in the kitchen garden, heard his name called.
Glancing up he discovered Carl standing there by the fence that
separated the garden from the highway.

Immediately Tom realized that something new must have happened to make
his chum appear so downcast. His first fear was that Mr. Culpepper had
been asked by Carl's mother for the securities, and had flatly denied
ever having had them.

"Hello! what's gone wrong now, Carl?" he asked, as he hurried over to
join the boy who was leaning both elbows on the picket fence, and
holding his head in his hands.

"It seems as though everything is going wrong with us nowadays, Tom,"
sighed poor Carl.

"Anything more about that stolen paper?" asked Tom.

"No, it's something else this time," Carl replied. "Just as if we
didn't have enough to worry about already."

"No one sick over at your house, is there?" demanded the other,
anxiously.

"I'm glad to say that isn't the case," Carl told him. "Fact is, some
bad news came in a letter mother had this morning from a lawyer in the
city who manages her small affairs."

"Was it about that tenement house she owns, and the rents from which
comes part of her income?" continued Tom, quick to make a guess, for he
knew something about the affairs of Carl's folks.

The other nodded his head as he went on to explain:

"It burned down, and through some mistake of a clerk part of the
insurance was allowed to lapse, so that we will not be able to collect
on more than half. Isn't that hard luck though, Tom?"

"I should say it is," declared the other, with a look of sympathy on
his face. "But if it was the fault of the lawyer's clerk why shouldn't
he be held responsible for the loss? I'd think that was only fair in
the eye of the law."

"Oh!" said Carl, quickly, "but my mother says he's really a poor man,
and hasn't anything. Besides, he's been conducting her little business
since father died without charging a cent for his labor, so you see
there's no hope of our collecting more than half of the insurance."

"Too bad, and I'm mighty sorry," Tom told him.

"Coming on top of our losing that paper you can imagine how my mother
feels," continued the other; "though she tries to be cheerful, and
keeps on telling me she knows everything is sure to come out right in
the end. Still I can see that while she puts on a brave face it's only
to keep me from feeling so blue. When she's all alone I'm sure she
cries, for I can see her eyes are red when I ha