"And this is what I have left after twenty years of hard work," said Mr. Crosby sadly when the auction was over and he had received the few hundred dollars.
CHAPTER XXV
THE WELCOME LETTER—CONCLUSION
"Well, what are we going to do now?" asked Mrs. Crosby as a little later she, with her husband and daughter, sat in their desolate home.
"We've got to do something," replied Mr. Crosby. "I've got to make a new start, I suppose, and it comes hard at my time of life."
"Let me help, daddy," said Nettie, putting her arm around her father's neck. "I heard of a good place in the woolen mill. I can earn four dollars a week."
"Not while I have health and strength," replied Mr. Crosby. "We'll manage to make out somehow," he added more cheerfully, for now that the worst had happened, he was ready to face anything.
"The boys ought to know about this," said Mrs. Crosby. "Maybe they have found a gold mine and can help us."
"Not much chance of that," responded her husband. "But I would like to hear from them. We haven't had a letter since they got to the mountains, and the last time they wrote they were about to start for Dizzy Gulch. We can't expect any help from them, but perhaps they will want to come back, now that we have lost our farm. Probably we three can get work on some place—enough to earn a living, anyhow."