it a year
longer; but he wants my back pasture to piece on to his own, and says he
will foreclose to-morrow," replied the old man.

And then, as if conscious that he was obtruding his own sorrows on one
whom he had no right to burden with them, he would have changed the
conversation; but George prevented him by asking:

"How much did you owe him, Mr. Simpson?"

"Well, you see, I'd kept the interest paid up reg'lar, an' it come to
jest the face of the mortgage, five hundred dollars. I'd managed to
scrape up two hundred an' twenty-five, an' up to this mornin' I'd
reckoned on sellin' the wood lot for enough to make up the balance. But
when the fire come yesterday, the man who was to buy it--'Siah Rich--had
lost so much that he couldn't take it."

"Was you to sell him the wood-lot for two hundred and seventy-five
dollars?"

"Yes, an' I think it was well worth that. I didn't really need it, an'
if I could only have sold it I'd been all right, but now the whole
thing's got to go. I don't care so much for myself, but it'll come
powerful hard on the wife, for she does set a store by the old place, if
it is rough-lookin'."

George beckoned to Ralph to step aside with him, but there was no need
of any consultation just then, for the latter said, quickly:

"I know what you mean, George, and here is all I have got."

As he spoke Ralph handed his friend the roll of bills which was to
enable him to spend a long vacation, and then turned away, as if not
wanting to embarrass the old gentleman by his presence.

"Mr. Simpson," said George, as he added his own money to that which
Ralph had given him, "between the two of us we have got enough to buy
your wood-lot, and here is the money. Pay the mortgage this afternoon,
and then you can make out a deed to these two names."

George wrote his own and Ralph's name on a slip of paper, which he
handed to the old man at the same time he gave him the money.

"But I can't take this, Mr. Harnett," he said, while at the same time
his face showed how delighted he would be to keep it. "You and your
friend don't want my wood-lot, an' you only offer me this money because
I have been tellin' you of my troubles, like a beggar, an' an old fool
that I am. Take it back, Mr Harnett, an' mother an' I won't feel half so
bad about goin' away when we've once left."

"But suppose I tell you that we want to buy the land on a speculation?"
said George, with a smile. "There may be oil there, and we may w