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Her face was out of sight under the hood of her sunbonnet, her handkerchief to her eyes. "She's willing to do what's right," Henley said to Welborne. "The only thing she holds out for is to have the proposition down in writing. Of course, there is no need of it, but women know nothing about business, and will have every detail carried out, and so I scratched it down here.
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.
"I'll tell you, sir," he went on to the salesman, after another sly wink at Cahews, "none of us here happen to want anything in your line, but there is a rich old codger across the way Mr. Silas Welborne who will trade if you'll stick to him long enough. He's got dead kin with no sort o' tags on 'em.
It would have ruined me for life, but you looked ahead and saw it and saved me." "Oh, well, that's past and gone," Dixie said, touched by a certain new and deep quality in his voice. "I'll keep the money if you want me to. I really need it. Old Welborne got hopping mad at me for ousting his tenant, and simply rowed me up Salt River. Some day I may come to you for legal advice.
"You look like you've been run over by a wagon, or kicked by an army mule. Great heavens, man!" Welborne put out his hand as if to touch the purple and swollen spot above Bradley's eye, but with a surly oath the young man drew back. "Same mule, I reckon, that had hold of your windpipe in your office the other day when you squealed like a stuck pig under the table." "Huh!" Welborne grunted.
This is no time for revenge. Hurry up. I'm off. I've got to get a man to take my horse home." When his accomplice had gone away, Bradley crossed over to old Welborne. "You remember," he began, "that you advised me to leave here the other day?" Old Welborne stared at him steadily for a minute, and then shrugged his decrepit shoulders.
"I know what I'm talking about," Bradley replied, still evasively, "and that will be the first thing I attend to when I get where I can breathe fresh air. Say, uncle, I've had a secret in my hold for several years. It is about Dick Wrinkle. If I thought you could hold your old tongue " "Hold my tongue?" Welborne broke in. "Did you ever hear of me telling anything?"
You understand that you've got a right either to pay eight hundred and own the farm, or take eight hundred and sell your half. Is that plain to you?" "Yes, I understand it perfectly," Dixie answered, glancing first at him and then at the expectant and suave money-lender. "And you understand it, too, don't you, Mr. Welborne?" "Yes, I understand it," the eager old man replied, craftily.
She has set out to make a livin' fer a mammy that can't hardly see where she's walkin', and an aunt that is mighty nigh tied in a knot with rheumatism, and she is doin' it bless yore life! better'n many a man could in the same plight. Folks say she's already paid old Welborne half on that farm, and that before long she'll own it, lock, stock, and barrel.
Let me have this violence and compulsion removed, there is nothing that, in my seeming, doth more bastardise and dizzie a welborne and gentle nature: If you would have him stand in awe of shame and punishment, doe not so much enure him to it: accustome him patiently to endure sweat and cold, the sharpnesse of the wind, the heat of the sunne, and how to despise all hazards.
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