"Discharged to give Fred Worthington my place, I suppose," answered Tim, with evident ill feeling toward Fred.
"Is it possible? And has he your place?"
"Yes, he went to work this morning."
"I think you have as much cause now as I have to be down on him."
"Yes, and more too," returned Tim savagely.
"On his account we got into this trouble with Simmons, and are liable to be exposed any day," said Matthew.
Tim turned pale. "I thought you promised to fix that," he replied.
"So I did, but I have not been able to raise the money. Now, something has got to be done at once. Let us go up to the pines and decide what it shall be."
Tim assented, and the two boys soon found themselves quite alone in the thick pine grove just outside of the village.
Now the change Nellie Dutton showed toward Matthew was not caused, as he supposed, by any disclosure from Jacob Simmons, but by the letter she had received from Fred in the morning before going to school.