“‘Out with it, Bill; we are prepared for the wust.’”
“Yes, Bill,” says I. “I allow he was glad to git it back. He ort to be. He has some $3,800 of interest and principal we have paid him on the farm, before he forced us to borrow the money from Banker Vinting to pay him last spring. You see, Bill, we paid him $3,800 interest and principal up to last Aprile; then last Aprile we paid him $1,800 that we borrowed from the banker, and some $300 of Jobe’s legicy money from his dead aunt, makin in all some $5,900. Now he takes $1,863 of that money and buys it back, givin him the same farm we got from him and $4,000 nearly of money besides that Jobe has airned by hard knocks.”
“Well, Betsy,” says Bill, “it does look kind a tough.”
“Yes,” says I, “and it dont look any tougher than it is.”
“I spose not,” says Bill.
“No, Bill,” says I; “if the lawmakers only knew how hard it is to be sold out and turned out of your home, they would surely make laws to make money plentier and easier to git; they would surely reduce interest.”
“They ort to,” says Bill.
“Yes, Bill,” says I, “we have done all we could to hold the farm, and hoped to have a home to stay in in our old age.
“We have give all we raised to Congressman Richer in payments and interest and taxes and sich.
“We have done without many a thing we ort to a had tryin to keep our payments up, hopin that our old age might be spent here among our neighbors; but every year since we bought the farm times have got harder, prices lower and money scarcer.