N the afternoon of the following day Dixie came to the store. At the moment Cahews was busy with some customers on the side of the house devoted to dry-goods, and Henley was at his desk in the rear drawing a cheque to pay for some cotton he had bought from a farmer. Dixie walked straight toward him, but Henley did not see her till she was quite close, then he was struck by the unusual pallor and tense gravity of her face. He sprang up at once and proffered a chair.
"I want to talk to you," she said, her lips quivering, and she motioned toward the waiting farmer. "Finish with him; I'm in no hurry."
Henley complied, a startled concern for her rendering him all but incapable of resuming the business with the customer. He had to go out to the farmer's wagon to read the marks on the cotton-bale for record, and even as he made the notes in his book and directed the unloading of the wagon he was saying to himself: "She's in trouble—something has gone wrong. She never was knocked out like that before."
On his return he entered at the side-door, and as he was crossing the yard to reach it he caught sight of her when she thought she was unobserved. She was pressing her hands to her face, and her whole form seemed to have wilted. She heard his step and essayed to assume a light mood of greeting, but it was a poor pretence, at best. She smiled as she looked up, but it was a cold, bloodless effort.
"I may as well tell you, Alfred, that I'm in trouble," she began, tremulously, as he sat down near her. "You've always said I had a long head on me for a girl, but I reckon I can manage just so far, and not a bit farther. I can plant and sow and gather and reap, and even market small dribs of things, but I'm a fool in big business matters, and I've gone and got my foot in it. I'm up to my neck in the mire, and I'm sinking inch by inch."
"What's wrong, Dixie?" he said, consolingly. "You mustn't let yourself give up this way. It ain't like you."
"Well, it's about my farm," she said, and she paused to steady her voice, which seemed to fail her.
"I see," Henley said. "Old Welborne is charging you too high interest. You ought to shift the mortgage to somebody more human—somebody with at least a thimbleful of soul. That man is the hardest taskmaster on earth. He'd skin a flea for its hide and tallow."
"Mortgage? I'm afraid you wouldn't exactly call it a mortgage, Alfred. Listen; I've just got to tell you about it. You are my friend. I know you'll tell me the best thing to do, and I'll abide by your advice. When I bought the farm from Uncle Tom, who, you remember, wanted to sell out to move to Alabama when the trade was made, I only had a thousand dollars ready money, and the price was two thousand. Uncle Tom was anxious to close out and get away, and so he looked about for somebody that would lend me the balance. Times was awfully hard then, and nobody had any money on hand but Welborne, and he said he'd let me have it at a reasonable rate of interest. Somehow Welborne never would get ready to make out the papers and turn over the money, and Uncle Tom was nearly out of his head with worry over the delay."