CHAPTER VII AN EXCITING INTERVIEW
Old Marsh Green was perhaps the poorest farmer in Rappahannock County. But when it came to facts in relation to the Marshall family or the land it had owned, his information was profuse and exact. When Morey knocked on his cabin door at six o’clock the next morning and ordered the white-haired darkey to turn out and saddle Betty and Jim, Marsh and Amos were more than amazed. They were confounded. No Marshall had ever risen at such an hour within the colored man’s recollection.
“Somepin gwine come frum dis,” muttered Marsh. “Tain’t natchal.”
Amos was greatly relieved to find that the early morning business did not relate to the knife he had purloined.
Marsh knew no more after Morey had accomplished his purpose. In an hour and a half the boy and the “overseer” had ridden from one end of the plantation to the other and across it; not only the present one hundred and sixty-acre piece immediately about the “mansion,” but east and west, north and south, over all the acres once attached to the place. On a bit of paper Morey made a rough chart of the land as his father had known and cultivated it and on each, parcel and division he set down notes concerning the quality of the soil, when last cultivated by the Marshalls, and its present physical condition.
At nine o’clock he breakfasted with his mother and at ten o’clock he was at the Barber Bank in Lee’s Court House, above which Major Carey had an office.
“I believe, Morey,” began Major Carey, “after giving this problem a great deal of thought, that the best thing to do, possibly, would be to let my son-in-law, Mr. Bradner, take charge of the matter.”
“A stranger,” exclaimed Morey.
“Well, you see,” explained Major Carey, “he knows the situation and he can talk to your mother. I confess that I can’t, and you are rather young to undertake it. It’s a business proposition now and he’s a business man.”
“We won’t talk to my mother at all. At least not yet. And, when we do, I’ll do it. There’s no call to bring in an outsider. I’m ready for business. Now what does this all mean?”
Major Carey sighed and pointed to a chair on one side of a dusty, paper-littered table.
“It means,” began the planter money-lender, “that your mother owes $14,092 with an additional $800 soon due.”
Morey, instead of sitting down, sprang to his feet.
“Why—why, we have never had all that money.”
“That’s it. It began when your father was alive. Eleven thousand of it he had. The rest of it is interest and—”
“But my mother has money of her own. She had a fortune that is hers.”
“So she believes,” explained Major Carey, “but, Morey, money is an unknown quantity to your dear mother. She had and still has $5,000. It is safely invested and brings a revenue of $300 a year. On that and with what little your place has produced in the last three years you have lived.”
“My schooling cost more than that.”
“There you have it. Captain Barber advanced the money for your school bills.”
Morey’s face whitened and his lip quivered. Then he leaned across the table, his hand shaking, and exclaimed:
“And that’s what you call looking out for our interests! How could you let me make such a fool of myself? Do you imagine I hadn’t the manhood to do the right thing?”
“I’d have told you, but, my boy, your mother is different. She couldn’t stand it.”
“Yet you are willing now, when we are in over our heads and about ready to drown, to let a stranger tell her.”
“What can we do?”
“You can treat me like a man. Go on,” said Morey stoutly. “Tell me what has happened. If we are ‘all in’ I want to know just how deep the water is. Don’t you be afraid. You’re not talking to Mother now.”
Major Carey seemed almost to be saying to himself, “I wish I were.” His restlessness increased.
“There are three mortgages on Aspley Place,” he began, drawing a green box from his old-fashioned desk. “The first one was made to the Richmond Trust Co. and is on the big one hundred and eighty-acre piece now in corn. This is for $4,500. On the two sixty-acre pieces to the north, the meadow and the tobacco ground, there is a mortgage of $3,000 for money advanced by Captain Barber. Just before your father died I loaned him $3,750 on the one hundred and sixty-acre home piece and the forty acres of low land on the east next the creek.”
Morey’s lips were tightly set. Each new item came like a stab; but he had his pencil out.
“That’s $11,250,” he commented.
“These notes all draw seven per cent,” explained the planter, rising and laying off his coat, for the morning was warm and he was perspiring. “That is $787.50 a year interest. Your mother has not been in a position to meet these payments. I have advanced this amount annually for three years.”
“I must certainly thank you for that—”
“And took her notes, which, of course, are morally protected by the mortgage I hold on the home, and—”
“That’s $2,262.50 more,” added Morey with a start.
“Then,” added Major Carey, “your mother’s account at the bank is overdrawn $580, four hundred of it for your Richmond bills.”
The boy set down the items, added them, saw that they corresponded to the other’s total and turned, without speaking, to gaze out of the window into the street below.
“And I reckon you all want your money,” he said in a low voice at last.
“We are not pushing matters,” explained Major Carey, “but we have all agreed that you ought to know the real facts.”
“And this Richmond Trust Co. note,” broke in Morey suddenly. “I suppose the note is due. Perhaps they won’t renew it. I don’t know much about these things, but they could push us, couldn’t they? They might foreclose on the land and take it, mightn’t they?”
Major Carey coughed. “That note has passed into the hands of other parties.”
“Whose? Do you know?”
“Captain Barber’s bank.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Morey, “our bank? Yours and Captain Barber’s?”
“Yes. But, of course, it is one of the bank’s assets now and the directors are anxious to get their money.”
“Why? Isn’t the interest enough? The security is certainly ample.”
“That’s the trouble, Morey. The security is not the best. Farm lands hereabouts have fallen so in value that we are calling in all loans of that sort.”
“That ground is worth $100 an acre, any way,” exclaimed Morey, glancing at the chart he had made and the estimate he had secured from Marsh Green.
“Perhaps $25, but I doubt if that could be realized at a forced sale.”
Morey’s face fell.
“Isn’t any of it worth more than that?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Then the whole plantation isn’t worth more than $15,000.”
The Major nodded his head.
“I reckon we are up against it,” exclaimed Morey with a grim smile. “And I had figured it out to be worth $60,000 any way.”
“Some of the old place isn’t worth $10 an acre,” replied the planter. “The house you can not count as worth anything.”
“Except to us,” broke in Morey stoutly. “To us it’s worth just enough to make us want to keep it.”
“There will be another $800 due as interest this fall,” the elder man explained with a long face and puckered lips, “and I don’t see how I can advance any more money to care for it.”
Morey, who had been desperately trying to see some ray of light in the chaos of financial gloom, had a sudden idea.
“This land is really ours, still, isn’t it? That is, so long as the mortgages are not foreclosed?”
“Certainly,” answered Major Carey, a little nervously.
“How comes it then that Captain Barber carted away our tobacco shed?”
“Did he do that?” began Major Carey. “Yes, I believe he did. Well, it was in ruins. I think he got your mother’s consent. Then there were the taxes,” he continued, as if the thought had just come to him. “He had advanced the money for taxes on the tobacco land.”
“And the one hundred and eighty-acre corn piece?” persisted Morey. “Marsh Green says he was ordered off it—that Captain Barber said it belonged to the bank.”
“No,” explained the Major, “not exactly that. But old Green couldn’t farm it. He tried it the year after your father died and the weeds took his crop.”
“Who did farm it?” asked the boy, the Marshall jaw setting itself in spite of his despair.
“We tried to look after it for your mother—the bank.”
“And the bank had two years’ corn crop on it?”
“Yes, that is, it rented it out. But crops were poor both years. And the ground is run down. There wasn’t much in it. We had to buy fertilizer and pay taxes and—”
“Was there anything in it?”
Morey looked across the table at his father’s old friend.
“Maybe—a little.”
“You have everything figured out in cents that we owe you. Shouldn’t there have been another column to show what you and the bank owes us?”
“Do I understand, sir,” exclaimed Major Carey indignantly, “that you are making charges? You don’t reckon we have taken advantage of your mother? Young man, if it hadn’t been for our bank you’d be working at day labor—”
“And I expect to,” came the quick answer. “That’s neither here nor there. You needn’t send Mr. Bradner to talk to my mother—you needn’t say anything yourself. I’ll attend to this. I never earned a dollar in my life but I can add and subtract. You’ve been mighty good to us, Major Carey, and I’m not going to pay you with thanks. How long will you give me to take up the obligations?”
“How long? What d’you mean?” exclaimed Major Carey.
“You don’t reckon I’m going to let the Barber Bank scoop up six hundred acres of good Virginia dirt for $14,000 do you?” said Morey significantly. “I don’t think my father’s old friend would be willing to see us permit that.”
Major Carey sprang to his feet.
“All we want is our money,” exclaimed the planter in a thick voice. “We’re entitled to that, you know.”
“Certainly. But wouldn’t you rather have the land?”
“That’s what I was going to suggest,” blurted out the Major, the banker and money-lender in him coming to the top.
Morey smiled.
“I thought so,” he remarked tartly.
“What do you mean?” shouted the Major, his face almost purple with sudden rage.
“I mean,” answered Morey coldly, “that for $14,000 you and Captain Barber and Mr. Bradner—and I reckon that’s the Barber Bank—are planning to get our plantation.”
Major Carey exploded:
“Young man, you have some high and mighty ideas. Aspley plantation is dear at $20 an acre. This is the return for all my generosity.”
“You’re getting seven per cent annually for your generosity,” retorted the boy.
“Are you prepared to pay this debt?” came from Major Carey savagely.
“I’ll be prepared in time,” rejoined Morey with assurance. “Our farm isn’t worth $20 an acre for tobacco. Perhaps it isn’t worth any more for corn. But, you know, land can be used for other things. It’s worth $200 an acre for fruit. I’ll sell enough of it to pay you all and I’ll be ready to make good when the money’s due.”
Major Carey sank into a chair.
“And if you or Captain Barber or Mr. Bradner have any occasion to see my mother on business in the meantime I suggest they make a report on the two years’ use of our one hundred and eighty-acre corn piece. And, by the way,” added Morey, “if my mother needs some small amounts of money this summer I wish you would instruct Mr. Bradner to let her have what she needs. You can charge it to our open corn rent account.”
The perspiration was rolling from the excited planter’s face. Leaning forward he grasped Morey by the arm.
“You’re a fool,” he said huskily.
“So you told me last night—that I resembled my mother.”
“You don’t know what you are talking about. Who told you to say this?”
“The foolishness I inherited from my mother. Good-bye!”
