"Joe," remarked his father, "I'm afraid you're getting in pretty deep with John White putting these notions into your head about modern farming. Don't forget you owe me $2000.00 on the farm, which, with all the other things you've bought, you must be terribly in debt."
"I was afraid you'd feel that way about it, father, and I told White so," he replied.
"He probably don't care, as long as he was getting you to borrow his money and sign his notes," said his father.
"That's where you do him an injustice, father," replied his son. "He said the first thing I should do would be to pay you off, and as it don't make any difference whether I pay interest to you or the bank, he loaned me enough money to pay you off, so the next time we go to town we'll fix the matter up. I told John White if I went broke he'd be the one to suffer."
"What did he say?" asked his father.
"He only laughed and said, 'I'll take a chance on you, Joe, since I've met the woman you're going to marry and that boy you've got on the farm. If the pair of them don't make you "git up and git," then I'll miss my guess.'"
"H'm," sniffed his mother, "it's little that Betsy Atwood knows about farming, with her high-fangled New England notions and Farm Bulletin Education. H'm!"
"Now, mother," said her son, "people aren't living on farms any more the way they used to. Farms must be made attractive and work must be made easy, if people are to live on them. That's why you're leaving yourself."
"Nobody ever accused me before, Joe Williams, of not doing my share of work. Your father and I toiled all our lives and this is how much you appreciate it."
"But I tell you, mother, farmers aren't satisfied to get along in the same way they used to. The farmer is human and wants comforts and pleasures in life just as well as anybody else, and I'm beginning to believe that John White was right when he made me buy an automobile to-day."