“No, mother,” said Chester, his own face reflecting her anxiety; “we can’t live on three dollars a week.”
“I have been earning two dollars by binding shoes,” said Mrs. Rand. “It has been hard enough to live on five dollars a week, but I don’t know how we can manage on three.”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, mother. I’ll ask Mr. Tripp to raise my pay to four dollars a week.”
“But will he do it? He is a very close man, and always pleading poverty.”
“But I happen to know that he has ten thousand dollars invested in Pennsylvania Railroad stock. I overheard him saying so to Mr. Gardner.”
“Ten thousand dollars! It seems a fortune!” sighed Mrs. Rand. “Why do some people have so much and others so little?”
“It beats me, mother. But I don’t think either of us would exchange places with Silas Tripp with all his money. By the way, mother, Mr. Tripp is a widower. Why don’t you set your cap for him?”
Mrs. Rand smiled, as her imagination conjured up the weazened and wrinkled face of the village storekeeper, with his gray hair standing up straight on his head like a natural pompadour.
“If you want Mr. Tripp for a stepfather,” she said, “I will see what I can do to ingratiate myself with him.”
“No, a thousand times no!” replied Chester, with a shudder. “I’d rather live on one meal a day than have you marry him.”