to
the shadow. In the kitchen a kerosene light was burning. It showed Mrs.
Holly crying at the table, and Mr. Holly, white-faced and stern-lipped,
staring at nothing. Then Mrs. Holly raised her face, drawn and
tear-stained, and asked a trembling question.

"Simeon, have you thought? We might go--to John--for--help."

David was frightened then, so angry was the look that came into Simeon
Holly's face.

"Ellen, we'll have no more of this," said the man harshly. "Understand,
I'd rather lose the whole thing and--and starve, than go to--John."

David fled then. Up the back stairs he crept to his room and left his
violin. A moment later he stole down again and sought Perry Larson whom
he had seen smoking in the barn doorway.

"Perry, what is it?" he asked in a trembling voice. "What has
happened--in there?" He pointed toward the house.

The man puffed for a moment in silence before he took his pipe from his
mouth.

"Well, sonny, I s'pose I may as well tell ye. You'll have ter know it
sometime, seein' as 't won't be no secret long. They've had a stroke o'
bad luck--Mr. an' Mis' Holly has."

"What is it?"

The man hitched in his seat.

"By sugar, boy, I s'pose if I tell ye, there ain't no sartinty that
you'll sense it at all. I reckon it ain't in your class."

"But what is it?"

"Well, it's money--and one might as well talk moonshine to you as
money, I s'pose; but here goes it. It's a thousand dollars, boy, that
they owed. Here, like this," he explained, rummaging his pockets until
he had found a silver dollar to lay on his open palm. "Now, jest
imagine a thousand of them; that's heaps an' heaps--more 'n I ever see
in my life."

"Like the stars?" guessed David.

The man nodded.

"Ex-ACTLY! Well, they owed this--Mr. an' Mis' Holly did--and they had
agreed ter pay it next Sat'day. And they was all right, too. They had
it plum saved in the bank, an' was goin' ter draw it Thursday, ter make
sure. An' they was feelin' mighty pert over it, too, when ter-day along
comes the news that somethin's broke kersmash in that bank, an' they've
shet it up. An' nary a cent can the Hollys git now--an' maybe never.
Anyhow, not 'fore it's too late for this job."

"But won't he wait?--that man they owe it to? I should think he'd have
to, if they didn't have it to pay."

"Not much he will, when it's old Streeter that's got the mortgage on a
good fat farm like this!"

David drew his brows together perplexedly.

"What is a--a