As I looked at him I saw big tears rollin down his wrinkled cheek. Whether he was thinkin of poor Betty, or me a sellin the pillers, or what, I dont know. He said nothin, but turned aside and walked out toward the barn. I saw him usin his hankercher as he went. Now, though I be crazy on what I read in them noosepapers, though I be so crazy that I dream about it, I would like to ask you if my dream about the new money plan, and the county treasurer, and borrowing money at two per cent., though that dream, Bill Bowers and all, come from the mind of a crazy woman, sleepin alone—I say, wouldent it be a godsend to Jobe and his likes if he could go to the county treasurer this spring and if, by givin the same kind of a mortgage he gave Congressman Richer, he could git the money to pay Mr. Richer off at only two per cent.? Next year our interest would only be a little over $40. And, oh, how that lump comes up in my throat when I think that if we had had sich a law this Aprile we need not have sold poor Betty. Would it not be better to have a State law authorizin our county treasurer to receive deposits, and loan money at a low interest, even if we had to take tax off from money to do it, than to have people sellin the things they love, doin without the things they ort to have, and losin their homes? Who would sich a law hurt? Congressman Richer and his likes would git their money if they wanted it, and Jobe and his likes would be able to pay two per cent. interest and some on the mortgage every year. And jist to think, if interest was less, the difference in interest alone would pay off all the mortgages in this county in a few years. Then people would live in homes of their own, in homes with no mortgages on them. Everybody would be out of debt and happy. But Ime talkin crazy agin and will have to stop until Jobe and me gits back from town. CHAPTER VII. THEY DRIVE OLD TOM. JOBE and me have been to town and we are back alive, thank goodness. There is no place like home—if it _is_ mortgaged. Last Tuesday mornin, bright and airly, Jobe and me got up and got ready to go to town to raise some more interest money. I wore that blue cambric dress that Simon Kinsey’s wife got me for helpin her make apple butter last fall three years ago, and the lace cap mother knit and gave me the year John Sherman fust begin to borrow greenback money on bonds and burn it up, and that black straw hat Mrs. Vest Hummel traded me for that half dozen of dominic hens the spring she was married. While I was a standin before the lookin glass gittin ready Jobe come in, as men allers do, and says, says he: “Betsy, are you ever goin to git ready?” Then he begin to comment on my clothes. Says he: “I hope you haint a goin to wear that cap? Why, its out of fashion ten years ago. Haint you got a dress with bigger sleeves in? Why dont you borrow a hat more becomin you?”