CHAPTER XXXVI.

BILL BOWERS IS ON THE FENCE.

JOBE is able to be up. We have been foreclosed, and ex-Congressman Richer has the farm back.

We have a notice in writin to vacate these premises on or before the first day of March.

Jobe bein sick, neither of us was to town the day our old home was sold by the sheriff.

I felt bad all that day—felt jist like somethin awful was about to happen. Jobe seemed weaker and more restless than usual.

Bill Bowers rode by our place in the evenin, stopped at the gate and hollered.

I went to the door, hopin agin hope that maybe for some unknown reason the foreclosin hadent been done. But as soon as I laid eyes on Bill I knode our home was gone.

He hemmed and hawed and stammered, tryin to say somethin that was hard for him to say. Says I:

“Out with it, Bill; we are prepared for the wust.”

“Well, Betsy,” says he, “its gone. Congressman Richer bought it in, at jist what the mortgage and interest amounted to, and you people will have to pay the costs. Mr. Richer seemed pleased to get the old farm back agin.”

“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.

“We have raised good crops, Jobe has worked hard, and now, arter all the years of hard work and good crops, we have $512 less than we had when we bought the farm seventeen years ago.

“They kept a tellin Jobe that it was ‘better to have less money and lower prices than to have more money and higher prices,’ and Jobe and his likes have kept a votin for the fellers that told him sich until to-day he is sick and sold out.

“He has done the votin and the other fellers has got the money. They held the bag, and Jobe and his likes poured in the grain.”

“Well, Betsy,” says Bill, studyin like, “Ive about made up my mind that none of us farmers have much to show for our past votin. It looks as though, while we have been workin hard nite and day, economizin and savin; while we have been a tryin to lay up somethin for ourselves in old age, and for our children; while we have been doin all this, and doin the votin, there has been a lot of schemers and rascals seekin office and gittin laws made to redeem one kind of money in another, and then cornerin the redeemin kind, and contractin and destroyin this kind and that, even issuin bonds on us to git it to burn, and doin everything so they would be able to take from us what we were a raisin and savin.”

Then, leanin over on his horse, says he:

“Betsy, step up closer to the fence.”

I walked out to the fence.

Says he, whisperin like:

“Ile tell you, Betsy. Ive made up my mind to try them Populists hereafter. I see they have some purty smart men in the United States Senate. But for the life of you, Betsy, dont say anything to any one about my changin.”

I jist stepped back a step or two and looked at Bill Bowers for a whole minit. He looked at me. Then says I:

“Bill Bowers, I am surprised! I am surprised that you, a full-blooded American citizen, a grown-up man, a man who has made up his mind to do what he believes to be right, and then hasent the manhood to let the world know that you are independent, but are afraid that some officeseeker or polertician who lives off of you will turn up his nose at you! Bill Bowers, I thought you had more firmness in you than that. If the party you have been votin for has betrayed you, if the officeseekers you have helped to elect have used you as a tool, haint it your dooty as a man and a citizen to let it be known that you are a goin to quit the gang? Instid of bein afraid of them, you should make them afraid of you. Thats your dooty, Bill.”

“Well, Betsy,” says he, “I dont know but what youre right, but Ide ruther you wouldent say anything about it.”

Then, changin the subject, says he:

“Betsy, where do you think of goin to?”

“Where do I think of goin to?” says I. “The Lord only knows. I dont.”

At that Jobe hollered for me, and, biddin Bill “good day,” I come in.

Yourn, nearin the close.