Now, suppose Mr. Richer, as our Congressman, had introduced a bill, and got it made into a law somethin like my dream was. He would have been sent back to Congress and a been a drawin $5,000 a year salary and disposin of post-offices and sich at payin prices, and wouldent need the money still due on the mortgage, or if he did need it to help him out on his real estate deals, under that new bill Jobe could borrow the money of the county at two per cent. and pay it, and besides could pay the interest easier and have more each year to pay on the mortgage.
You remember that my dream was that Congress had passed a law that hereafter, when more money was needed to do bizness with in any county, instead of the United States lendin it to the national banks at one per cent., and lettin the banks loan it to the people at eight or ten per cent., I dreamed that the law was that the same officers of the government should lend it to the county at one per cent., on county bonds as security, and that the county treasurer should lend it to the people of his county at two per cent., on sich security as the banks now take, and I drempt that Jobe and me and Bill Bowers went to the county treasurer to see about gittin the money to pay Congressman Richer the $2,100, and we found that sich a law was passed, and the county still lived. And I dreamed that the bankers was a peckin, and a beckenin, and a coaxin of people to borrow their money at the same rate of interest as the county treasurer loaned it. Now, had we ort to be foreclosed because no sich law was made? Had Congressman Richer ort a want to foreclose us when he dident try to git sich a law made? Had we ort to be foreclosed when Jobe has been a votin men into office to make laws that would make it easier for him to live and pay for his home, and they dident do it? Had we ort to be foreclosed because them men have made laws agin Jobe instead of fur him? Made laws to reduce the value of his farm and the price of his crops; made it harder for him to pay debt?
Had Mr. Richer even made a law permittin county treasurers to receive deposits of people who would ruther put their money in the county treasury than in banks, and allowed the county treasurer to loan it out in the name of the county at three or four per cent., givin all he received as interest, less what it cost to attend to it, to the fellers what deposited it, it would a helped us some. But he dident do it nor try to do it.
If we are foreclosed and our farm is sold by the sheriff, and Mr. Richer bids it in for $2,100 and gits the farm back, where is Jobe’s $1,700 cash paid on the principal and $2,212 interest money he has paid?
Who gits it? What has Jobe got for it? For who has Jobe and me been a workin for the last sixteen years? For who is this foreclosin law, with high interest, made? I hope we will be able to git our case at court put off till arter the fall election and corn huskin! Livin in this hope I must retire to bed. Jobe is asleep in his cheer. Every little bit there is a troubled look comes into his face, as though his dreams haint all pleasant.
CHAPTER X.
IS THERE A WOMAN IN THE BARN?
YOUD a dide to see the fun I had with Jobe day before yisterday. It was warm like, and I went out to the barn to see what Jobe was a doin. When I got up to the barn door I heerd Jobe a talkin. Peekin in through a crack, I seed Jobe settin on the half-bushel, lookin desperate and jist a layin it off with his hands, like as if he was argyin with some one. At times he come so near a swearin that he is in danger of gittin churched, if they find it out on him. Jist as I got my eye to that crack he brought his fist down on his knee with force, and says, says he:
“Ive been made a fool of and I know it. Ive marched up to the ballot-box for nigh onto thirty-five years and voted men into office that cared no more for Jobe Gaskins and his likes than they did for a good fox hound, and not as much. They said it was necessary to destroy the greenbacks, and I said, ‘Destroy them.’ They said, ‘We ort to demonitize silver,’ and I said, ‘Demonitize her.’ I seed that times was gittin harder, but they said way back in the seventies that the tariff ort to be higher, and the next year higher, and higher, and higher. And every time they said higher I hollered, and the higher they made it the louder I hollered, and kept a hollerin until to-day about all I have to show for my hollerin and votin is the holler, and there is dummed little of that left now.
