PAYING THE MORTGAGE.
��PAYING THE MORTGAGE.
��BY MARY DWINELL CHELLIS.
��"Marry that old man! Never! I'll starve first. He may foreclose the mort- gage and turn us out doors as soon as he pleases to, but I will never be his wife, never!"
"Heavens and airth, child, who you talking about? You don't say Peter Greenleaf wants you for a wife, do you?"
"I don't say any thing about it, Aunt Jane. Where in the world did you come from? I am glad to see you, but I didn't know there was any body to hear me. Don't tell, Aunt Jane."
"I won't" replied the unexpected visi- tor. "Don't you be afraid. I've kept a good many secrets in my day, and I'll keep yours. I come over this morning a
purpose to talk with you and see if I couldn't help you. If I only had the money, I'd pay up that mortgage and done with it. Then, the old man might whistle. 'Spose your grandma'am could not help doin as she did, but 'twas a master pity."
"She would have paid part of it before now, if Regis hadn't been sick and the cow died. She talked about it only a few days before she died, and told me if she left us suddenly, I must do the best I could. She said there was a letter in the little bureau that would explain all about the mortgage, but I haven't wanted to read it yet. I can pay part of the interest by winter, but Mr. Green- leaf says he must have the whole, and I can't pay the whole."
"Well, child, don't give up. It's been awful discouragin' weather, dark days and heavy fogs, and every thing all damped through ; but 'taint always ;goin to be so. We've got to have Indian Sum- mer, yit. Your grandma'am was a curous manager ; else she'd never made so much out of five acres of pasture land and an old sheep barn. That was all there was here when she bought it, and now, there ain't no land in town that gives better crops ; and there ain't no
��house that's more comfortable. I've wished a good many times, I had her faculty ; but I hain't, though I'm reck- oned tolable for plannin'. "Where's Regis?"
"At work for Mr. Beman."
"He's a smart boy."
"Yes, he is, and a good boy, too. If
he was older we could do better."
"Yes, but he'll grow old fast enough. He's twelve and you're eighteen, and you two are left without a blood relation in the world nigher than a second cousin. That's what your grandma'amj told me the last time I see her 'fore she died so sudden. I can't make the way clear, all through, but don't you marry a man you don't want to. That's the worst thing a woman can do, and there's always a curse follows it. I married a poor man, and I ain't goin' to say he wa'nt shif- less, for he was, and everybody knew it; but I loved him and he loved me, and so I could put up with his ways, though they wan't just what they ought to be. When John and I was together, we never felt as though we wished somebody else was in either of our places. I wouldn't advise you nor anybody else to marry a shitless man ; but I did, and I never was sorry. Peter Greenleaf's wife didn't have a poor mau nor a shifless man, but she had a harder time than I did ; and I hope if he marries again, he'll get some- body that'll stand up for her rights. There he is, sure's you're alive, comin' over the hill. Want me to git out of sight?" "Perhaps it would be best, but please
don't leave the house." "I won't, and don't you be afraid.
Manage to make him say if the interest's
paid, he'll wait for the rest. He thinks
you'd make a purty piece of household
furnitur, and some way he got a grudge
against your gran'ma'am. I misdoubted
how t'would turn out, when I knew she
got the^ money of him ; but the Lord
reigns, and t there can't nobody hinder his plans."
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