128 TOM’S EXPERIENCE 
for so short a time. It gave me a chance for only 
one crop before it came due, when I could just as 
easily have made the time eighteen months or two 
years, so as to have covered two crops. Had I done 
this I would have had no trouble about it. But as I 
did not like to have a mortgage on tue farm, I re- 
member thinking I would make the time short, so as 
to have the unpleasant incumbrance removed as soon 
as possible. Having had good crops and been quite 
successful the two preceding years, I felt entirely con- 
fident of my ability to easily liquidate this indebted- 
ness as soon as it came due, and made no allowance 
for accidents, failure of crops, or any other misfort- 
une. Thus does success sometimes overcome our 
caution and blind us to the dictates of common pru- 
dence. 
Another mistake was commuting my homestead 
and thus literally throwing away two hundred dollars. 
There was some excuse for this in the strong desire 
of most farmers to own the land they cultivate; and 
this is generally a very laudable desire. I was then 
thirty-three years old, had always been a farmer, but 
had never really owned a foot of land, and the wish 
to have that quarter-section in my own name—to be 
able to eall it really and truly mine, without any pro- 
viso of any kind whatever—came over me with such 
power that my better judgment was overcome, and 
the two hundred dollars it would cost to secure the 
patent seemed such a paltry sum as to be contempti- 
ble. If I had stopped there, however, the mistake 
