64 TOM'’S EXPERIENCE 
Bright, telling him the situation, and inviting him 
to make us another visit and bring with him that 
mortgage and the note, as I wanted to pay it. He 
came, and by this time he had a slight touch of the 
‘‘Dakota fever’’—not serious enough to take him 
away from his delightful Illinois home—and I did 
not wonder at that, for he was as pleasantly situated 
there as he could hope to be anywhere ; but he = 
ready to buy land here and cultivate it “by proxy,” 
as it were, provided he could find the aE kind of 
man to rent it to. 
The second day of his stay with us we nai ‘n 
the county-seat, and I paid him the amount of that 
note, with interest for thirteen months at ten per 
cent.; principal, $1,400, interest $151.67, total $1,- 
551.67, and he cancelled the mortgage on record at 
the Register’s office, and gave me the original mort- 
gage and note, 
~ “ Keep them, Tom,” he said, as he handed them to 
me,.‘' as a reminder of a severe trial and narrow es- 
cape.” 
. “My wife shall take charge of them,” I answered, 
“and if we are ever tempted by pride or anything 
else to go in debt for a thing wedon’t really need, 
we'll get these out and take a good look at them be- 
fore we decide.” 
And my wife has those documents in her charge 
to-day, but we havn’t as yet needed their help to say 
**No”- when occasion required. 
