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 every leaf of it was spiled it'd be worth more'n that to me to put under my grapes an' peach trees."

"All right, Ezry. Like enough you'd best use it fer that. 'Tain't no good fer nuthin but manure an' beddin' anyway. I don't know as I'd want to bother hookin' up to haul it away."

Uncle Sam made as though to leave the barn.

Ezra weakened. He was very anxious to get rid of the hay; he needed the barn at once for his tobacco. And buyers for hay, he knew too well, were not to be readily found at this time of year. Also he knew from sad experience the effect of alfalfa upon tobacco when the two were left in the same barn together. He had been prepared to make some sacrifice; but he shrank from making the sacrifice that Sam demanded of him. Because, what would Aunt Eppie say?

He turned away shaking his head with a final movement, as though negotiations were ended. But Uncle Sam, casting at him a searching, sidewise glance, saw the look of irresolution pass across his face.

"You won't take twenty, eh, Ezry? Then what will you take?"

There was a long pause.

"Waal, I'll take thirty."

The four words dragged themselves with the greatest reluctance from Uncle Ezra's lips.

There was another long pause. Uncle Sam spat deliberately, took a fresh chew of tobacco, and looked out across the landscape meditatively through the big barn doors.

"I tell ye, Ezry," he said at last with great deliberation. "Nobody hain't a-buyin' hay this time o' year. An' if you leave the hay here an' put yer terbaccer in, the terbaccer'll like enough heat an' spile. An' even if it don't heat an' spile, it'll turn dark, sure's yer shirt's on yer back. An' you know what price dark terbaccer fetches. Naow, Ezry, seem' we've allus been good neighbors together, I'm willin' to split the diff'rence with ye. Twenty-seven fifty I'll pay ye right here in cold cash. Will ye take it?"