Annie Oakley could shoot, but that is not the story

traveling the rural districts in his spring wagon and eager to sell the best sewing machine on the market for a mere pittance,

if the buyer would only pay a slight installment, signing a contract for the remainder.

Thousands of notes were signed in this fashion for the cost of the machine upon the face of the document,

but in reality for a sum many times that amount upon a duplicate note carefully concealed beneath the true one,

with the edge of the paper so cut that the gullible buyer signed the second sheet instead of the first.

Sharks existed in every business and in every avenue of life.

The usual banker was a usurer, demanding often as much as 25% interest in getting it, even more.

Sometimes the rates ran as high as 10% a month.

To one who has not delved into the absolutely haphazard aspect of America as it existed just before and after the Civil War,

conditions seem utterly unbelievable.

There was practically no regulation as it exists today,

no prying of officials into the business of others that this business might be kept within the law.

There was corruption of the type which met its high watermark in later years with the statement of "the public be damned."

Among the rank and file of humanity there was practically no knowledge of law,

such as exists today even with the comparatively uneducated.

Anything which savored of the legal was looked upon, in rural districts at least, with a wholesome awe.

In Annie Oakley's notes, for instance, there is an excellent instance of this in reference to the years of agony

which she endured at the hands of a man and woman who were no more than slavers.

"Mr. Shaw left home with the intention of squaring accounts with the wolf,

but a suit for kidnapping would have to be brought up, together with expenses and no end of going back and forth for trial so he was talked out of it."

So much for the adjudication of a felony.

Such things happened often.

Fear of the law, of lawyers, of courts forced more than one person to accept injustice.

Today, when a mortgage falls due, for instance, there is little excitement about it.

One knows that the law provides that the foreclosure, unless there be a specific clause to different effect,

means the sale of that property for the amount due, not the garnering of an entire security when perhaps only a tenth of it remains to be paid.

But laws were different in other days.

The protection was to the lender and scant attention was paid the borrower. A mortgage was a mortgage and it was collected upon either with money or the property when it came due.

There was no fuss about it.

Few renewals and little else expected than the fate of utter loss if the cash were not available to wipe it out.

It was the ogre of rural America, was the mortgage, and of course there was one upon the new home of Annie Oakley.

Since he had lost everything and since the mother had nothing save her flock of children,

three of whom were now approaching marriageable age, sixty years or so ago, sweet sixteen, often meant a marriage license,

there seemed nothing to do but to build a home from the ground up.

Shaw evidently had pretentious ideas even though he was short of money.

The new home was the biggest that the family ever had known.

Neighbors came from far and wide to assist with the setting of the logs.

Real solid lumber was used on the interior.

A corporator contractor was hired, his price being a mortgage upon the entire place,

which children, grown-ups, friends, and even acquaintances had helped to build.

So fevered had been the exertions that the children put down the well of a depth of twenty or more feet by lantern light.

When the place was done there was comfort in plenty and money, not at all.

Except, of course, that which Annie Oakley had earned and saved as a sewing maid for the orphans and indigents at the home of the Eddingtons.

However, much of this money was gone now.

Almost her first act when she had left the infirmary to go to the aid of her mother and new stepfather in the building of a home

had been to stop at a store in Greenville, where, on a few occasions, some of the overflow game which the child had trapped as a child

had found its way to be traded for more necessary staples.

There was a better market now for game, the storekeeper had told her.

Hotels in Cincinnati and other cities were reaching out farther and farther for the necessities of their menu.

Wild Game, a few generations ago, formed one of the chief lures of an eating place.

Now it would be possible to ship any game killed, such as quail, rabbits, squirrels, or pheasants, to the store by the stage which ran near the home of Annie Oakley,

where it would be purchased and then resold to hotels.

A new avenue and a lucrative one,