George's answer was unexpected. "They have been, Rosie, a good many times."
"What!" Rosie sat up in fright and astonishment. "Has she dared to go and break into your trunk?"
George laughed weakly. "No, Rosie, it ain't Ellen this time." He paused a moment. "I've told you about my father's farm. It's a good farm and I'd rather live on it and work it than do anything else on earth. But it's got run down, Rosie. The old man's had a mighty long spell of unluck. A few years ago he got a little mortgage piled up on it and for nearly two years now he hasn't kept it up like he ought to. In the country you've got to have ready money to wipe out mortgages and to start things goin' right. That's why I'm here in town railroading and that's why I'm saving every cent until people think I'm a tightwad."
"But, Jarge, how did they get it away from you so many times?"
"Well, just to show you: Two years ago one of the barns burned down. That cost me two hundred dollars. Last summer we lost a couple of our best cows worth sixty dollars apiece. This winter the old man was laid up with rheumatiz a couple o' months and it cost me a dollar a day to get the chores done, let alone the doctor bill. And each time I was just about ready to blow my job here and hike for home. I thought sure I'd be doing my own plowing this spring."
Weariness and discouragement sounded in his voice and Rosie, forgetting her own troubles, slipped her arms about his neck.
"I'm awful sorry, Jarge. Maybe if nothing happens this summer you'll be able to go back in the fall."
George shook himself doggedly. "Oh, I'll get there some time! I cleaned up the mortgage the first year I was here and now I'm working to pile up five hundred in the bank before I go. I'm getting there, too, but I hope to God I won't have any more setbacks!"
"And if you do, Jarge?..."
The answer came sharp and quick: "I'll save all the harder!"