He expects the city to grow up to it during the next twenty
years.
"My boy, that was the first bad break your father made. His second
break was his refusal to sell me a mill-site. He was the first man in
this county, and he had been shrewd enough to hog all the water-front
real estate and hold onto it. I remember he called himself a
progressive citizen, and when I asked him why he was so assiduously
blocking the wheels of progress, he replied that the railroad would
build in from the south some day, but that when it did, its builders
would have to be assured of terminal facilities on Humboldt Bay. 'By
holding intact the spot where rail and water are bound to meet,' he
told me, 'I insure the terminal on tidewater which the railroad must
have before consenting to build. But if I sell it to Tom, Dick, and
Harry, they will be certain to gouge the railroad when the latter
tries to buy it from them. They may scare the railroad away.'"
"Naturally!" Bryce replied. "The average human being is a hog, and
merciless when he has the upper hand. He figures that a bird in the
hand is worth two in the bush. My father, on the contrary, has always
planned for the future. He didn't want that railroad blocked by land-
speculators and its building delayed. The country needed rail
connection with the outside world, and moreover his San Hedrin timber
isn't worth a hoot until that feeder to a transcontinental road shall
be built to tap it.
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