“Now, my dear niece, will you do me a favor? Send your boy to me, but let him take another name. I don’t want it known or suspected that he is related to me. Though he is young, he can help me to carry out a plan I have in view, and to baffle my persecutors. I will take care that his services are recompensed. I enclose a fifty-dollar bill to pay his expenses out here.
“I am tired, and must close.
“Your old uncle,
Simon Dodge.
“P. S.—It will be a good idea to apply to Mr. Brackett for work—offering to come at very low wages. Brackett wants a boy, but he doesn’t want to pay more than fifty cents a week. Do not answer this letter, if you send your son, as Mr. Brackett would find out that I had received a letter from your neighborhood, and his suspicions would be aroused.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
ANDY’S RESOLVE.
“Poor uncle Simon!” said Mrs. Gordon, after the letter had been read. “He seems to be in a difficult position.”
“Why doesn’t he send that man Brackett packing?” asked Andy, indignantly. “He can’t have much spirit.”
“You forget, Andy, how old he is. An old man is not so well able to contend for his rights as a man of middle age. Besides, it appears that his son-in-law has possession of the farm.”
“It is a shame!”