Continerin, says I: “I was a readin in my paper, the other day, that the banker borrowed money from this here government for one per cent. The very money he loans you and your likes at six and seven and eight per cent. he gits from this here government for one per cent. You, Jobe Gaskins, ort to have jist as good right to borrow money from this here government of yourn and his as he has, if you give good security and will pay it back, and God knows you would, as honest as you are. Jist to think, Jobe, if you could have borrowed the money from the government to have paid Congressman Richer for his farm fourteen years ago, when we bought it, at only one per cent. interest, and only paid back to the government, at the post-office, or some other place appointed, the same as you have paid Congressman Richer in payments and interest, we to-day would have our farm nearly paid for and be out of debt, and you wouldent be a settin and studyin about the mortgage and interest and the fust of Aprile. Or even if you could borrow the money to-day from the government at two per cent., you could git the $2,100, pay it off, and next year only have to raise $42 interest instead of $126. Dont you see it would be easier for you to pay? And you could pay a little on the mortgage every year, as hard as times are?” While I was a sayin all this Jobe was a lookin at me, a starin, turnin on his seat, spittin in the fire, crossin fust one leg, then another, waitin for me to stop. I seen he was teched; so, when I had done, I sot back in my cheer, and begin to knit, and waited for what was a comin. He begun slowly, but warmed up as he proceeded. Says he: “Betsy, I have lived with you for nigh onto thirty-five years; we have allers lived in peace, though you was a Dimicrat and I was a Republican; we have had our sorrows and our hardships, and now, arter all these years of peace, am I to pass the last days of my life with a pardner who is allers talkin like them blamed Populists? You know, Betsy Gaskins, that I am a Republican and expect to die one. I believe that all the laws made by the Republicans are just laws. If they made laws to lend the banker money at one per cent. it must stand, and I will try to bear my burden, though I have to pay six per cent. interest or more, if need be, for the same money. Betsy, you must stop readin them papers. I never look into one; they jist start a feller to thinkin, and the fust thing he knows he dont believe a thing he has been a believin all his life. It ruins a feller’s perlitical principles. If a feller is a Republican, he should be one and never read anything to cause him to think. Them Populists, Betsy, is jist made up of a lot of storekeepers and farmers, and men who work in shops and mills and coal-banks and sich places. They dont know anything about makin laws, or money or bizness. Our law-makers, Betsy, should be lawyers and bankers and rich business men and sich.”