I wish, Grant, you could come home, and bring a better watch. How it would take down the pride of that young snob!
Oh, I mustn’t forget to tell you that Mr. Jones—Abner Jones—is in trouble. It seems that your step-father held a mortgage of a thousand dollars on his farm, and it comes due in two or three months. Mrs. Bartlett threatens to foreclose, and unless he can get some one else to assume the mortgage, I am afraid the farm will be sold for much less than its value. It is worth three thousand dollars, but father says it won’t fetch, at a forced sale, much over two thousand, perhaps only that sum. I pity Mrs. Jones. I was speaking to Arthur Jones yesterday. He feels very bad about it.
But I have written you a long letter. Let me hear from you soon.
Your true friend,
Tom Childs.
“There’s another reason for going home,” observed Grant, as he folded up the letter. “I shall start by the next steamer.”
“I will expect you back in three months,” said Mr. Crosmont. “While you are away my son will take your place in the office, but I shall miss you very much.”
CHAPTER XL.
CONCLUSION.
Grant did not write his mother that he was coming home; he wanted to surprise her. He landed in New York and took the train the same day for Woodburn. He arrived early one morning and went at once to the house where his mother was boarding.
Mrs. Tarbox’s face lighted up with amazement and joy when she saw Grant.