Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/68

60 "Our interest made us good prospects for the sharks," the vaguest hint of bitterness creeping into the feeble tone. "Several of them came and talked and explained and worked our hopes up. Then Harris' man came. He was the most—the most competent of any of them. He had pictures of headquarters here, and pictures of prosperous farms—taken in another county, we found out afterward. They offered to pay our expenses up here to look the property over. It all sounded so good that we signed the option—"

She closed her eyes a moment and breathed quickly, gathering strength. Her husband sat down on the bed and rested a hand on one of her covered knees.

"It wasn't any option—We found that out when we got here. It was an iron-clad contract. They had our word and some of our money. We didn't know what we were getting in for, because we were only city people—who wanted to get onto the land—we gave them more money to save what we had already put in. We left our jobs and came here to live.

"At first it didn't seem so bad. It wasn't what we had expected, but we still had plenty of hope left. The land was cheap, we thought, we believed we were pioneers and were quite proud to stand the racket for the first few months. But we saw other families leaving and some staying here and starving and our land didn't yield, and the more we learned about it the less we could hope that it ever would grow crops—Little as it cost, it was very expensive—

"We were suckers, you see; suckers for the land sharks! They took our money, and we put our hope in behind the money—and it wasn't possible to get either out."