s mark; for he was not so strong as other men, as I said before,
and had, besides, so thoroughly coddled himself into that belief that
useful activity was struck off of his list of possibilities.

Now it happened that this Benson mortgage was the first which he had
taken out under his inheritance; it had a certain special interest to
him for that reason; it had netted him eight per cent. clear, and he
considered his fifteen hundred dollars well invested. His Harvard
classmate, Todd, a good judge, had selected the mortgage for him, and
altogether it seemed to the young property-holder quite an important, if
not to say a public, financial affair that this first of October passed
without producing sixty dollars from Benson. He didn't know who Benson
was; nor did he care. How many a capitalist in the East knows the sturdy
settler whose hard-earned home he holds in his relentless safe! The
drought comes, the crops wither away; the cyclone sweeps the land; the
only horse that does the ploughing dies; the mother is sick and the
father tends the babies instead of the wheat--a hundred catastrophes
menace the farmer, but whatever happens, the semi-annual dividend must
be paid or the nightmare of his life comes to pass--the terrible
capitalist in the East, less compassionate than the cyclone or the
inundation or the drought, takes the home as a matter of course, just as
he takes his dinner. Who would dare complain? Not Benson surely, thought
Ellesworth, with the smile of a man who holds a "full hand."

"Work Benson for all he is worth," wrote Ellesworth on some blue
club-paper, "and give him until the first of December."

The first of December came, but no South Carolina interest. Francis
Ellesworth was greatly annoyed and told Todd so plainly.

"He is sick," explained Todd. "Somebody else wrote for him. The letter
came the other day. But he signed it. He asks for another fifteen days."

Ellesworth frowned.

"I'm deuced hard up just now," he said, "Christmas is coming on. That
would just settle my flower bill. Halvin has sent me three confoundedly
gentlemanly bills. That's the worst of it. Write and tell Benson I'll
give him until the fifteenth of December--not another day."

"Just as you say," answered Todd. "It's all safe enough, but it will
take some time to realize. Cherokee isn't exactly booming, but he's got
fifty acres and one half cleared, the other half is heavy yellow pine.
The timber is worth the whole amount, my