"I won't if I can help it. By the way, mother, I don't think it will be prudent to leave all this money in the house."
"What can we do with it?"
"I will put it out of my hands. Perhaps I had better not tell you what I am going to do with it, for Mr. Brandon might ask you, and it is better that you should be able to tell him that you don't know."
"You are right, Grit."
"I will attend to that matter at once, mother. I will be back in half or three-quarters of an hour," and the young boatman hurried from the house.
He bent his steps to the house of his particular friend, Fred Lawrence, the son of a lawyer in the village. Mr. Lawrence was rated as wealthy by the people in the village, and lived in a house quite as good as Mr. Courtney's, but his son Fred was a very different style of boy. He had no purse-pride, and it never occurred to him that Grit was unfit to associate with, simply because he was poor, and had to earn a living for himself and his mother by ferrying passengers across the Kennebec. In fact, he regarded Grit as his most intimate friend, and spent as much time in his company as their differing engagements would allow.
Phil Courtney, though he condescended to Grit, regarded Fred as his social equal, and wished to be intimate with him; but Fred did not fancy Phil, and the latter saw, with no little annoyance, that the young boatman's company was preferred to his. It displayed shocking bad taste on the part of Fred, but he did not venture to express himself to the lawyer's son as he would not scruple to do to the young ferryman.
Naturally, when Grit felt the need of advice, he thought of his most intimate friend, and sought the lawyer's house.
He met Fred on the way.
"Hello, Grit!" said Fred cordially. "Where are you going?"