"Yes,--when you get it, but interest's the slowest pay of all, in these parts, unless you work an' contrive for it. They know you won't foreclose on 'em; for while the security's good enough if you let it alone, there ain't an estate in the county that would fetch the face of its mortgage under the hammer. Besides, a merchant gen'rally dassent foreclose a mortgage, unless it's agin some worthless shack of a man. Folks remember it agin him, an' he loses some trade." "Then those mortgages are practically worthless?" "Oh, no. The money's in 'em, principal an' int'rest in full,--but the holder's got to know how to git it out. That's the difference between successful merchants and failures." "H'm--I see. Apparently country merchants should be, like the disciples, as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves." "That's it in a nutshell. I reckon any fool could make money in the store business if there was nothin' to do but weigh an' measure out goods an' take in ready cash for 'em. But there ain't no ready money in this county, 'xcept what the merchants get in for the produce they send out. There ain't no banks, so the store-keepers have to be money-lenders, an' have money in hand to lend; for while there's some borrowers that can be turned off, there's some it would never do to say 'No' to, if you wanted further dealin's with 'em, for they'd feel as if they'd lost their main dependence, an' been insulted besides. Why, some of our customers come in here Saturdays an' get a few five an' ten cent pieces, on credit like any other goods, so's their families can have somethin' to put in the plate in church on Sunday." "But there are rentals due from several farms, and from houses in town. Are they as hard to collect as interest on mortgages?" "Well, no--oh, no. The rent of most of the farms is payable in produce; there's ironclad written agreements, recorded in the county clerk's office, that the renters shan't sell any of their main crops anywhere else until the year's rent is satisfied. One of 'em pays by clearin' five acre of woodland ev'ry winter, an' gettin' it under cultivation in the spring, and another has to do a certain amount of ditchin' to drain swampy places. You'll have to watch them two fellers close, or they'll skimp their work, for there's nothin' farmers hate like clearin' an' ditchin'. I don't blame 'em, either." "And the houses in town?" "Oh, they're all right. The man in one of 'em, at two dollars a month, cuts all the firewood for the store an' house; that about balances his bill. Another house, at three thirty-three a month, has a cooper in it; he pays the rent, an' all of the stuff he buys at the store, in barrels for us in the pork-packin' season. The three an' a-half a month house man works out his rent in the pork-house durin' the winter, an' the four dollar house has your insurance agent in it; there's always a little balance in his favor ev'ry year. The--"