Our cousin twisted the poker in his great hands until it squeaked as he stood before my uncle and said:
"My wife and I have chopped and burnt and pried and hauled rocks an' shoveled dung an' milked an' churned until we are worn out. For almost twenty years we've been workin' days an' nights an' Sundays. My mortgage was over-due, I owed six hundred dollars on it. I thought it all over one day an' went up to Grimshaw's an' took him by the back of the neck and shook him. He said he would drive me out o' the country. He gave me six months to pay up. I had to pay or lose the land. I got the money on the note that you signed over in Potsdam. Nobody in Canton would 'a' dared to lend it to me."
The poker broke and he threw the pieces under the stove.
"Why?" my uncle asked.
Mr. Barnes got hold of another stick of wood and went on.
"'Fraid o' Grimshaw. He didn't want me to be able to pay it. The place is worth more than six hundred dollars now—that's the reason. I intended to cut some timber an' haul it to the village this winter so I could pay a part o' the note an' git more time as I told ye, but the roads have been so bad I couldn't do any haulin'."
My uncle went and took a drink at the water pail. I saw by his face that he was unusually wrought up.
"My heavens an' earth!" he exclaimed as he sat down again.
"It's the brain colic," I said to myself as I looked at him.
Mr. Barnes seemed to have it also.