THE MORTGAGE.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 139, 30 January 1886, Page 7

THE MORTGAGE.

We worked through spring and winter, through summer and through fall, Dut th« nioitgago worked the hardest aud the steadiest of them all ;j It worked on nights and Sundays, it worked each holiday ; It settled down among us, and it never we'it aWciy. Whatever we kept from it seemed almost us bad as theft. It watched us every minute, and it ruled us right and left. The rust and blight were with us sometimes, and sometimes not ; The dark-browed scowling mortgage was for ever on the spot. The weevil and the cut-worm they went as well as came ; The mortgage Btayed for ever, eating heartily all the same. 1 1 nailed up every window, Btood guard at every door ? , And happiness and sunshine made their home with us no more ; Till with failing crops and sickness, we got stalled upon the grade, And there came a sharp day on us when the interest was'nt paid ; And there came a fast foreclosure and I kind o'lost my hold, And grew weary and discouraged, and the farm was cheaply sold, The children left and scattered, when they hardly yet were grown ; \ My wife she pined and perished, and I found myself alone. What she died of was a " mystery," and the doctors never knew, But I knew she died of mortgage — just as well as I wanted to. If to trace a hidden sorrow were within the doctor's art, They'd ha' found a mortgage lying on that woman's broken heart. Worm or beetle, drought or tempest, on a f armor's land may fall, But for first-class ruination, trust a mortgage 'gainst them all.