s in the shadow.

"Hear you've been doin' pretty well with that boardin'-house of yours,"
he observed. "Hear it's been full up all summer."

"Who told you so?"

"Oh, I heard. I hear about all that's goin' on, one way or another. I
was over there a fortni't ago."

"You were? Why didn't you stop in and see me? You haven't been there but
once since the place started."

"Yes, I have. I've been by a good many times. Didn't stop, though. Too
many of them city dudes around to suit me. Did you fetch your October
interest money."

"No, I didn't. It ain't due till week after next. When it is I'll send
it, same as I have the rest."

"All right, all right, I ain't askin' you for it. What did you come
for?"

And then Thankful told him. He listened without comment until she
had finished, peering over his spectacles and keeping up the eternal
"weeding."

"There," concluded Mrs. Barnes, "that's what I came for. Will you do
it?"

The answer was prompt enough this time.

"No, I won't," said Solomon, with decision.

Thankful was staggered.

"You won't?" she repeated. "You won't--"

"I won't lend you no more money. Why should I?"

"You shouldn't, I suppose, if you don't want to. But, the way I look at
it, it would be a perfectly safe loan for you. My prospects are fine;
everybody says so."

"Everybody says a whole lot of things. If I'd put up money on what
everybody said I'd be puttin' up at the poorhouse, myself. But I ain't
puttin' up there and I ain't puttin' up the money neither."

"All right; keep it then--keep it and sleep on it, if you want to. I
can get along without it, I guess; or, if I can't, I can borrow it of
somebody else."

"Humph! You're pretty sassy, seems to me, for anybody that's askin'
favors."

"I'm not askin' favors. I told you that when I first come to you. What I
asked was just business and nothin' else."

"Is that so? As I understand it you're askin' to have a mortgage
renewed. That may be business, or it may be a favor, 'cordin' to how you
look at it."

Thankful fought down her temper. The renewal of the mortgage was a vital
matter to her. If it was not renewed what should she do? What could she
do? All she had in the world and all her hopes for the future centered
about her property in East Wellmouth. If that were taken from her--

"Well," she admitted, "perhaps it is a favor, then."

"Perhaps 'tis. Why should I renew that mortgage? I don't cal'late to
renew mortgages, as a genera