"Nicholas is very kind," said Mrs. Baker, to her friends. "He has done this without any appeal from me."
She really felt grateful for his kindness, as she termed it, having no suspicion of the terrible secret that haunted her brother day and night, making him an unhappy man in spite of his outward prosperity. But he had no intention of making restitution; his remorse did not go so far as this.
"As to taking a hundred thousand dollars from my business," he said, in answer to conscience, "it would cripple me seriously. Besides, my sister doesn't want it; it would do her no good. She and her children can live comfortably on what I send her."
He tried to persuade himself that he was liberal in his provision for his sister; but even his effrontery could not go so far as this.
In reality, Mrs. Baker would have found great difficulty in keeping her expenses within three hundred dollars a year if Ben had not managed to pick up a dollar or two a week by working at odd jobs, running errands, or assisting some of the neighboring farmers. But the small town of Sunderland did not satisfy the ambitious boy. There was no kind of business which he could learn at home that offered him a satisfactory career.
"Mother," he said, about three months before my story begins, "don't you think my uncle would give me a place in his store?"
"You don't want to leave home, Ben, do you?"
"I don't want to leave you, mother; but you know how it is. There is nothing to do in Sunderland."
"I am sure you pick up considerable money in the course of a year, Ben."
"But what does it all amount to, mother?"