Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 20, 2025
Welborne is getting to be like that old man in the fairy-book that stuck to the feller's neck and never could be shook off till he was made drunk. Welborne never touches a drop, you know, and so he'll stick till death claims him. I'm in an awful mess. I work like a slave from break of day till away after dark, and never seem to move a peg toward any sort of landing-place."
"The agent was so mad that he wouldn't explain what the speculation was, but I heard it that evenin'. Hank Bradley was tellin' it to a crowd at the post-office. You know Hank makes all manner of sport of his uncle behind the old skunk's back. He told a tale, too, that I'd never heard. It seems that old Welborne's mother-in-law died, and Welborne went to a undertaker to buy 'er coffin.
In the distance, and nearer to the village, rose the white, pretentious house of old Silas Welborne, the money-lender and the uncle of Hank Bradley, to whom she owed the remaining payment on her land. Almost day and night it stood before her as a mute reminder of her difficult undertaking.
Henley had once remarked in his keenly observant way that Welborne, being the next of kin, would be glad to hear that his nephew had died with his boots on in some one of the lynching affairs to which Bradley was suspected of being a party.
The money-lender was thin, had parchment-like skin, massive eyebrows, and long, gray hair, which never seemed to have been trimmed, and was massed on the greasy collar of his faded black alpaca coat. He was past seventy years of age, and the hand which held his pen shook visibly. Henley went in, and as he did so old Welborne laid down his pen and turned round in his revolving-chair.
"Here's the money, Mr. Welborne." A snort that could have been heard to the front door issued from Welborne's fluttering nostrils. He pushed the money from him, writhed and tottered, and as he glared furiously at Henley he screamed: "It's a trick put up between you. I see it, but I won't be buncoed in no such way. Do you hear me? no such way!"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking