T

HE old adage as to giving a dog a bad name is as true of farm mortgages as of dogs. The loss throughout New England caused by the collapse of the early boom in farm lands in the Agricultural West left a deep impression in the minds of Eastern investors and a deep distrust of mortgages on western farm lands. This impression, strengthened by the obvious deterioration of the New England farming population, resulted in a similar prejudice against local farm loans. To those, however, whose business has made it necessary for them to keep in touch with New England rural estate conditions, a change in these conditions has been apparent, just as real if less striking than in the agricultural west. We are apt to overlook the quiet and slow going changes in our immediate vicinity while looking with admiration at the more remote and spectacular development of places farther removed, but while our gaze has been bent on the western horizon, changes have been slowly but surely going on at home and changes distinctly for the better.

The rapid deterioration of the New England farm seems to have begun after the Civil War by which the best of our New England farming population was withdrawn for service in the Union Army. Much of this population never returned to the farm, which was left to shift for itself until the tide of European emigration brought from the north of Europe men, who had at home been farmers in a small way, who have ever since been slowly but surely taking up the New England farm lands. The Swede, the Norwegian and others of foreign birth, by industry and frugality, are in this way, making excellent homes for themselves and their families, and are constantly increasing the pro

ductiveness and value of the farm lands they acquire.

The period marked by the disappearance of the old stocks was a period of steadily declining values. Since the advent of the new, the tendency has been slowly but surely upward.

But few of the new farming population have had enough capital to pay outright for the farms that they have bought, and they have had to turn to Savings Banks and similar institutions for aid in financing their undertakings. The experience of the writer in making mortgage loans on central Massachusetts farms has led him to a feeling of distinct optimism. as to the agricultural future of New England.

The Worcester County Institution for Savings located in Worcester, Massachusetts, because of its age and resources, has a large clientele throughout Worcester County, inducing a large farming population. It has always een this bank's practice to take such local farm mortgage as seemed safe, and its experience has amply demonstrated the safety of this policy. Applications based on farm mortgages are only received for loans on property for which Worcester is the natural trading center. When the farm is so located that the territory in which it is situated is tributary to another city or town in which there is a Savings Bank, the applicant is referred to that bank. In this way, loans have been confined to a territory of which the bank has current local knowledge. The farm property offered for security is appraised for the bank by someone living in the neighborhood of the property on which a loan is asked and the amount loaned is ordinarily not more than fifty per cent of this appraised value. A semi-annual payment on account of the principal of such loans

So it seemed for the moment, at any rate, when I woke that day in the familiar room above the river. I was as brisk and business-like as ever I had been in a land where autumnal nights are frosty and morning air is crisp.

"Well, well," I said, "that's over with at last. My ankle is quite mended now. I have carried out my intention of seeing a cane-harvestwhat an amusingly primitive little festival it was. I have killed the King, not without some risk to myself. Now I can tell Pedro to haul the prau down to the water once more, and I'll hoist that smoky-orange sail and go slanting away on an obedient tide, as free and purposeless as any sea-bird.

"Hm!" said I lazily, "there seems to be a joy in being unattached which nothing else can give. To wander always on and on and on, knowing one's self to be wholly unnecessary and irresponsible, to sleep where to sleep where darkness overtakes one, and eat what the gods supply when they supply appetite.

"And yet," I mused, "I have also found a most agreeable half-freedom in the simple society of Felicidad. Upon my word," said I, "there goes our mortar, tuning up." I leaped out of bed, a thing not often done outside of books.

It was a glorious morning. The river was flowing silently, with wisps of mist curling above it. The sun was blazing above the distant rim of the sea. And the mortar boomed most musically.

But as I reached the window, it stopped all of a sudden. I looked down and saw my friend Maria standing as if petrified. A laugh was in a state of suspended animation on her broad, good-natured face.

After that first glance I too stifened into rigid attention.

For in front of big Maria stood little Pepita of the Saints, who with a gesture grandly menacing in its simple directness, raised a finger and drew it downwards through the air

in a manner which could well be called incisive.

Maria stared at the finger in fascination. ""Sus!" she muttered.

Like one in an evil dream she raised her hand and rubbed her nose tender

ly. "Mari-i-i-a-y Jo-o-o-se!" she muttered, still staring in stony horror.

Once more Pepita parted the air with that incisive finger and Maria, like one hypnotized, walked away along the bank.

"Good morning, Brother D-jon," said Pepita, looking up as if nothing at all had happened.

"Good morning, little butterfly,' said I absently, as I watched Maria pursue her somnambulistic way. "What in the world is happening to our friend?"

to

Pepita gravely, "to learn not "She is trying very hard," said laugh so much."

"She seems to be getting on well,' said I, understanding then what it was all about. "In what used to be my country I should say you had Maria bluffed."

"What is that?" she asked. "The same as frightened?"

"Yes," said I. "At least meaning she is afraid of your doing something you don't mean to do at all."

ly, "Maria is not what you call bluffed "Then," said Pepita very decidedin your country.'

I quite believed her. Suddenly I roused. "What did you call me just now?" I asked.

"I called you," she told me, "my big brother D-jon."

"I am both proud," said I, "and humble. But why this sudden elevation for me?" "What?"

"Why," I asked, "do I wake up on this brightest of mornings to find myself your brother? I've been your brother before, have I!"

"Oh!" cried Pepita reproachfully. "Have you forgotten what you said?”

"You flatter me," said I. "But I'll go on. The next Pepita, then, might have come to me in a dream. She had a face like a flower, or a cameo. I hardly know which to say. It was framed in a mass of the blackest, blackest hair, like midnight. There was a light lke starlight in her eyes. She was very gentle and pitying with my poor ankle, and this is a secret-her lips-"

Pepita had the grace to lower the lashes over her dancing eyes then. But I could detect in her no sign of an impulse to run away.

"The fourth," said I, "is Pepita, the Indifferent. She won't even look at her friends or take any interest or lack of interest in them at all. She won't even deign to avoid them, but bears herself like a captive princess in the hands of Goths. She tramples on their feelings;

she-"

"She isn't a very nice girl, is she?" said Pepita.

"Indeed she's not," said I. 'If she were to be here all the time, I should have to take the prau and go away. I can't endure that girl."

"I don't think I like her very much myself," said Pepita, unexpectedly. "Perhaps she won't come back. And who was the " she stopped to check her personalities off on her fingers-"who was the fifth, D-jon?"

"The fifth," said I, counting my own fingers, "is that minx, Pepita the Coquette, who now stands encouraging me to say pretty things

"That," it replied, "is something you'll have to find out for yourself, D-jon. I'm sure I don't know."

"But when I do," I asked, "would you like me to tell you all about her?"

"You'll never find out," said the audience lightly, "because you don't really want to know."

"Oh, yes, I do," said I. "And I warn you that I'm a very determined sort of person at finding out things."

My audience laughed and went lightheartedly about its work.

And I went suddenly and hurriedly about my dressing. once I had discovered that there was something I must discuss with Don Feliciano without delay.

CHAPTER XVI.

Extempore.

"Well," said I to Don Feliciano, across the reposeful platter,—I had deemed it better to postpone my talk with him till Dona Ceferina had drunk her chocolate and gone about the endless business of her household,-"Well, Don Feliciano, thanks first of all to your bravery, and then thanks to my injury, and then thanks to my habit of sticking by my decisions, this seems to be a sort of General Thanksgiving,I have seen a cane-harvest at last.