Sez I, “Let Uncle Sam and you go out, as I have, in the country byroads in Jonesville, and Loontown, and Zoar, and you’ll both gin in that I’m a-tellin’ the truth.”

Sez I, “If it hain’t a pitiful sight in one short mornin’s ride to go by more’n a dozen of them poor deserted old homes, as I have many a time, and I spoze they lay jest as thick scattered all over the State and country as they do round Jonesville.”

Sez I, “To see them old brown ruffs a-humpin’ themselves up jest as lonesome-lookin’ and cold—­no smoke a-comin’ out of the chimblys to cheer ’em up—­to see the bare winders a-facin’ the west, and no bright eyes a-lookin’ out, nor curly locks for the sunlight to git tangled in—­to see the poor old door-step a-settin’ there alone, as if a-tellin’ over its troubles to the front gate, and that a-creakin’ back to it on lonesome nights or cold, fair mornin’s—­

“And the old well-sweep a-pintin’ up into the sky overhead, as if a-callin’ Heaven to witness that it wuzn’t to blame for the state of things—­

“And the apple trees, with low swingin’ branches, with no bare brown feet to press on ’em on the way up to the robin’s nest overhead—­empty barns, ruins, weedy gardens, long, lonesome stretches of paster and medder lands—­

“Why, if Uncle Sam could look on sech sights, and have me right by him to tell him the reason on’t—­to tell him that two thousand dollars lent on easy interest would turn every one of them worthless, decayin’ pieces of property into beautiful, flourishin’, prosperous homes, he’d probable feel different about passin’ the bill from what he duz now—­

[Illustration:  “If Uncle Sam could have me right by him to tell him the reason.”]

“When I told him that most generally out behind the barn, and under the apple trees and gambrul ruff, wuz crouchin’ the monster that had sapped the life out of the hum—­the bloated, misshapen form of a mortgage at six per cent, and that old, insatiable monster had devoured and drinked down every cent of the earnin’s that the hull family could bring to appease it with—­

“It would open its snappin’ old jaws and swaller ’em all down, and then set down refreshed but unappeased to wait for the next earnin’s to be brung him.

“Wall, now, if they could pay off that mortgage, and git rid of it, they could walk over its prostrate form into prosperity; they could afford to lighten up the bare poverty of a country farm, so repellin’ to the young, with some touches of brightness.  Books, music, good horses, carriages would preach louder lessons of content to the children than any they would hear from their pa’s or ma’s or ministers.

“They would love their hums—­would make them yield, instead of ruin and depressin’ influences, a good income to themselves, and good tax-payin’ property to help Uncle Sam—­

“Decrease vice, increase virtue—­lead away from prisons and almshousen, lead toward meetin’-housen, and the halls of justice, mebby.  For in the highest places of trust and honor in the United States to-day is to be found the sons and daughters of country homes.”