“So fur good; an’ now for tother proposal I hev to make. I don’t acknowledge yur right to this clarin’. I’ve made it; an’ call it my own, as a sovereign citizen of these United States; an’ I don’t care a cuss for pre-emption right, since I don’t believe in any man’s right to move me off o’ the groun’ I’ve clared. But I ain’t so durned pertickler ’bout this hyur bit. Another ’ll answer my bizness equally as well—maybe better—an’ ef ye’ll pay me for my improvements, ye can take both clarin’ an’ cabin, an’ hev no more muss about it. Them’s my proposals.”
“How much do you expect for these improvements? At what sum do you value them?”
I trembled as I awaited the answer. My poor purse felt light as it lay against my bosom—far lighter than the heart within: though that had been heavier but an hour before. I knew that the sack contained less than two hundred dollars, in notes of the Planters’ Bank; and I feared that such a sum would never satisfy the expectations of the squatter.
“Wal, stranger,” replied he, after a pause, “thur worth a good wheen o’ dollars; but I shan’t valley ’em myself. I’ll leave that part o’ the bizness to a third individooal—my friend as stands thur; an’ who’s a just man, an’s been some’at o’ a lawyer too. He’ll say what’s fair atween us. Won’t ye, Josh?”
I thought this rather a familiar style of address, on the part of the squatter, towards his clerical and saint-like friend; but I refrained from showing my astonishment.
“Oh, yes,” replied the other, “I’ll value the property with pleasure—that is, if the gentleman desires me to do so.”
“How much do you think it worth?” I inquired with nervous anxiety. “Well, I should say that, for the improvements Mr Holt has made, a hundred dollars would be a fair compensation.”
“A hundred dollars?”
“Yes—in cash, of course, I mean.”
“Will you be satisfied with that sum?” said I, turning to Holt for the answer.