"And the 'hoppers eat ye four years, hand runnin', did they?" "Eat!
They wiped us out. They chawed everything that was green. They
jest set around waitin' f'r us to die t' eat us, too. My God! I ust t'
dream of 'em sittin' 'round on the bedpost, six feet long, workin'
their jaws. They eet the fork-handles. They got worse 'n' worse till
they jest rolled on one another, piled up like snow in winter Well,
it ain't no use. If I was t' talk all winter I couldn't tell nawthin'. But
all the while I couldn't help thinkin' of all that land back here that
nobuddy was usin' that I ought 'o had 'stead o' bein' out there in that
cussed country."
"Waal, why didn't ye stop an' settle here ?" asked Ike, who had
come in and was eating his supper.
"Fer the simple reason that you fellers wantid ten 'r fifteen dollars
an acre fer the bare land, and I hadn't no money fer that kind o'
thing."
"Yes, I do my own work," Mrs. Council was heard to say in the
pause which followed. "I'm a gettin' purty heavy t' be on m'laigs all
day, but we can't afford t' hire, so I keep rackin' around somehow,
like a foundered horse. S' lame I tell Council he can t tell how
lame I am, f'r I'm jest as lame in one laig as t' other.
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