"Only sugar and coffee and a little meat now and then."

"What does it amount to a year?"

"I doesn't rightly know--but I'se got some papers here."

Miss Smith looked them over and sighed. It was the same old tale of
blind receipts for money "on account"--no items, no balancing. By his
help she made out that last year his total bill at Cresswell's store was
perhaps forty dollars.

"An' last year's bill was bigger'n common 'cause I hurt my leg working
at the gin and had to have some medicine."

"Why, as far as I can see, Mr. Sykes, you've paid Cresswell about a
thousand dollars in the last ten years. How large is your place?"

"About twenty acres."

"And what were you to pay for it?"

"Four hundred."

"Have you got the deed?"

"Yes'm, but I ain't finished paying yet; de Cunnel say as how I owes him
two hundred dollars still, and I can't see it. Dat's why I come over
here to talk wid you."

"Where is the deed?"