Our landlord wont give
us our farm barrin' at a rent that 'tid bring us down day by day, to
poverty and distress like too many of our neighbors. We have yet some
thrifle o' money left, as much as will, by all accounts, enable us to
take--I mane to purchase a farm in America--an' isn't it betther for us
to go there, and be independent, no matther what it may cost our hearts
to suffer by doin' so, than to stay here until the few hundre' that
I've got together is melted away out of my pocket into the picket of a
landlord that never wanst throubles himself to know how we're gettin'
on, or whether we're doin' well or ill. Then think of his conduct to
Bryan, there; how he neglected him, and would let him go to ruin widout
ever movin' a finger to save him from it. No, childre', undher sich a
man I won't stay. Prepare yourselves, then, to lave this. In biddin' you
to do so, I'm actin' for the best towards you all. I'm doin' my duty by
you, and I expect for that raison, an' as obedient childre'--which I've
ever found you--that you'll do your duty by me, an' give no further
opposition to what I'm proposin' for your sakes. I know you're all
loath--an' you will be loath--to lave this place; but do you think?--do
you?--'that I--I--oh, my God!--do you think, I say, that I'll feel
nothing when we go? Oh! little you know of me if you think so! but, as
I said, we must do our duty.
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