. The silence was brittle.
"I have something to say," said Webster. "Something that should have been said long ago. Something all of you should hear. That I should be the one who would tell it to you is the one thing that astounds me. And yet, perhaps, as one who has worked in the interests of this city for almost fifteen years, I am the logical one to speak the truth.
"Alderman Griffin said the city is dying on its feet and his statement is correct. There is but one fault I would find with it and that is its understatement. The city… this city, any city… already is dead.
"The city is an anachronism. It has outlived its usefulness. Hydroponics and the helicopter spelled its downfall. In the first instance the city was a tribal place, an area where the tribe banded together for mutual protection. In later years a wall was thrown around it for additional protection. Then the wall finally disappeared but the city lived on because of the conveniences which it offered trade and commerce. It continued into modern times because people were compelled to live close to their jobs and the jobs were in the city.