"Never! He just died in poverty and left other people to grow rich on what he had done."
"That is the world, I am afraid," was Mrs. McGregor's observation. "Still he had given humanity a hand up and done a great service to his generation. That knowledge was better than all the fortunes he could have possessed."
"But he might so easily have had both, Ma," returned the practical Carl. "I call the help to humanity slim comfort when you've been cheated out of what should have been yours. I shouldn't even have been grateful had I been Crompton for the fine monument they set up to his memory long after he was dead. What they ought to have done was to treat him square while he was alive to enjoy it."
"See that as you go through life you do not forget your own philosophy, my son," cautioned his mother.
CHAPTER XV
TIDINGS
The following week brought a letter from Uncle Frederick and very important the McGregors felt when they took it, adorned with its English stamp, from the mail box in the hall. Mulberry Court did not receive so many letters that the arrival of one was a routine affair. No, indeed! When a real letter came to any of its residents the fact was remarked upon by the recipient with a casualness calculated to veil the pride he or she experienced.
Mrs. O'Dowd, for example, in passing through the hall would call carelessly to one of her neighbors:
"I've just had a letter from my sister Jane in Fall River. Plague the girl! What can she be writing to me about?"