"Do you know, Tom," he said, "how hard I find it now to pay the interest on the mortgage, and how hopeless I am of ever paying it off?"
"I know all that, father; but I want to help you. If I keep my health, and have a chance, I think I can help you. There's no chance for me here, and there is a chance in California. You remember what we have read in the Weekly Messenger about the gold-fields, and what large sums have been realized by miners."
"They are men, and you are a boy."
"That's true," said Tom, "but," he added, with natural pride, "I am pretty strong for a boy. I am willing to work, and I don't see why I can't dig gold as well as a man. I may not make as much, but if I only do half as well as some that we have read about, I can do a good deal for you."
"How far off is California?" asked Mrs. Nelson.
"Over three thousand miles, across the continent," answered her husband. "By sea it is a good deal more."
"Why, it is as far off as Europe," said Walter, who was fresh from his lesson in geography.
"It is farther than some parts of Europe—England, for example," said his father.
"And a wild, unsettled region," said Mrs. Nelson soberly.
"I don't think so much of that," said Mark Nelson. "Tom is no baby. He is a boy of good sense, not heedless, like some of his age, and I should feel considerable confidence in his getting along well."