“And you’ll let me have it?” exclaimed Morey.
The manager shook his head.
The lad’s heart sank.
“What we will do is this: Major Carey wants your land, that is plain. I think, too, he’ll pay forty dollars an acre for it when he sees he has to. My proposition is this: we’ll take up your notes—your father’s and your mother’s—and, if your mother will make such a contract, carry them until we can sell the property. As our profit we will take one-half the selling price over the amount we invest. That will be something over $14,000. If we sell the farm of six hundred acres at forty dollars there will be a balance of $10,000 over what we put in the deal. That will mean $5,000 for your mother and $5,000 for us.”
Morey finally understood, then he too shook his head.
“I can’t,” he said. “I reckon your offer is fair enough but I can’t let the home farm go. That’s what I’m working for. There are one hundred and sixty acres around our home that I want to keep—that I must save. You know the place. There are four hundred and forty acres besides this. If you’ll pay those notes I’ll undertake to see that my mother gives you a deed to all this.”
“I don’t see that it makes much difference,” said the manager.
“It makes all the difference in the world to me. It won’t give us any money but it will give us a home. And I’ll make a living somehow.”
“I’ll do it. Your friends in the Barber Bank are sharks. I like to take a fall out of those country wise ones occasionally.”
“Mr. Tuttle,” said Morey, after a few moments, “that’s business and no favor on either side. I’m going to ask a personal favor. I’m too young to ask it legally but on what you know of me will you lend me $100.”