Keeping up with Lizzie | Page 3

cents for his improvements.
"I met one o' my friends, an' I says to him, 'Wal,' I says, 'Sam is goin' to
make us pay for his new house an' lot. Sam's ham an' flour have jumped
again. As an assessor Sam is likely to make his mark.'

"'Wal, what do ye expect?' says he. 'Lizzie is in high society, an' he's
got to keep up with her. Lizzie must have a home proper to one o' her
station. 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