says
mortgages are wicked anyhow, and I believe him!"

"I guess he couldn't have bought this place if he didn't give a mortgage
on it. And he'd have had enough to pay cash, too, if Richards hadn't
begged him so to lend it to him."

"When is Richards going to pay him?"

"It come due three months ago; Richards ain't never paid up the interest
even, and now he says he's got to have the mortgage extended for three
years; anyhow for two."

"But don't he KNOW we've got to pay our own mortgage? How can we help
HIM? I wish Uncle would sell him out!"

The boy gave her the superior smile of the masculine creature. "I
suppose," he remarked with elaborate irony, "that he's like Uncle and
you; he thinks mortgages are wicked."

"And just as like as not Uncle won't want to go to the carnival," Eve
went on, her eyes filling again.

Tim gazed at her, scowling and sneering; but she was absorbed in dreams
and hopes with which as yet his boyish mind had no point of contact.

"All the girls in the A class were going to go to see the fireworks
together, and George Dean and some of the boys were going to take us,
and we were going to have tea at May Arlington's house, and I was to
stay all night;"--this came in a half sob. "I think it is just too mean!
I never have any good times!"

"Oh, yes, you do, sis, lots! Uncle always gits you everything you want.
And he feels terrible bad when I--when he knows he can't afford to git
something you want----"

"I know well enough who tells him we can't afford things!"

"Well, do you want us to git things we can't afford? I ain't never
advised him except the best I knew how. I told him Richards was a
blow-hard, and I told him those Alliance grocery folks he bought such a
lot of truck of would skin him, and they did; those canned things they
sold him was all musty, and they said there wasn't any freight on 'em,
and he had to pay freight and a fancy price besides; and I don't believe
they had any more to do with the Alliance than our cow!"

"Uncle always believes everything. He always is so sure things are going
to turn out just splendid; and they don't--only just middling; and then
he loses a lot of money."

"But he is an awful good man," said the boy, musingly.

"I don't believe in being so good you can't make money. I don't want
always to be poor and despised, and have the other girls have prettier
clothes than me!"

"I guess you can be pretty good and yet make money, if you are sharp