Keeping up with Lizzie | Page 3

Don't be hard on Sam.'
"'I ain't,' I says. 'But Sam's house ought to be proper to his station instead o' hers.'
"I had just sat down in my office when Bill Pettigrew came in--Sam's great rival in the grocery an' aspiration business. He'd bought a new automobile, an' wanted me to draw a mortgage on his house an' lot for two thousand dollars.
"'You'd better go slow,' I says. 'It looks like bad business to mortgage your home for an automobile.'
"'It's for the benefit o' my customers,' says he.
"'Something purty for 'em to look at?' I asked.
"'It will quicken deliveries,' says he.
"'You can't afford it,' I says.
"'Yes, I can,' says he. 'I've put up prices twenty per cent., an' it ain't agoin' to bother me to pay for it.'
"'Oh, then your customers are goin' to pay for it!' I says, 'an' you're only a guarantor.'
"'I wouldn't put it that way,' says he. 'It costs more to live these days. Everything is goin' up.'
"'Includin' taxes,' I says to Bill, an' went to work an' drew his mortgage for him, an' he got his automobile.
"I'd intended to take my trade to his store, but when I saw that he planned to tax the community for his luxuries I changed my mind and went over to Eph Hill's. He kept the only other decent grocery store in the village. His prices were just about on a level with the others.
"'How do you explain it that prices have gone up so?' I asked.
"'Why, they say it's due to an overproduction o' gold,' says he.
"'Looks to me like an overproduction of argument,' I says. 'The old Earth keeps shellin' out more gold ev'ry year, an' the more she takes out o' her pockets the more I have to take out o' mine.'
"Wal, o' course I had to keep in line, so I put up the prices o' my work a little to be in fashion. Everybody kicked good an' plenty, an' nobody worse'n Sam an' Bill an' Ephraim, but I told 'em how I'd read that there was so much gold in the world it kind o' set me hankerin'.
"Ye know I had ten acres o' worn-out land in the edge o' the village, an' while others bought automobiles an' such luxuries I invested in fertilizers an' hired a young man out of an agricultural school an' went to farmin'. Within a year I was raisin' all the meat an' milk an' vegetables that I needed, an' sellin' as much ag'in to my neighbors.
"Well, Pointview under Lizzie was like Rome under Theodora. The immorals o' the people throve an' grew. As prices went up decency went down, an' wisdom rose in value like meat an' flour. Seemed so everybody that had a dollar in the bank an' some that didn't bought automobiles. They kept me busy drawin' contracts an' deeds an' mortgages an' searchin' titles, an' o' course I prospered. More than half the population converted property into cash an' cash into folly--automobiles, piano-players, foreign tours, vocal music, modern languages, an' the aspirations of other people. They were puffin' it on each other. Every man had a deep scheme for makin' the other fellow pay for his fun. Reminds me o' that verse from Zechariah, 'I will show them no mercy, saith the Lord, but I will deliver every man into the hand of his neighbor.' Now the baron business has generally been lucrative, but here in Pointview there was too much competition. We were all barons. Everybody was taxin' everybody else for his luxuries, an' nobody could save a cent--nobody but me an' Eph Hill. He didn't buy any automobiles or build a new house or send his girl to the seminary. He kept both feet on the ground, but he put up his prices along with the rest. By-an'-by Eph had a mortgage on about half the houses in the village. That showed what was the matter with the other men.
"The merchants all got liver-comlaint. There were twenty men that I used to see walkin' home to their dinner every day or down to the postoffice every evenin'. But they didn't walk any more. They scud along in their automobiles at twenty miles an hour, with the whole family around 'em. They looked as if they thought that now at last they were keepin' up with Lizzie. Their homes were empty most o' the time. The reading-lamp was never lighted. There was no season o' social converse. Every merchant but Eph Hill grew fat an' round, an' complained of indigestion an' sick-headache. Sam looked like a moored balloon. Seemed so their morals grew fat an' flabby an' shif'less an' in need of exercise. Their morals travelled too, but they travelled from mouth to mouth, as ye might say, an' very fast. More'n half of 'em