Page:The Gentle Grafter (1908).djvu/230

 “Gentlemen,” says he, “the stock of the Sunrise & Edenville railroad has depreciated some. The best I could do with thirty thousand dollars’ worth of the bonds was to secure a loan of eighty-seven dollars and fifty cents. On the farming lands of Colonel Rockingham, Judge Pendergast was able to obtain, on a ninth mortgage, the sum of fifty dollars. You will find the amount, one hundred and thirty-seven fifty, correct.”

“A railroad president,” said I, looking this Tucker in the eye, “and the owner of a thousand acres of land; and yet—”

“Gentlemen,” says Tucker, “The railroad is ten miles long. There don’t any train run on it except when the crew goes out in the pines and gathers enough lightwood knots to get up steam. A long time ago, when times was good, the net earnings used to run as high as eighteen dollars a week. Colonel Rockingham’s land has been sold for taxes thirteen times. There hasn’t been a peach crop in this part of Georgia for two years. The wet spring killed the watermelons. Nobody around here has money enough to buy fertilizer; and land is so poor the corn crop failed, and there wasn’t enough grass to support the rabbits. All the people have had to eat in this section for over a year is hog and hominy, and—” 218