ade it.

"Mr. Bass--I--I have been waiting to speak to you about that mortgage."

"Er--yes," he answered, without moving his head, "er--about the
mortgage."

"Mr. Worthington told me that you had bought it."

"Yes, I did--yes, I did."

"I'm afraid you will have to foreclose," said Wetherell; "I cannot
reasonably ask you to defer the payments any longer."

"If I foreclose it, what will you do?" he demanded abruptly.

There was but one answer--Wetherell would have to go back to the city
and face the consequences. He had not the strength to earn his bread on
a farm.

"If I'd a b'en in any hurry for the money--g-guess I'd a notified you,"
said Jethro.

"I think you had better foreclose, Mr. Bass," Wetherell answered; "I
can't hold out any hopes to you that it will ever be possible for me to
pay it off. It's only fair to tell you that."

"Well," he said, with what seemed a suspicion of a smile, "I don't know
but what that's about as honest an answer as I ever got."

"Why did you do it?" Wetherell cried, suddenly goaded by another fear;
"why did you buy that mortgage?"

But this did not shake his composure.

"H-have a little habit of collectin' 'em," he answered, "same as you do
books. G-guess some of 'em hain't as valuable."

William Wetherell was beginning to think that Jethro knew something also
of such refinements of cruelty as were practised by Caligula. He
drew forth his cowhide wallet and produced from it a folded piece of
newspaper which must, Wetherell felt sure, contain the mortgage in
question.

"There's one power I always wished I had," he observed, "the power
to make folks see some things as I see 'em. I was acrost the Water
to-night, on my hill farm, when the sun set, and the sky up thar above
the mountain was all golden bars, and the river all a-flamin' purple,
just as if it had been dyed by some of them Greek gods you're readin'
about. Now if I could put them things on paper, I wouldn't care a
haycock to be President. No, sir."

The storekeeper's amazement as he listened to this speech may be
imagined. Was this Jethro Bass? If so, here was a side of him the
existence of which no one suspected. Wetherell forgot the matter in
hand.

"Why don't you put that on paper?" he exclaimed.

Jethro smiled, and made a deprecating motion with his thumb.

"Sometimes when I hain't busy, I drop into the state library at the
capital and enjoy myself. It's like goin' to another world without
any folks t