to mortgages--first
mortgages, not seconds. Let that be a principle with you. Many a holder
of a second mortgage has been left to hold the sack. You must remember
that the first mortgage comes in for the first claim after taxes, and
if the foreclosure doesn't bring enough to satisfy more than that, the
second mortgage is sleeping on its rights."

"First mortgages, not seconds," said Rose.

"And while I'm on that, let me warn you about Alex Tracy, four miles
north and a half mile east, on the west side of the road. He's a
slippery cuss and you'll have to watch him."

"Alex Tracy, four miles north--"

"You'll find my mortgage for thirty-seven hundred in my box at the bank.
He's two coupons behind in his interest. I made him give me a chattel on
his growing corn. Watch him--he's treacherous. He may think he can sneak
around because you're a woman and stall you. He's just likely to turn
his hogs into that corn. Your chattel is for growing corn, not for corn
in a hog's belly. If he tries any dirty business get the sheriff after
him."

"It's on the GROWING corn," said Rose.

"And here's another important point--taxes. Don't pay any taxes on
mortgages. What's the use of giving the politicians more money to waste?
Hold on to your bank stock and arrange to have all mortgages in the
name of the bank, not in your own. They pay taxes on their capital and
surplus, not on their loans. But be sure to get a written acknowledgment
on each mortgage from Osborne. He's square, but you can't ever tell what
changes might take place and then there might be some question about
mortgages in the bank's name."

"Keep them in the bank's name," said Rose.

"And a written acknowledgment," Martin stressed.

"A written acknowledgment," she echoed.

For probably fifteen minutes he lay without further talk; then, a little
more weariness in his voice than she had ever known before, he began to
speak again.

"I've been thinking a great deal, Rose." There was still that new
tenderness in the manner in which he pronounced her name, that new
tone she had never heard before and which caused her to feel a little
nervous. "I've been thinking, Rose, about the years we've lived together
here on a Kansas prairie farm--"

"It lacks just a few months of being twenty-eight years," she added.

"Yes, it sounds like a long time when you put it that way, but it
doesn't seem any longer than a short sigh to me lying here. I've been
thinking, Rose, how you'