Chapter XXVI. The Boy Capitalist

"How are you, Uncle Cyrus?" said Jefferson Pettigrew heartily, as he clasped his uncle's toil worn hand. "And Aunt Nancy, too! It pays me for coming all the way from Montana just to see you."

"I'm glad to see you, Jefferson," said his uncle. "It seems a long time since you went away. I hope you've prospered."

"Well, uncle, I've brought myself back well and hearty, and I've got a few hundred dollars."

"I'm glad to hear it, Jefferson. You're better off than when you went away."

"Yes, uncle. I couldn't be much worse off. Then I hadn't a cent that I could call my own. But how are you and Aunt Nancy?"

"We're gettin' old, Jefferson, and misfortune has come to us. Squire Sheldon has got a mortgage on the farm and it's likely we'll be turned out. You've come just in time to see it."

"Is it so bad as that, Uncle Cyrus? Why, when I went away you were prosperous."

"Yes, Jefferson, I owned the farm clear, and I had money in the bank, but now the money's gone and there's a twelve hundred dollar mortgage on the old place," and the old man sighed.

"But how did it come about uncle? You and Aunt Nancy haven't lived extravagantly, have you? Aunt Nancy, you haven't run up a big bill at the milliner's and dressmaker's?"

"You was always for jokin', Jefferson," said the old lady, smiling faintly; "but that is not the way our losses came."

"How then?"

"You see I indorsed notes for Sam Sherman over at Canton, and he failed, and I had to pay. then I bought some wild cat minin' stock on Sam's recommendation, and that went down to nothin'. So between the two I lost about three thousand dollars. I've been a fool, Jefferson, and it would have been money in my pocket if I'd had a guardeen."

"So you mortgaged the place to Squire Sheldon, uncle?"

"Yes; I had to. I was obliged to meet my notes."

"But surely the squire will extend the mortgage."

"No, he won't. I've asked him. He says he must call in the money, and so the old place will have to be sold, and Nancy and I must turn out in our old age."

Again the old man sighed, and tears came into Nancy Hooper's eyes.

"There'll be something left, won't there, Uncle Cyrus?"

"Yes, the place should bring six hundred dollars over and above the mortgage. That's little enough, for it's worth three thousand."

"So it is, Uncle Cyrus. But what can you do with six hundred dollars? It won't support you and Aunt Nancy?"

"I thought mebbe, Jefferson, I could hire a small house and you could board with us, so that we could still have a home together."

"I'll think it over, uncle, if there is