The little man gulped. “I guess I've got no friends. Anyhow they don't count when a fellow's in hard luck. It's every man for himself.”
The younger man's smile was warm as summer sunshine. “Wrong guess, Sam. We're in this little old world to help each other when we can.”
The wretched man drew the back of a trembling hand across his moist eyes. He inhaled a long sobbing breath and broke into apology for his weakness. “Haven't slept for a week except from trional. The back of my head pricks day and night. Can't think of anything but my troubles.”
“Unload them on me,” Jeff said lightly.
“It's that mortgage on my mill,” Killen blurted out. “It falls due this month and I can't meet it. Things haven't been going well with me.”
“Can't you get it renewed?”
“Through a dummy Big Tim has bought it up. He won't renew, unless—” Killen broke off, to continue in a moment: “And that ain't all. My little girl needs an operation awful badly. The doctor says she had ought to go to Chicago. I just can't raise the price.”
“How much is the mortgage?”
“Three thousand,” replied the man; and he added with a gust of weak despair, “My God, man! That mill's all I've got to keep bread in the mouths of my motherless children.”
“I reckon Big Tim has offered to cancel the mortgage notes and give you about a thousand to go on,” Jeff suggested casually.