Money is rather scarce. For your rent, eh?"
"Yes, for my rent! The farm brings me in nothing but my living. That
Didenhover is ruining me, brother Joshua."
"He's feathering his own nest, I reckon."
"You may swear to that. There wa'n't as many bushels of grain, by
one-fourth, when they were threshed out last year, as I had calculated
there would be in the field. I don't know what on earth he could have done
with it. I suppose it'll be the same thing over this year."
"Maybe he has served you as Deacon Travis was served by one of his help
last season--the rascal bored holes in the granary floor and let out the
corn so, and Travis couldn't contrive how his grain went till the floor
was empty next spring, and then he see how it was."
"Ha!--did he catch the fellow?"
"Not he--he had made tracks before that. A word in your ear--I wouldn't
let Didenhover see much of his salary till you know how he will come out
at the end."
"He has got it already!" said Mr. Ringgan, with a nervous twitch at the
old mare's head; "he wheedled me out of several little sums on one
pretence and another,--he had a brother in New York that he wanted to send
some to, and goods that he wanted to get out of pawn, and so on,--and I
let him have it! and then there was one of those fatting steers that he
proposed to me to let him have on account, and I thought it was as good a
way of paying him as any; and that made up pretty near the half of what
was due to him.
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