“Ah, they wouldn’t be so bad,” put in the girl Lilly, “if we could ride in ’em now an’ then, the way others do. Johann Hunker’s got a m’chine.”
“Ach, you are always bellerin’ about a m’chine,” her father burst out. “When you got one you got a hole to throw money in. Listen to them rich people even, talkin’ about how much they cost. What have I got to do with a m’chine? An’ whose goin’ to run it, your Momma? I ain’t goin’ to take no risks with ’em, not since I got that sunstroke last August anyways. I git so dizzy sometimes I think I can’t get home to the house.”
“I could run it,” grumbled Lilly.
“You now, Lilly! You’ve got plenty to do without that. You don’t tend to your work the way it is.”
“She’s gettin’ so lazy she’s got no head to remember anything,” put in her mother. “I don’t dare leave the children with her.”
“M’chine!” Dietz quavered on, “I ain’t got no money for ’em if I wanted one.”
“You’ve got the money, I guess,” said Mrs. Dietz querulously, “the same as Johann Hunker, if you wanted to spend it.”
“Now, Momma, I told you twenty times already I’m takin’ care of your money. Who’s goin’ to keep it safe for a rainy day, if it ain’t me?”
“Well, we don’t see anything of it, Hermann, not since you got hold of it ... sellin’ off the farms, an’ leavin’ us with hardly a place to put foot to the ground.”
“Yes, Momma,” rejoined her husband earnestly. “I did sell off the farms. But you know what Mr. McNutt said. He said if I didn’t want to take that two hundred dollars an acre Mr. Blaydon offered, they’d all go somewheres else an’ build, and our land never would git a high price. You couldn’t git a hundred for it in them days.”