Her letter wound up rather
pathetically:
"I've got eight children, the oldest fifteen years. I work all day
and half the night to till what little land I can and keep us in
clothes and books. I teach my children too. My neighbours is all
poor and has big families. The drought kills the crops every two or
three years and then we has hard times to get enough to eat. There is
ten families on this land what the land-sharks is trying to rob us of,
and all of them got titles from me. I sold to them cheap, and they
aint paid out yet, but part of them is, and if their land should be
took from them I would die. My grandfather was an honest man, and he
helped to build up this state, and he taught his children to be
honest, and how could I make it up to them who bought from me? Mr.
Commissioner, if you let them land-sharks take the roof from over my
children and the little from them as they has to live on, whoever
again calls this state great or its government just will have a lie in
their mouths"
The Commissioner laid this letter aside with a sigh. Many, many such
letters he had received. He had never been hurt by them, nor had he
ever felt that they appealed to him personally. He was but the
state's servant, and must follow its laws. And yet, somehow, this
reflection did not always eliminate a certain responsible feeling that
hung upon him.
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