This requiring very large sums of money, he for his part had encumbered not only the lands themselves, but these lands of Cowles' Farms to secure the payment.

The holder of these mortgages was a banking firm in Fredericksburg.

The interest was one which in these times would be considered a cruel one, and indeed the whole enterprise was one which required a sanguine courage, precisely as his; for I have said that risk he always held as challenge and invitation.
"Does thee think that in these times thee should go so deeply in debt," asked my mother of him.
"Elizabeth," he said, "that is why I have gone in debt.

Two years from now, and the value of these lands here may have been cut in half.

Ten years from now the coal lands yonder will be worth ten times what they are to-day." "John," she said to him suddenly, "sell those coal lands, or a part of them." "Now, that I could not do," he answered, "for half their value.