“She could afford to, Mother,” said he, “it was paid for in interest on that loan to Isom.”
“But Isom, he never would ’a’ give in to that,” said she. “Your pap he paid twelve per cent interest on that loan for sixteen years.”
“I figured it all up, Mother,” said he.
There was nothing for her to sit on in the corridor; she stood holding to the bars to take some of the weight from her tired feet.
“I don’t want to hurry you off, Mother,” said Joe, “but 238 I hate to see you standing there all tired out. If the sheriff was a gentleman he’d fetch you a chair. I don’t suppose there’d be any use in asking him.”
“Never mind, Joe, it takes more than a little walk like that to play me out.”
“You’d better stop in at Colonel Price’s and rest a while before you start back,” he suggested.
“Maybe I will,” said she.
She plunged her hand into the black draw-string bag which she carried on her arm, rummaging among its contents.
“That little rambo tree you planted a couple of years ago had two apples on it,” she told him, “but I never noticed ’em all summer, the leaves was so thick and it was such a little feller, anyhow.”