"Perry, what is it?" he asked in a trembling voice. "What has happened—in there?" He pointed toward the house.
The man puffed for a moment in silence before he took his pipe from his mouth.
"Well, sonny, I s'pose I may as well tell ye. You'll have ter know it sometime, seein' as 't won't be no secret long. They've had a stroke o' bad luck—Mr. an' Mis' Holly has."
"What is it?"
The man hitched in his seat.
"By sugar, boy, I s'pose if I tell ye, there ain't no sartinty that you'll sense it at all. I reckon it ain't in your class."
"But what is it?"
"Well, it's money—and one might as well talk moonshine to you as money, I s'pose; but here goes it. It's a thousand dollars, boy, that they owed. Here, like this," he explained, rummaging his pockets until he had found a silver dollar to lay on his open palm. "Now, jest imagine a thousand of them; that's heaps an' heaps—more 'n I ever see in my life."
"Like the stars?" guessed David.
The man nodded.