ly said he was ready and had us come to his office. I haven't got
head enough to tell you all he said, for it was so mixed up. He went on
at a frightful rate about how hard it had been for him to call in money
enough to accommodate us, and finally made a proposition. He said in
order to make himself plumb secure the farm must be bought in his name
and mine as partners, with the understanding that whenever I got the
money I could buy him out. Somehow I felt uneasy then, but Uncle Tom
declared it was plumb fair. Sam Deacon, the young man who was studying
law here then, was in the office, and he told me it was all right and
perfectly safe, and so under all that pressure I consented. I have never
told a soul about it. Somehow the longer it went on the more foolish it
seemed for a girl like me to be in partnership with that old
money-shark, and I was ashamed."

"Well, even then," said Henley, still perplexed, "your interest must be
safe. I reckon you've had your scare for nothing."

"I haven't told you all yet," Dixie sighed. "The big rent I've had to
pay him on his half has kept my nose to the grindstone, so that I'm even
deeper in debt to him now than I was at the start."

"Rent?" exclaimed the storekeeper, staring blandly.

"Yes, nothing would suit Mr. Welborne but that his part was worth two
hundred a year, and he refused right out to trade any other way."

A light broke on Henley. He whistled softly, and his brawny hand
clutched his knee like a vise as he leaned forward.

"I see, I see," he panted, his eyes large in pitying surprise. "He was
dodging the law against usury. He has it fixed so that he's making no
violation of law, and yet he is getting at least two and a half times as
much as he'd be entitled to. Instead of eighty dollars a year--eight per
cent.--he's getting two hundred. You've already paid him for the value
of his part over and over. My Lord, my Lord, and you--you who have had
such a hard time! But have you never made any payment at all besides the
rent?"

"It was all I could do to rake up the two hundred a year," Dixie
answered, huskily. "Once, though, when cotton went high and I had made
six bales, I offered him a hundred dollars to lessen my debt, but he
wouldn't take it. He said it was too little to count, and that new
papers would have to be drawed up to make a proper credit, and for me to
keep it and spend it on some implements I needed. But I haven't told you
the worst yet, Alfred. He now s