The four words dragged themselves with the greatest reluctance from Uncle Ezra's lips.
There was another long pause. Uncle Sam spat deliberately, took a fresh chew of tobacco, and looked out across the landscape meditatively through the big barn doors.
"I tell ye, Ezry," he said at last with great deliberation. "Nobody hain't a-buyin' hay this time o' year. An' if you leave the hay here an' put yer terbaccer in, the terbaccer'll like enough heat an' spile. An' even if it don't heat an' spile, it'll turn dark, sure's yer shirt's on yer back. An' you know what price dark terbaccer fetches. Naow, Ezry, seem' we've allus been good neighbors together, I'm willin' to split the diff'rence with ye. Twenty-seven fifty I'll pay ye right here in cold cash. Will ye take it?"
Uncle Ezra looked beaten and utterly miserable. "Oh, I s'pose so," he grunted at last.
Uncle Sam had come prepared to clinch matters. He pulled out from his hip pocket a roll of bills, selected two tens, a five, and a two; then fished around among his loose change till he found a fifty-cent piece, and laid the whole in Uncle Ezra's reluctant, yet eager, hand.
Aunt Eppie was waiting anxiously for the result. She had watched the men set out together.
"Did he buy it, Ezry?" she queried excitedly, as soon as her husband appeared in the dooryard.
"Yump."
"Haow much did he give fer it?"