"Do you mean to tell me, Erastus Burson, that you deeded him this place, and gave him your note for two hundred and fifty dollars you didn't owe him?"
"Why, no, mother; didn't I explain to you there'd be a deficiency judgment?"
"Well, I should say there was. But if anybody's lackin' judgment I'd say it was you, not him. The idea! Why he's as rich as cream, and you're as poor"—
"Well, his being rich and me being poor hasn't got anything to do with it, mother; we're just two men trying to be fair with each other, don't you see? You and the girls wouldn't want me to be close-fisted and overreachin', even if I am poor. I think we fixed it up just as near right as a wrong thing can be fixed. Of course I don't like to feel the way I do about Edmonson, but Mr. Anthony don't seem to lay up anything again him, and he's the one that has the right to. Edmonson treated him worse than anybody ever treated me. I don't know just how I'd feel toward a man if he'd treated me the way Edmonson treated Mr. Anthony."
Mrs. Burson laid the overalls she was mending across her knee in a suggestive attitude.
"I don't call it close-fisted or overreachin' to keep a roof over your family's head," she argued; "if the place isn't ours, I suppose we'll have to leave it."
"No; Mr. Anthony wants us to stay here, and take care of the place for the rent. I feel as if I'd ought to keep it up better, but if I'm to peddle fruit and try to pay off the note, I'll have to hustle. I want to do the square thing by him. He's certainly treated me white."
Mrs. Burson fitted a patch on the seat of the overalls, and flattened it down with rather unnecessarily vigorous slaps of her large hand.
"I wouldn't lose any sleep over Mr. Anthony; I guess he's able to take care of himself," she said, closing her lips suddenly as if to prevent the escape of less amicable sentiments.
"Well, he doesn't seem to be," urged her husband, "the way Edmonson's overreached him. My! but I'd hate to be in that fellow's shoes: doin' dirt to a man that a way!"