Of course there was
a little interest to be paid on the indebtedness, but as it was
merely a trifling one and a half per centum per month or eighteen per
cent yearly, it was of no consequence. And it was so easy to pay your
debts. Just think of it, people bought everything they needed and
longed for at the store and paid for it by simply signing their names
to several papers. When the day of payment came, they could liquidate
their debts by renewing their obligations. They simply signed a new
set of similar papers with the interest compounded and added to the
original debt. Surely Don Guillermo was conceded to stand highest in
popular estimation of any set of men who had ever come to the Rio
Grande. Had he not shown the people how to do business in a
convenient and easy manner? Under such a system nobody worried or
labored very much and life was like a pleasant dream. But alas! there
has always been a beginning and an ending to everything under the
sun, good or evil. The awakening from an easy life's dream was
occasioned by a crushing blow. It fell on the day of final reckoning,
when Don Guillermo, my good uncle, thought the time was propitious to
realize something tangible on sundry duly signed, sealed, and
witnessed instruments.
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