“There will be another $800 due as interest this fall,” the elder man explained with a long face and puckered lips, “and I don’t see how I can advance any more money to care for it.”
Morey, who had been desperately trying to see some ray of light in the chaos of financial gloom, had a sudden idea.
“This land is really ours, still, isn’t it? That is, so long as the mortgages are not foreclosed?”
“Certainly,” answered Major Carey, a little nervously.
“How comes it then that Captain Barber carted away our tobacco shed?”
“Did he do that?” began Major Carey. “Yes, I believe he did. Well, it was in ruins. I think he got your mother’s consent. Then there were the taxes,” he continued, as if the thought had just come to him. “He had advanced the money for taxes on the tobacco land.”
“And the one hundred and eighty-acre corn piece?” persisted Morey. “Marsh Green says he was ordered off it—that Captain Barber said it belonged to the bank.”
“No,” explained the Major, “not exactly that. But old Green couldn’t farm it. He tried it the year after your father died and the weeds took his crop.”
“Who did farm it?” asked the boy, the Marshall jaw setting itself in spite of his despair.