“Don't foreclose the mortgage. It will kill mother.”
“You don't know what you are talking about,” said the doctor, calmly. “Children should not meddle in matters beyond them. I will settle it with your mother.”
“Mother's sick!” gasped Jerome. The doctor was moving with his stately strut to the door. Suddenly the boy, in a great outburst of boldness, flung himself before this great man of his childhood and arrested his progress. “Oh, sir, tell me,” he begged—“tell me what you're going to do!”
The doctor never knew why he stopped to explain and parley. He was conscious of no softening towards this boy, who had so repelled him with his covert rebellion, and had now been guilty of a much greater offence. An appeal to a goodness which is not in him is to a sensitive and vain soul a stinging insult. Doctor Prescott could have administered corporal punishment to this boy, who seemed to him to be actually poking fun at his dignity, and yet he stopped and answered:
“I am going to take your house into my hands,” said Doctor Prescott, “and your mother can live in it and pay me rent.”
“We can't pay rent any better than interest money.”
“If you can't pay the rent, I shall be willing to take that wood-lot of your father's,” said Doctor Prescott. “I will talk that over with your mother.”
Jerome looked at him. There was a dreadful expression on his little boyish face. His very lips were white. “You are goin' to take our woodland for rents?”
“If you can't pay them, of course. Your mother ought to be glad she has it to pay with.”
“Then we sha'n't have anything.”